Thursday, September 21, 2023

What players had the biggest differences between their home and away walk rates?

I looked into this because I saw that Mel Ott walked 955 times in home games but only 765 in away games (and he had more PAs in away games). He hit 323 HRs in home games and 188 away. So maybe opponents wanted to be careful with him at the Polo Grounds where it was only 257 feet down the RF line (Ott batted left-handed).

I had Stathead call up all the players with 2,500+ PAs in both home and away games. Then I only looked at guys that were on both lists (924). Then I calculated walk% as walks/PAs

Here are the top 33 in Home walk%/Away walk%. I went down to 33 because Ott was 33rd. Tillie Walker and Rondell White are outliers. Walker hit 79 of his 118 HRs at home. White hit 124 of his 198 HRs in away games. So maybe there is no pattern.

Player

Home BB%

Away BB%

H/R ratio

Tillie Walker

0.089

0.054

1.659

Rondell White

0.077

0.047

1.638

Cy Seymour

0.073

0.052

1.398

Chick Hafey

0.085

0.061

1.389

Mike Lowell

0.098

0.071

1.386

Barry Larkin

0.120

0.087

1.376

Elston Howard

0.075

0.054

1.373

Alexei Ramírez

0.055

0.040

1.369

Hal Chase

0.039

0.029

1.364

Tito Fuentes

0.057

0.042

1.355

Juan Samuel

0.076

0.056

1.345

Andre Dawson

0.063

0.047

1.341

Al Simmons

0.074

0.056

1.336

Tony Armas

0.054

0.040

1.336

Cy Williams

0.102

0.077

1.333

Bill Virdon

0.077

0.058

1.327

Marlon Byrd

0.071

0.054

1.317

Les Mann

0.071

0.054

1.309

Mark Kotsay

0.089

0.068

1.308

Bobby Doerr

0.114

0.087

1.308

Luis Aparicio

0.074

0.057

1.301

Jimmie Wilson

0.078

0.060

1.298

Bob Boone

0.092

0.071

1.298

Granny Hamner

0.063

0.049

1.287

Darryl Hamilton

0.107

0.083

1.287

Jim Gilliam

0.141

0.109

1.287

Mark Loretta

0.096

0.074

1.286

Gary Carter

0.106

0.082

1.285

Jerry Lumpe

0.088

0.068

1.284

Roy Hartzell

0.098

0.077

1.283

Francisco Lindor

0.097

0.075

1.282

Jeff Heath

0.119

0.093

1.282

Mel Ott

0.171

0.133

1.281

Now the bottom 33

Player

Home BB%

Away BB%

H/R ratio

Neifi Perez

0.038

0.046

0.810

Nick Markakis

0.087

0.104

0.842

Jim Northrup

0.079

0.093

0.850

Torii Hunter

0.063

0.073

0.867

George McBride

0.062

0.071

0.869

Bill Bradley

0.041

0.047

0.876

Lonny Frey

0.110

0.124

0.885

Ted Simmons

0.083

0.093

0.887

Chris Young

0.092

0.104

0.889

Buck Herzog

0.068

0.076

0.891

Jack Fournier

0.091

0.102

0.892

Howie Kendrick

0.051

0.057

0.893

Gil McDougald

0.098

0.110

0.894

Justin Turner

0.084

0.094

0.894

Mickey Rivers

0.041

0.046

0.896

David Bell

0.075

0.084

0.898

Jim Spencer

0.071

0.079

0.898

Hughie Critz

0.042

0.047

0.901

Bobby Byrne

0.080

0.089

0.902

Johnny Evers

0.103

0.115

0.903

Miguel Tejada

0.057

0.063

0.906

Bobby Thomson

0.077

0.085

0.907

Jerry Priddy

0.109

0.120

0.908

Martín Prado

0.062

0.069

0.908

Ben Chapman

0.106

0.116

0.908

Aurelio Rodriguez

0.044

0.048

0.910

Heinie Zimmerman

0.040

0.044

0.911

Daniel Murphy

0.060

0.066

0.913

Travis Jackson

0.059

0.064

0.913

Ray Boone

0.110

0.120

0.919

Bucky Harris

0.082

0.089

0.919

Stuffy McInnis

0.042

0.045

0.922

Tony Taylor

0.069

0.075

0.923