The Dreaded Leadoff Walk

Here is a fun tidbit that should give fans of Jonathan Sanchez and his league leading 59 walks some relief. Courtesy of  John Dewan's Stat of the Week:

How often does the dreaded leadoff walk score?

How dreaded is the leadoff walk? Is it more dreaded than the leadoff single, for example? When a pitcher walks the first batter is it a bigger omen of problems than giving up a single? Let's take a dip into the Baseball Info Solutions database to see what it has to say.

How often does the leadoff walk score? Going back 10 years, it's 38 percent of the time. Not good (for the pitcher). How many runs score in the inning, on average, after the leadoff walk? .905 runs. That's an 8.15 ERA, assuming all the runs would be earned.

So, when a pitcher gives up a leadoff walk in an inning, his ERA is, in essence, 8.15. Very bad. Very bad, indeed. (Note: this assumes the pitcher stays in for the whole inning and all the runs are earned.)

Is a leadoff walk worse than a leadoff single? Nope. They're the same. Leadoff singles score 38 percent of the time, same as leadoff walks. The average number of runs are the same too, .902 runs per inning after a leadoff single.

I would even go as far to say that in some instances a walk may be the better choice compared to grooving a relativly easy to hit fastball. Anyway interesting stuff and I would recomend subscribing to get the stat of the week because it is almost without fail some good stuff.

Used with permission from John Dewan's Stat of the Week®, www.statoftheweek.com."

---

Become a fan on Facebook and follow the The Crazy Crabbers on twitter there is lots of good stuff going on there. Sign up for our free newsletter!