I thought it might be interesting to look at the players who have gone an entire season without walking or being hit by a pitch. Here are the leaders in terms of plate appearances:

  Cnt Player             **PA**  BB HBP Year Age Tm  Lg  G   AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI IBB  SO  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
 ----+-----------------+-------+---+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------
    1 Cy Young            149     0   0 1904  37 BOS AL  43 148  14  33  3  3  1  10   0   0   1   0   0   1  0  .223  .223  .304  .527 *1
    2 Craig Robinson      148     0   0 1973  24 PHI NL  46 146  11  33  7  0  0   7   0  25   2   0   2   1  1  .226  .226  .274  .500 *6/4
    3 Walter Johnson      134     0   0 1911  23 WSH AL  42 128  18  30  5  3  1  15   0   0   6   0   0   1  0  .234  .234  .344  .578 *1
    4 Alejandro Sanchez   133     0   0 1985  26 DET AL  71 133  19  33  6  2  6  12   0  39   0   0   4   2  2  .248  .248  .459  .707 D9/78
    5 Ernie Bowman        131     0   0 1963  27 SFG NL  81 125  10  23  3  0  0   4   0  15   4   2   2   1  2  .184  .181  .208  .389 645
    6 Rob Picciolo        128     0   0 1984  31 CAL AL  87 119  18  24  6  0  1   9   0  21   8   1   2   0  1  .202  .200  .277  .477 *65/49
    7 Dizzy Dean          124     0   0 1936  26 STL NL  51 121   7  27  6  1  0  15   0  27   3   0   3   0  0  .223  .223  .289  .512 *1
    8 Ed Summers          117     0   0 1908  23 DET AL  40 113   6  14  2  0  0   5   0   0   4   0   0   0  0  .124  .124  .142  .266 *1
    9 Cy Young            117     0   0 1908  41 BOS AL  36 115   9  26  3  0  0   8   0   0   2   0   0   0  0  .226  .226  .252  .478 *1
   10 Fernando Valenzue   116     0   0 1986  25 LAD NL  39 109   5  24  4  0  0   7   0  11   6   1   1   0  0  .220  .218  .257  .475 *1
   11 Catfish Hunter      116     0   0 1972  26 OAK AL  39 105   5  23  0  0  0   5   0  16   9   2   0   0  0  .219  .215  .219  .434 *1
   12 Tony Cloninger      114     0   0 1965  24 MLN NL  41 105  12  17  3  2  1   8   0  25   7   2   1   0  0  .162  .159  .257  .416 *1
   13 Mike Cuellar        113     0   0 1969  32 BAL AL  39 103   6  12  1  2  0   5   0  43   8   2   0   0  0  .117  .114  .165  .279 *1
   14 Steve Carlton       112     0   0 1974  29 PHI NL  39 102   7  25  3  0  0   9   0  16   7   3   1   0  1  .245  .238  .275  .513 *1

Thats quite a pitching staff! Among the position players, there seems to be a lot of terrible seasons even as far as batting average is concerned. In fact, the most plate appearances anyone has had in a season without a hit or walk and yet managed to hit .300 was 84 by Carlos Zambrano in 2005.

There are certain players who seem to be quite adept at avoiding walks including active leader Livan Hernandez . However to do so in multiple times (with at least 50 PA) as a position player is a feat only accomplished by Alex Diaz . There are also players who have done it for a career including active leader Doug Brocail.

One more group of lists. Anyone who has accomplished this feat and also hit a sacrifice fly (career) will have an OBP lower than his batting average. While this is not an inclusive list of all such players, it is interesting none-the-less.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.