Q. Should Teams Walk or Pitch to Barry Bonds?
A. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants walked 177 times in 2001, 198 times in 2002, and 148 times in 2003. To put these walk totals in perspective, only Babe Ruth in 1923 walked as many as170 times in one season. These numbers reflect the consensus among managers that the best way to deal with Bonds' awesome batting abilities is to walk him and not let him have a chance to hit the baseball. While this may have some intuitive sense, the numbers show that in most cases, the managers are simply wrong.
Why risk pitching to a player who averaged one home run every 6.5 at bats in 2001 and every 8.7 at bats in 2002 and 2003? Because the numbers show that putting him on base via walk could actually help the Giants. Anytime a team has runners on base, it greatly increases its chances of scoring runs. As prolific a batter as he is, over his career, Bonds is still making outs 70 percent of the time he is not being walked. Because outs are precious, and walks benefit the batting team, to intentionally put Bonds on base is a risky strategy for an opposing manager.
I examined the number of runs scored by the Giants after each one of Bonds' plate appearances in 2001 through 2003. When Bonds walks with the bases empty and no outs -- roughly 80 plate appearances over the three years -- the Giants score at least one run 46 percent of the time and average about 0.9 runs per inning. When he hits in these situations -- roughly 300 at-bats over the three years -- the Giants score at least one run 36 percent of the time and average about 0.6 runs per inning. These differences suggest that avoiding Bonds' home run power is outweighed by beginning an inning with a free pass. Pitching to Bonds is more effective than walking him in this situation.
The analysis is similar in other batting situations. With at least one runner on base, pitching to Bonds still seems to be the better strategy no matter how many outs there are. The walk advances the runner on first to scoring position, and it may be that the risk of that runner scoring outweighs the risk of Bonds driving in the runner from first.
It's only when you face the situation of nobody on base and at least one out that the situation changes. Here, statistics show that walking Bonds is more effective than pitching to him. The risk that Bonds hits a home run now appears to outweigh the risk that he scores when put on first base.
These statistics were controlled for other factors, such as the quality of the pitcher and the player batting after Bonds. So for Giants fans, the next time Bonds starts an inning with a walk, don't boo the opposing manager. He's actually doing your team a favor.
For more information, see Reiter's article in the January 2004 issue of the Baseball Research Journal, published by the Society for American Baseball Research.