Why won't Davis take a walk?

[Crash2303]

Through 43 ABs this year, Khris Davis has yet to draw a walk. has anybody read that he changed his batting approach this year or anything? I know its early, but this is surprising as he averaged over 100 points higher OBP than AVG throughout the minors and even last year in his stint with the big league club, was about 70 point higher too.

[pitchleague]

I think that he may be "pressing" to get that first home run, and thus his patience is shot right now. Once he hits one out, I'd bet he "relaxes" a bit and the walks will come.

[Baldkin]

No one on the team is taking walks this year. I'm not sure if it's a coaching thing, or if it is the way they've been pitched thus far.

 

They are 5th in BA and 15th in OBP.

 

Let's put it this way:

 

Carlos Gomez has as many walks as Braun, Segura, Gennett, Ramirez and Davis combined.

 

Gomez has walked 4 times.

[owbc]

It was clearly a strategic coaching plan not to take walks this year. It's working for now, but pitchers will adjust so they will have to get more patient eventually.

[Oxy]

It was clearly a strategic coaching plan not to take walks this year. It's working for now, but pitchers will adjust so they will have to get more patient eventually.

 

I love it. Not because I'm anti-walks or anything, but because there are two sides to every coin. In the last few years I think that pitchers have taken advantage of the over-emphasis on plate discipline by hitters, and are thus more aggressive than they used to be. The only way to counter act that is to become aggressive before the count gets to 0-1 or 1-2.

 

You are correct though in that pitchers will adjust and start to nibble at the corners if our aggressiveness becomes too widespread. Hopefully we are one step ahead of them and start to take pitches at that point.

 

We have good hitters though. If the first pitch is most likely to be the best pitch to hit in the at bat, take a hack.

[HiAndTight]

It was clearly a strategic coaching plan not to take walks this year. It's working for now, but pitchers will adjust so they will have to get more patient eventually.

 

 

I don't agree that it's clearly a strategic coaching plan. In fact in Boston, RR was still talking about the importance of being patient and taking pitches. So...I'm going to chalk this up to just a small sample size.

 

It's really been awesome, and I don't know if the stats even back this up, but just how often they seem to be jumping on pitches early and pulling the ball in big spots. But this team doesn't have enough power to continue to win with an OBP that ranks 15th. They're going to need these guys to draw walks.

Davis is SUCH a huge key to being able to continue to win games. He has to resemble the guy who hit walked 10 percent of the time(actually he was usually closer to 11-14 percent. You forget(at least I did) just how good he's been at drawing walks based on how he's looked thus far this year. He's actually looked bad to me. Like a guess hitter who hacks at everything that looks good(leaving him susceptible to sliders in particular).

[502 to Right]

It was clearly a strategic coaching plan not to take walks this year. It's working for now, but pitchers will adjust so they will have to get more patient eventually.

 

Is this your opinion or have their been statements from the coaching staff that they want to hack away?

[owbc]

I don't agree that it's clearly a strategic coaching plan. In fact in Boston, RR was still talking about the importance of being patient and taking pitches. So...I'm going to chalk this up to just a small sample size.

 

The Boston announcers had the opposite tone. They repeatedly talked about how it was the Brewers' aggressiveness that resulted in success. Even by that point the Brewers were around 25th in MLB in walks. They are currently 27th in walks and last in the NL. Then again, last year the Brewers finished dead last (30th in MLB) in walks. So I admit that maybe it isn't a new coaching decision.

 

Obviously I don't have any proof, but it can't be a coincidence that every hitter in the lineup has been swinging away at 0-0, 0-1, and 1-0 counts. It's easy for the coaches to tell the hitters to take pitches on those counts--which obviously isn't happening.

[nate82]

I hate this notion of taking pitches because of the count it is one of the stupid unspoken baseball rules. If you get a good pitch to swing at you better be swinging at it there is no guarantee that you will see another pitch that hittable. If you have a good or a great pitcher on the mound and they throw a pitch that is a mistake you should be swinging at it no matter if it is 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, or even 3-0. An extra base hit is worth more than a walk or even working the count only to strike out or to weekly ground out or flyout.

[JohnBriggs12]

Ramirez is a notorious first ball, fast ball hitter and has 1 walk this year in 51 PA, and oh yeah, not a bad career. I'm more concerned about Segura, not so much because he's not getting walks, but because he's hacking at stuff out of the zone a lot and his spot in the order is as a table setter.

[logan82]

I don't agree that it's clearly a strategic coaching plan. In fact in Boston, RR was still talking about the importance of being patient and taking pitches. So...I'm going to chalk this up to just a small sample size.

 

The Boston announcers had the opposite tone. They repeatedly talked about how it was the Brewers' aggressiveness that resulted in success. Even by that point the Brewers were around 25th in MLB in walks. They are currently 27th in walks and last in the NL. Then again, last year the Brewers finished dead last (30th in MLB) in walks. So I admit that maybe it isn't a new coaching decision.

I think it's the players who are on the team. Gomez, Gennett, and Segura are all guys who don't walk much. Braun and Ramirez are the only guys with a high walk%.

[HiAndTight]

I don't agree that it's clearly a strategic coaching plan. In fact in Boston, RR was still talking about the importance of being patient and taking pitches. So...I'm going to chalk this up to just a small sample size.

 

The Boston announcers had the opposite tone. They repeatedly talked about how it was the Brewers' aggressiveness that resulted in success. Even by that point the Brewers were around 25th in MLB in walks. They are currently 27th in walks and last in the NL. Then again, last year the Brewers finished dead last (30th in MLB) in walks. So I admit that maybe it isn't a new coaching decision.

 

Obviously I don't have any proof, but it can't be a coincidence that every hitter in the lineup has been swinging away at 0-0, 0-1, and 1-0 counts. It's easy for the coaches to tell the hitters to take pitches on those counts--which obviously isn't happening.

 

Well, the Boston announcers are just commenting on what they're seeing, and I agreed that the Brewers have had a lot of success swinging early in counts this year. Attacking with RISP. But that doesn't mean it's coming from RR. If anything it's more a result of how the roster is constructed. But even setting that aside, I just think the Brewers have been doing a good job getting pitches early in the count, not missing them and driving in runs. If they're going to continue to be one of the better offenses, they're going to have to walk a lot more. At least in the middle of the NL(I'm not as concerned with their MLB rankings as their NL rankings).

 

Davis, Ramirez, Braun, Segura, Weeks..all their walks are way down. Things will obviously level out a bit.

[HiAndTight]

I hate this notion of taking pitches because of the count it is one of the stupid unspoken baseball rules. If you get a good pitch to swing at you better be swinging at it there is no guarantee that you will see another pitch that hittable. If you have a good or a great pitcher on the mound and they throw a pitch that is a mistake you should be swinging at it no matter if it is 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, or even 3-0. An extra base hit is worth more than a walk or even working the count only to strike out or to weekly ground out or flyout.

 

 

 

I agree. But the obvious result of our early season approach is that teams are going to change up their approach. Gomez had an AB vs Liriano that looked just terrible right after a 4 pitch walk to Gallardo because he went up their hacking early. Hard to complain about anything Gomez has done, but if we don't see a return to the mean, we're going to end up having a really bad offense when we face smarter teams.

 

In fact I think this Cardinals series will be a good snap shot of what we're looking at. The Cards are obviously a pretty smart organization when it comes to pitching, and I doubt given how we've hit early in the year that you're going to see many good, hittable first pitch strikes with men on in this series.

 

 

 

And Logan, I agree it's more about how the team is constructed. But even so I still believe we'll have to see things level out.

[Fear The Chorizo]

It's been 12 games, most of which have come against teams with highly-regarded pitching staffs. If pitchers are attacking the strike zone, hitters can be aggressive.

 

If the Brewers start getting pitched more cautiously, the walk rate will climb. They're tied for 10th-lowest in team strikeouts, so that tells me opponents aren't just throwing unhittable pitches up there for Brewer hitters to be overaggressive and strike themselves out. At this point if the Brewers were at the bottom of the league in both walk rate and strikeout total, that would be much more alarming. The MLB-wide gap between teams with the most and fewest strikeouts is 65Ks. Interesting that the MLB-wide gap between teams with most and fewest walks is much smaller - 36. Plus, almost 1/2 the league has played at least 1 more game than the Brewers. More team AB's means more overall walks.

 

Things will even out. I don't expect the Brewers to lead the league in drawing walks, but if their contact rate and k-rate stays in the top 1/2 of the league, it's not the end of the world if their walk rate is below average.

[FVBrewerFan]

I like the aggressive approach. Segura is not just swinging at a bunch of junk, for the most part he's been swinging at good pitches- he's just not driving the ball. Hitting before Braun he's not going to walk much.

 

With that said, I am a believer in situational baseball. There are times in a game, and in the batting order where it does make sense to take some pitches and force the pitcher to throw strikes. It's more art than science to know when that is, I'll admit. Depends on the opposing pitcher, game situaion, lots of factors.

 

Someone will probably prove me wrong in 5 minutes, but I would guess no team has won the WS with the walk rate the Brewers have right now.

[Oxy]

Boy, you know things are going good when the only chatter on the board is about a guy hitting .280 and slugging .400, and wondering if he will ever take a walk.

 

The other threads are about extending players and optimism! and happy videos.

 

What I gather from this is that when real life is good, the internet sure gets boring .

[HiAndTight]

I like the aggressive approach. Segura is not just swinging at a bunch of junk, for the most part he's been swinging at good pitches- he's just not driving the ball. Hitting before Braun he's not going to walk much.

 

With that said, I am a believer in situational baseball. There are times in a game, and in the batting order where it does make sense to take some pitches and force the pitcher to throw strikes. It's more art than science to know when that is, I'll admit. Depends on the opposing pitcher, game situaion, lots of factors.

 

Someone will probably prove me wrong in 5 minutes, but I would guess no team has won the WS with the walk rate the Brewers have right now.

 

 

I don't agree regarding Segura. I think, particularly as of late that Segura has been hacking at some bad pitches. He's looked lost to me against sliders as of late. Braun is another guy. I know that his SLG is almost right at his career average, and his batting average looks alright, but he looks like his thumb is really bothering him and that he has to decide earlier if he's going to swing leaving him guessing and looking bad at times.

 

Perhaps I'm in the minority here. As for your guess, I won't be the one to prove you wrong, but it seems to me that when you go back to some of those teams in the 60's, there were some lower team OBP's. The Pirates were the first to jump out at me, but as it turned out, they had a team OBP of .335 which was 1st in the league(1 of 8) in 1960.

 

I'm with you in terms of when to attack and when not to though. You can't argue with the fact that they've jumped on good pitches early and they've gotten big hits without drawing a lot of walks. I just hope it evens itself out because I don't think it's sustainable. But it's the flip side to the situational approaches you're talking about, and if you're facing guys like Cliff Lee, or Liriano when he's on his game, you have to attack them early in the count or they're going to get head and put you away. Wainwright is another pitcher you have to take that approach with.

[JohnBriggs12]

Ramirez is an aggressive hitter and he's successful because he generally swings at strikes. Taking pitches down the middle and then swinging at pitches 6 inches off the plate or up and out of the zone or inside below the knees like Lucroy did last night isn't aggressive, it's undisciplined. Guys will have bad AB's and bad nights. But they need to avoid getting into bad habits, and when down by 3-4 runs, taking 2-0 and 3-1 isn't a bad idea.

[AdvantageSchneider]

Boy, you know things are going good when the only chatter on the board is about a guy hitting .280 and slugging .400, and wondering if he will ever take a walk.

 

 

Well he finally took a walk. Now he has a 16 to 1 K to BB ratio and a .283 OBP to go along with a .660 OPS.

 

If you squint at him while he's batting he looks like Yuni B up there. He has to get it squared away or it's going to be a long year.

[DHonks]

one thing I've noticed is that the Cards appear to throw almost no fat pitches. Many of the pitchers are on the upper edges of the zone, the rest on the corners at all heights. Other teams were throwing far more fat pitches. We're really not chasing bad pitches, we're just not hitting our pitches against the Cards or forcing them to throw our pitches

[fondybrewfan]

Did everyone see the pitch Davis swung at in his last AB? It would have been behind him if he was a left hander.

 

All of the Cardinals pitchers has exposed our lack of patience at the plate. Even though they took a couple walks yesterday it was clear the strategy was to avoid throwing strikes unless they had to. For the most part the Brewers obliged and swung at a lot of junk.

[jerichoholicninja]

Did everyone see the pitch Davis swung at in his last AB? It would have been behind him if he was a left hander.

 

All of the Cardinals pitchers has exposed our lack of patience at the plate. Even though they took a couple walks yesterday it was clear the strategy was to avoid throwing strikes unless they had to. For the most part the Brewers obliged and swung at a lot of junk.

 

I haven't watched any of this series but that sounds like Brewers hitters in pretty much my whole time of watching Brewers baseball. I can't think of the last Brewers hitter with a good eye. Aoki wasn't bad but he would swing at (and often foul off) pitches he had no business swinging at. Weeks, even in his prime as an OBP-machine, still wasn't a very disciplined hitter.

[danzig6767]

Did everyone see the pitch Davis swung at in his last AB? It would have been behind him if he was a left hander.

 

All of the Cardinals pitchers has exposed our lack of patience at the plate. Even though they took a couple walks yesterday it was clear the strategy was to avoid throwing strikes unless they had to. For the most part the Brewers obliged and swung at a lot of junk.

 

I haven't watched any of this series but that sounds like Brewers hitters in pretty much my whole time of watching Brewers baseball. I can't think of the last Brewers hitter with a good eye. Aoki wasn't bad but he would swing at (and often foul off) pitches he had no business swinging at. Weeks, even in his prime as an OBP-machine, still wasn't a very disciplined hitter.

Wow, really?

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EJp3Vdk-7BM/TyGdlg7o9xI/AAAAAAAAIQA/nX-ldAF7Smo/s1600/princefielder11.jpg

 

He had three straight seasons with the Brewers where he drew 100 plus walks and had a .400 plus OBP.

[Oxy]

Yeah, Fielder had a very good plate discipline. Rickie, on the other hand, tends to be extremely erratic. While seeing more pitches than most Brewers, he also watches a lot of decent pitches to hit and gets behind. The anti-Gomez. Both are less than ideal.

[AdvantageSchneider]

And some of Rickie's OBP was due to high HBP.