Monday, May 22, 2023

Newsletter Excerpt, May 22, 2023 -- "Fun With Numbers: The A's"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

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"If there’s one thing the A’s can do to avoid all of this history, it’s throw more strikes. They’ve walked 12% of the batters they’ve faced so far this season, the highest mark of any team since 1971 and, outside of those outlier -dians, the highest mark since the post-war peak-walks era, when bonus rules filled rosters with unready pitchers. The A’s are walking more batters than the famed 1986-87 Rangers, with Bobby Witt’s dad, did. Just eight teams in recorded history have had a 12% walk rate."