Will Braun ever learn to take his Walks?

[3and2Fastball]

Ryan Braun's career OBP right now is at .369

 

That is pretty low for a guy with Hall of Fame talent. Do you think he'll ever learn to be a more patient hitter? If he took a lot of walks he could be a .410+ OBP/1.000+ OPS guy year in and year out. With his baserunning skills, a much higher OBP would be a tremendous asset.

 

I wonder if he'll ever grow into the type of player who can take 90+ Walks a season?

[3and2Fastball]

Seriously though, Braun's Slugging % of .561 places him at #16 All-Time. That is ahead of Willie Mays & Mickey Mantle among others (yes I realize that Mantle & Mays had a long decline prior to retirement).

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/slugging_perc_career.shtml

 

Braun's OBP of .369 places him at 273rd all-time, which is still better than George Brett & Ichiro so it isn't like he is horrible at getting on-base, but I think he could be so much more of a dangerous offensive player if he walked a lot

[jerichoholicninja]

No. If he hasn't yet, he probably never will.

 

Ryan has such a high slugging percentage that if he were to start taking pitches instead of swinging it would almost certainly have more a negative effect on his slugging than a positive one on his on-base.

[Dollarbill13]

I doubt he'll ever be better than average in terms of plate discipline. He's 28 right now so he probably doesn't have much more "learning" to do. That being said, he doesn't need to walk 15% of the time to post a strong OBP. He finished at .397 last year with only a 9% walk rate. He won't hit .330 every year but a .310 average will lead him to a .380 OBP which is still very good given everything else he gives the team.

[Funketown]

Braun's walk rate has improved over the course of his career: {5.9, 6.3, 8.1, 8.2, 9.2}, not including this season.

 

I don't see it improving much more, but a walk rate of 8-9% isn't too bad. That should put him on base at a ~.375 clip.

[Ennder]

If it improves at this point it is because he doesn't have Fielder behind him so he gets pitched around a bit more. It might make it to like 10 or 11% but unlikely it goes any higher.

[Invader3K]

After last night, who really cares?

[brewtank34]

Why would he want to take walks? Up until now, Aramis has been a joke. I'd rather have him try to get doubles/HR's than take a walk so that Aramis can just hit into a double play.

 

Now, with Aramis heating up a tad, it may be a good idea for him to start taking some walks...

[craigharmann]

If I had to choose between 3 HRs and a triple over 4 walks.....I think I'd take the 3 HRs and a triple.

[liveforoctober]

Yeah, unfortunately yesterday was not the day to bring up this topic. I get what you are saying ... but Mr. Braun creates fireworks. . . . and I like fireworks.

[monty57]

If it improves at this point it is because he doesn't have Fielder behind him so he gets pitched around a bit more. It might make it to like 10 or 11% but unlikely it goes any higher.

 

That was pretty much my first thought as well. All it takes is 6 extra intentional walks / "pitch arounds" to raise the walk rate by one nominal percentage point over a season. It seems reasonable to believe that could happen.

[Ennder]

Why would he want to take walks? Up until now, Aramis has been a joke

 

You mean Aramis was a joke for about a week and a half right? Since April 17th he has a .932 OPS.

[Invader3K]

You mean Aramis was a joke for about a week and a half right? Since April 17th he has a .932 OPS.

 

Good point that gets forgotten.

[JohnBriggs12]

You mean Aramis was a joke for about a week and a half right? Since April 17th he has a .932 OPS.

 

Good point that gets forgotten.

 

Since April 6th his OPS is .645 and his OBP is .264. That's more than a week and a half. I find it hilarious that after 2 pretty good weeks (not spectacular by any means), everyone is declaring Ramirez as back to his prime self. I don't think anyone that thinks the ARAM signing was bad was predicting an under .220 BA and an OPS of around .600. Of course he's going to have some decent stretches. But he's not going to be a .900+ OPS guy over the course of a season.

 

As for Braun, Molitor's career OBP is also .369 and Yount's was .342.

[BradWI]

Braun always seemed to be much better at drawing walks early in the season, and then over the course of the year he'd get less patient. Don't know if the numbers match up, but it was always something I noticed.

[Tedaldtada]

You mean Aramis was a joke for about a week and a half right? Since April 17th he has a .932 OPS.

 

Good point that gets forgotten.

Since April 6th his OPS is .645 and his OBP is .264. That's more than a week and a half.

 

But he's not going to be a .900+ OPS guy over the course of a season.

 

11 days is about a week and a half.

 

Ramirez is a good bet to sit around .900 OPS. Even in a year like 2011 when Ramirez had an .871 OPS it was still 37% better than the average OPS for 3B and he won a silver slugger. He is one of the premier hitting 3B in the league, without question.

[Ennder]

Since April 6th his OPS is .645 and his OBP is .264. That's more than a week and a half.

 

Sure if you want to try to make the stats look bad you can do it since he did indeed start poorly. Since April 17th his OPS has pretty much climbed every single game with hits in most of the games. Trying to claim he was terrible between April 17th and today is abusing the stats. He hasn't had a very good season overall there is no arguing that, but it was just a slow first week and a half. If he produces the way he has the past 11 games we will be more than happy with him unless you have something against a .354 OBP and .932 OPS. There is obviously no sure way to know what he will do over the rest of the 130+ games but given his propensity for slow starts followed by good production my guess would be to expect the good production at this point.

[monty57]

But he's not going to be a .900+ OPS guy over the course of a season.

 

Over a season it's possible. Doing it over three seasons while he's 33, 34 and 35 is far less likely. Regressing offensive stats combined with defense likely going from bad to worse while the paycheck balloons is my reason for concern over the contract, not what Ramirez will do offensively this season.

 

Offensively, Ramirez is much better than he showed the first few games, and worse than he has been the last few games. That's why "small sample" is so often mentioned. Based solely on his being on the wrong side of his "prime years," if I had to guess, I'd say he'll probably end the season somewhere below what he did last season, but "average" stats have a wide deviation, so it's impossible to predict whether he'll end up better or worse than last season.

 

"Normal" Ramirez is not comparable to Fielder offensively, so pitchers may be more likely to pitch around or intentionally walk Braun with Ramirez behind him than they were with Fielder behind him. If Ramirez regresses over the next few years and Roenicke refuses to move Ramirez from the cleanup spot, then that likelihood probably goes up. I personally don't think Braun should change his approach, as his current approach makes him among the top players ever to play the game, but if pitchers stop throwing him strikes, his walk rate will go up... he's not Vlad.

[Outlander]

I would have said no a few years ago but all I really need to do is look at Corey Hart and his walk and plate discipline getting better every year from 2008. If Hart can get better so can Braun.

[Ennder]

It is certainly a skill that can grow with time but I think it usually grows more because pitchers stop throwing strikes and force the hitter to adjust to it.

[bjkrautk]

Braun has put himself into the territory wherein I suspect he may not have a choice in taking more walks. Because he does not have Prince behind him, I think we will see teams start pitching around him - particularly late in games, when he's unlikely to get an extra AB from it.

 

Because he's hit in front of Prince up until this year, Braun has only been intentionally walked 9 times in his career, and none thusfar in 2012. I would not be surprised if he draws 5-10 ibb's this year alone.

[HiAndTight]

You mean Aramis was a joke for about a week and a half right? Since April 17th he has a .932 OPS.

 

Good point that gets forgotten.

 

Since April 6th his OPS is .645 and his OBP is .264. That's more than a week and a half. I find it hilarious that after 2 pretty good weeks (not spectacular by any means), everyone is declaring Ramirez as back to his prime self. I don't think anyone that thinks the ARAM signing was bad was predicting an under .220 BA and an OPS of around .600. Of course he's going to have some decent stretches. But he's not going to be a .900+ OPS guy over the course of a season.

 

As for Braun, Molitor's career OBP is also .369 and Yount's was .342.

 

I think it's equally funny that since there has only been 4 weeks to the season you chose to pick out two weeks as though it's a small sample size when it's half the season thus far.

 

And thanks for declaring that he's not going to be a 900+ OPS guy anymore. It's not like he's got an .892 OPS over the last 8 seasons(including his down year following his injury) and has been over .900 in 5 of those seasons, .898 in a 6th season, and .871 last season. so his one down year which he posted a .745 OPS and two bad weeks for a notoriously slow starter is enough to declare he'll "never," be the guy he's been for the better part of the last decade?

 

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see Aram finish the season with an OPS around .900, and I'm not sure why you've resolved yourself to the fact that a player who's clearly shown he's capable of doing just that will "never be that guy."

[gregmag]

Olney has a video blog post up on ESPN where he quotes several unnamed pitchers as saying that, with Prince gone, they feel freer to pound Braun inside. I found that interesting (despite the source), because it seems more plausible to me than the old saw that pitchers will "pitch around" a great hitter when he doesn't have "protection."

 

Prince Fielder is a much better hitter than Aramis Ramirez, but as HiAndTight and others have noted, Ramirez is basically a 900 OPS guy until he proves he isn't. (He's also, IIRC, a notoriously slow starter, so he hasn't proved anything yet.) Do you really think the difference between superstar and merely all-star "protection" is going to be enough to make guys walk Braun at any kind of significantly increased rate? I don't.

 

But Olney's point -- that pitchers will be more willing to pursue a higher-risk, higher-reward strategy -- makes a lot more sense to me. That strategy probably will result in a few more walks, but the pitchers' idea is that it will result in a lot more outs. The key, of course, will be how Braun adjusts. If he can make pitchers pay for their mistakes inside, while also showing enough patience to take walks (and plunks) when pitchers miss the zone, then Braun is pretty much back to where he was with Fielder. I like his chances.

[HiAndTight]

Olney has a video blog post up on ESPN where he quotes several unnamed pitchers as saying that, with Prince gone, they feel freer to pound Braun inside. I found that interesting (despite the source), because it seems more plausible to me than the old saw that pitchers will "pitch around" a great hitter when he doesn't have "protection."

 

Prince Fielder is a much better hitter than Aramis Ramirez, but as HiAndTight and others have noted, Ramirez is basically a 900 OPS guy until he proves he isn't. (He's also, IIRC, a notoriously slow starter, so he hasn't proved anything yet.) Do you really think the difference between superstar and merely all-star "protection" is going to be enough to make guys walk Braun at any kind of significantly increased rate? I don't.

 

But Olney's point -- that pitchers will be more willing to pursue a higher-risk, higher-reward strategy -- makes a lot more sense to me. That strategy probably will result in a few more walks, but the pitchers' idea is that it will result in a lot more outs. The key, of course, will be how Braun adjusts. If he can make pitchers pay for their mistakes inside, whiled also showing enough patience to take walks (and plunks) when pitchers miss the zone, then Braun is pretty much back to where he was with Fielder. I like his chances.

 

 

 

Bottom line, Braun's a GREAT hitter. He is more than capable of taking a ball on the inner third and keeping his hands in and putting it on the barrel.

 

So my response to the pitchers that Olney talked to is..bring it. I don't think it's going to change anything.

 

 

And with response to the main question, yes, I do think he'll draw more walks as his career progresses. Every year his walks have increased and he's still just 28 years old. I have little doubt he'll end up being a 11-12pct walk guy, and I think he'll carry a .385-.395 OBP.

[fondybrewfan]

Its one thing to say your are going to pitch inside; its quite another to actually do it succesfully. Very few pitchers effectivly pitch inside anymore just because the risk is to great if you don't have pinpoint control Miss either way and the end result will be a free base runner or a meatball down the plate. I haven't noticed any obvious difference in the way he has been pitched thus far. When he was struggling before it really wasn't anything the pitchers were doing; he just wasn't seeing the ball.