The Mets this season have drawn 48 walks in 652 at bats, tied with the Cubs for last in the NL and ahead of only the Blue Jays, Royals and Angels. The chief culprits are the middle infielders and the right fielders: Jose Reyes has drawn 5 walks in 82 at bats for a .276 OBP in the leadoff role, Xavier Nady and Victor Diaz have drawn 3 walks in 82 at bats, and Anderson Hernandez, Kaz Matsui, Chris Woodward and the re-animated corpse of Jose Valentin have drawn a combined 1 walk in 99 at bats, for a .282 OBP. Cliff Floyd and Paul LoDuca haven’t helped, drawing a combined 9 walks in 116 at bats, nor has the injury to Carlos Beltran helped; Beltran was leading the team with 10 walks, but Endy Chavez has drawn just 2 in 32 at bats. It’s more forgivable for a hot hitter to be more aggressive, as has been true of Nady as well as David Wright and Carlos Delgado, who have both been drawing fewer walks than their usual share. But unless this team learns to take free passes, the offense is yet again going to sputter for lack of baserunners.
5 thoughts on “Run, Don’t Walk”
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True, true.
Wright started to walk a bit after cooling down from his torrid start. And Reyes is still ahead of last year’s pace. I’m waiting for Delgado. But Nady, LoDuca, and SecondBase aren’t gonna walk. Just not happening.
Milledge has been drawing a lot of walks and should be called up for that reason and more. I addressed that, among other issues, yesterday:
https://mikesneighborhood.blogspot.com/2006/04/attack-of-killer-zambies-part-ii.html
Look at the Jays crazy stats. They are next to last in the league in walks with 45, they have the fewest strikeouts, they are hitting .311 as a team with a .513 slugging. In short they are swinging a lot and killing it. Despite this unreal and non-maintainable offensive output they are 9-8 and it looks like Burnett may be done for a long time if not the season and Halladay is still not the pitcher he was before he got hurt.
I went to San Diego on Sunday and saw Paul Lo Duca walk twice. Unfortunately Paulie was 0-for-3 at the plate with a GIDP and had two passed balls in the field. Mike Piazza won this duel of ex-Dodger catchers and he did not even play!
Yet more evidence that the Mets are playing way over their heads. As a Phillies’ fan, I am happy to read this.
Note that the Cubs had great numbers in BA, SLG, and HR’s in ’05, but had poor run production due to a lack of walks. Same may happen to the Mets.
Mike – I’m not thrilled with starting Milledge’s arbitration clock, but it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to give him a 2-week cup of coffee while Beltran heals. He can’t be worse than Chavez.
John – Of course, the Mets also have baseball’s best team ERA and most pitcher Ks. As for the Cubs, they’ve had that problem since 1988. Thank you, Andre Dawson.