Posting a 150 OPS+ without walking much

18 Replies

Since 1901, 318 baseball players have posted a 150 OPS+ or better with at least 500 plate appearances. Just 10 of these players, though, have surpassed a 150 OPS+ while walking 25 times or fewer, including just two players since the Deadball Era.

In order of recency, according to the Play Index, the 10 players to have an OPS+ of at least 150 with 25 or fewer walks are:

Rk Player BB OPS+ PA Year ▾ Age Tm G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BA OBP SLG OPS
1 Kirby Puckett 23 153 691 1988 28 MIN 158 657 109 234 42 5 24 121 83 .356 .375 .545 .920
2 Tony Oliva 25 154 518 1971 32 MIN 126 487 73 164 30 3 22 81 44 .337 .369 .546 .915
3 George Burns 23 158 544 1918 25 PHA 130 505 61 178 22 9 6 70 25 .352 .390 .467 .857
4 Hal Chase 19 155 571 1916 33 CIN 142 542 66 184 29 12 4 82 48 .339 .363 .459 .822
5 Mike Donlin 23 155 654 1908 30 NYG 155 593 71 198 26 13 6 106 39 .334 .364 .452 .816
6 Ty Cobb 24 167 642 1907 20 DET 150 605 97 212 28 14 5 119 55 .350 .380 .468 .848
7 Bill Bradley 25 153 587 1903 25 CLE 136 536 101 168 36 22 6 68 69 .313 .348 .496 .844
8 Sam Crawford 25 159 602 1903 23 DET 137 550 88 184 23 25 4 89 46 .335 .366 .489 .855
9 Nap Lajoie 24 169 525 1903 28 CLE 125 485 90 167 41 11 7 93 26 .344 .379 .518 .896
10 Charlie Hickman 15 158 564 1902 26 TOT 130 534 74 193 36 13 11 110 15 .361 .387 .539 .926
11 Nap Lajoie 24 198 582 1901 26 PHA 131 544 145 232 48 14 14 125 9 .426 .463 .643 1.106

I’m not sure what this signifies, besides perhaps that it’s nearly impossible to have an adjusted offensive production 50 percent better than one’s league without having a very patient eye at the plate. That seems reasonable, though a part of me is surprised that a very free-swinging slugger might not be among these ranks.

 

Twenty-five walks is admittedly a staggeringly low season total for any everyday position player to achieve, with many an impetuous batter in the 25-50 walk range. If we up the walks requirement for this search to 50 or fewer, we get 71 players, including contemporary sluggers Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Hamilton and Vladimir Guerrero.

One can only wonder what their OPS+ might be if they walked at even an average rate.

18 thoughts on “Posting a 150 OPS+ without walking much”

  1. Voomo Zanzibar

    Puckett and Hickman had more than 10* hits to walks.

    That’s only been done two other times with an ops+ north of 125
    (with 500 or more PA).
    Both by players I had never heard of.
    ______________________

    Carl Reynolds in 1930

    .359 .388 .584 .973 147
    (20/202)
    ______________________

    Dave Robertson in 1916

    .307 .326 .426 .752 136
    (14/180)
    ______________________

    Reply ↓
    1. Artie Z.

      Carl Reynolds is most famous as the guy who had his jaw broken by Bill Dickey after a collision at home plate.

      To be clear, Reynolds didn’t break his jaw in the collision; Dickey broke it after the play by punching Reynolds.

      Reply ↓
  2. Voomo Zanzibar

    The only player in history to manage an ops+ over 100 with
    15 times more hits than walks was

    Charlie Carr in 1903

    .281 .296 .374 .671 103

    (10/154)
    _____________________

    Lower the PA threshold to 400 and you get a modern player.
    That .340 hitting Yankees Second Baseman…
    .
    .
    .
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    .
    .
    .
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    .
    .
    .

    Mariano Duncan

    .340 .352 .500 .852 112

    (9/136)

    Reply ↓
    2. Lawrence Azrin

      @3/Voomo,

      ‘Schreck’ was Rube Waddell’s personal catcher on the A’s from 1902 to 1907. He also had a clause in his contract that Waddell couldn’t eat animal crackers, when rooming with him.

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  4. Doug

    “I’m not sure what this [having 150 OP+ with fewer than 25 walks] signifies”

    I would say the list indicates it’s really hard to do this. As in hitting .333 and slugging .450 hard. If you take a few walks each week, you only have to do one of those things, not both. These are the only two live-ball seasons where a player did neither of those things and still had a 150 OPS+.

    Rk Player BB BA OBP SLG OPS+ Year Age Tm G PA R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO Pos
    1 Rickey Henderson 64 .319 .408 .437 151 1981 22 OAK 108 493 89 135 18 7 6 35 68 *7/H
    2 Frank Robinson 73 .268 .390 .444 153 1968 32 BAL 130 508 69 113 27 1 15 52 84 *97H/3
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
    Generated 1/13/2014.
    Reply ↓
  5. Lawrence Azrin

    For modern guys, the first player I think of for the tandem of “very low walk rate”/”good hitter” is Ivan Rodriguez.

    Foe most of his career he had less than 40 walks in a full season, with quite a few years (7) in the 20s. In 1999 he won the AL MVP with a .332 BA/35 HR/113 RBI line. But with only 24 walks, his OPS+ was 125, a ways from your 150 baseline – that shows how dramatically league/park affects can inflate a player’s stats.

    Alfredo Griffin appears to be the modern player with the fewest BB for more than 400 PA – in 1984, he had four(!) walks in 442 PA. Not surprisingly, with a .241 BA, he had an OPS+ of 48. I think that George Stovall in 1909 had the fewest walks (6) for someone qualifying for the batting title (595 PA).

    B-R P-I experts here, can you find a lower walk rate or total?

    Reply ↓
    1. Richard Chester

      Here are the guys with the fewest walks with at least 502 PA:
      Art Fletcher, 6 BB in 1915
      George Stovall,6 BB in 1909
      Shano Collins, 7 BB in 1922
      Candy La Chance, 7 BB in 1901
      Shawon Dunston, 8 BB in1997
      Fred Raymer,8 BB in 1905
      Ivan Rodriguez, 9 BB in 2007
      Tito Fuentes, 9 BB in 1966
      Virgil Stallcup, 9 BB in 1949
      Art Fletcher, 9 BB in 1919
      Buck Weaver, 9 BB in1912

      Reply ↓
    2. Doug

      Most PAs for different walk levels:
      0 – 156 Ed Walsh 1907, excl. pitchers: 148 Craig Robinson 1973
      1 – 228 Andy Kosco 1970
      2-5 – 442 Whitey Alperman 1909
      6-10 – 599 Art Fletcher 1915
      11-12 – 621 Buck Weaver 1919
      13-14 – 658 Hi Myers 1922
      15 – 662 Tom Jones 1904

      Alperman’s 1909 season with 2 walks is the lowest rate for a qualifying season. Fletcher’s 1915 season with 6 walks is the lowest rate for a qualifying season by today’s definition.

      Reply ↓
      1. Hartvig

        It might also be worth noting that one of Alperman’s teammates on that 1909 Brooklyn squad was the redoubtable Bill Bergen who, while he did manage to top Alperman’s walk total with 10 free passes in 372 plate appearances, put up a slash line of .139/.163/.156 and an OPS+ of 1 (one).

        Still they did somehow manage to avoid the cellar that season and finished 6th in an 8 team league, even if it was 55 & 1/2 games behind the Pirates.

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  6. Lawrence Azrin

    @9/Richard, @9/Dave;

    Thanks much guys, looks like I was right about Stovall. But, I have a technical point; pre-expansion (before 1961), a 154-game season would require only 477 PA. Also, it was a 140-game schedule from 1901-04.

    I remembered Dunston after I posted #8; nowhere as good a hitter as Pudge, but he may be the modern player with the lowest walk rate who wasn’t a lousy hitter (if a career 89 OPS+ isn’t ‘lousy’ to you…).

    Reply ↓
    1. Voomo Zanzibar

      11.5 WAR in 18 years is definitely on the lousy spectrum.
      His defensive numbers do not look very good in hindsight, either.

      Was Dunston’s long career a product of “he was a #1 draft pick, he must be good” mentality?

      Reply ↓
      1. Lawrence Azrin

        Dunston had a _great_ arm, decent power (double-digits in HR 7 times), and good speed (double-digits in steals most full years), so people were probably expecting him to make that progression in power and patience to become an outstanding player.

        But while he showed flashes, his average and power were never enough to balance his terrible walk rate (except 1995), to make him even an average offensive player over a full year.

        He did become a versatile utility player over his last five years or so. I didn’t know that he was an overall #1 pick – at least he did better than Steve Chilcott!

        Reply ↓
        1. Artie Z.

          The Mets took Doc Gooden a few picks later in that draft – I’m not sure when the quip was uttered, but it was probably after Gooden burst onto the scene when someone said the Cubs took Dunston over Gooden because he had a better arm.

          I’m pretty sure it was Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS (Ventura grand slam single) when an announcer (I think it was McCarver) mentioned that the Mets were bringing in Dunston to pinch hit because he was a veteran with patience (or something along those lines). At the time I thought “Maybe I haven’t been following him closely enough lately but I’m pretty sure Dunston never walks” and looking at the stats he drew 0 walks in 42 games (97 PAs) for the Mets in a partial season.

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    2. birtelcom

      Ricky Jordan was not an awful hitter (103 career OPS+, first round draft pick, regular first baseman for the Phils between the Von Hayes period and the John Kruk period) and had only a slightly better BB rate than Dunston.

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  7. Richard Chester

    Graham:
    I did an analysis to see the effects of BB on OPS+. It may be right and it may not. I placed the stats of the 11 players into an Excel spreadsheet. I re-calculated each player’s OPS+ without park factors. Then I took 50 AB of each player and converted them into BB. Each player’s TOB total increases by 50 minus their seasonal BA*50. I calculated a revised OBP and then I calculated their OPS+ based on the revised OBP. SLG remains the same.
    I found that the OPS+ with the additional 50 BB increased by from 7 to 12%. I do not know exactly how to apply the park factors, that’s why I ignored them. If the calculations were performed with those factors, the changes in OPS+ would not change much. If I did something wrong please point it out.

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  8. Voomo Zanzibar

    Not a 150 ops+, but mildly relevant to this thread…

    Lowest OBP with 80+ Extra Base Hits:

    Alfonso Soriano, 2005
    .309

    And it’s not close.
    Next (best) is Robin Yount, with a .321
    _______________

    But wait!

    Lowest OBP with 90+ Extra Base Hits:

    Alfonso Soriano, 2002
    .332

    And that one is even More of an outlier.
    Next (best) is Ken Griffey with a .365

    Soriano achieved that inconceivably low OBP with 381 Total Bases…
    while Leading The League In Hits.

    Reply ↓

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