More photos » Tom Gannam - AP

Trainer - "what's wrong with you?" Miguel Olivo - "I... I drew a walk today. DON'T LOOK AT ME!"

Browse more photos »

Part 1

Since 2003, Miguel Olivo has been a semi-regular player, receiving 250-450 plate appearances each year.  During that span, in which he accrued 2578 plate apperances in total, he has walked 87 times.  

Here is a list of players who have walked at least 87 times this year, with their totals in parenthesis:

Albert Pujols (104!)
Adrian Gonzalez (104!)
Adam Dunn (103)
Prince Fielder (93)
Chone Figgins (91)
Marco Scutaro (88)
Chipper Jones (88)
Nick Swisher (88)
Lance Berkman (87)
Carlos Pena (87)

First off, that is a pretty good list of names.  Consider this your daily reminder of why walks are good.

Secondly, the all time single season leader in walks is Barrold Bonds, who had 232 in 04.  For Olivo to match that, given his current pace, he would have to have 6,720 plate appearances or about 12 full seasons worth of play (and that is assuming he gets 500-600 at bats a year). 

The all time career leader in walks is also Barry Bonds, who totaled 2558.  For Olivo to match that, given his current pace, he would have to have 74,095 plate appearances.  In other words, he would have have to play for about 145 more years to match Bonds' career total.

Part 2

Another thing that is interesting about Olivo, is that he also has more home runs in his career (92), than he has walks (his career ISO is actually pretty damn good for a catcher, at .178). 

Consulting the Baseball Databank, NOBODY in the history of the game has been able to manage that feat having at least as many plate appearances as Olivo.  The closest is Tony Armas, who 251 home runs vs. 260 walks in his career.  He was actually a decent hitter, with a career 16.3 Batting Runs according to FanGraphs.

Maybe someone could doublecheck my query, because I can't believe that Olivo is the only one to accomplish this feat. 

Part 3

You can't talk about Miguel Olivio, without mentioning his propencity to swing at pitches out the of the strike zone.  According to FanGraphs, he has swung at over 45% of pitches seen outside of the strike zone.  Considering league average is around 24%, that is an extraordinary number.  

Being a more visual guy myself, I wanted to see the types of pitches he has been swinging at.  So I pulled all of the pitches that Miguel offered at this year, and graphed them out:

This is from the catchers point of view.

You can see that he swings at a ton of pitches that are down and away.  However, unlike a true hacker, he doesn't make good contact with those pitches.  Instead, they almost always result in a swinging strike.

Some of those pitches offered at are truly ridiculous.  There is a nice cluster of pitches that are at least 6 inches below the strike zone, and quite a few at least 6 inches above the strike zone. 

That one dot on the bottom was approximately 3.5 feet below the strike zone.  That is so awful, that I thought it must have been a PItch f/x error.  So I checked it, it was supposedly thrown by Ricky Romero on June 5th.  I went to MLB.com, and found the game wrapup:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2009_06_05_kcamlb_tormlb_1&mode=gameday   

Click on that page, go the section labeled "Wrap" and scroll down.  The click on the second video to the left, and the pitch to Olivo is about 55 seconds into it.  Holy Moly.

Part 4

This one isn't going to be very fun or hilarious.  Instead, I wanted to muse a little about Olivo's career as a player.  For the first few years of his career, his hacktastic ways did not lead to any resemblance of success. From 2003-2007 with the White Sox and Marlins, he never had better than a .303 wOBA and it looked like his career would die out.  

However, since he has joined the Royals, he has turned himself into a pretty decent player.  Yes, he's still not walking at all, and his strikeout rate is abominable; however, he has been able to hit for a lot more power.  Thus, his wOBA's over the past two years are .313 and .322. 

He still isn't lighting the world on fire, but that level of production is actually slightly above average for a catcher.  Indeed, his WAR over the past two years is 2.7, in just under 700 plate appearances.  Considering that league average is about 2 WAR per 600 plate appearances, Olivo has been a slightly above average player over that span.  

Now, I don't know if this level of production is sustainable; however, he has shown that with enough power at a premium position, you can overcome even the worst plate discipline and contact skills.