It was widely acknowledged that there would be ample pop in the bats of the Chicago Cubs entering the 2016 Major League Baseball season. Joe Maddon’s outfit, after all, returned all of its key lineup cogs and added outfielder Jason Heyward and two-time all-star Ben Zobrist to the fold.
Despite losing Kyle Schwarber — the team’s starting left fielder, who swings a bat like he’s trying to hack a spruce tree to the ground — to a season-ending injury, Chicago touts the second-best record in baseball, and leads the league with a plus-40 run differential. Much of it can be traced to the team’s patience at the plate.
ELIAS: highest run differential in the first nine games of the season, since 1900. 1. 1999 CLE, +44. 2. 2016 Cubs, +43; 2. 1905 Giants, +43
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 15, 2016The Cubs finished tied for second in walk percentage a season ago (9.1 percent, 0.1 percent away from the league lead), and adding Zobrist gave Maddon another walk-inducing batter in the lineup. Through the first eight games of the season, according to ESPN Stats and Information, Chicago’s 48 total walks were the most since 1974, when the team logged 50 walks. The Cubs also lead the league in walk percentage, drawing a free pass to first base 13.3 percent of the time. Only two other teams — the Milwaukee Brewers and Pittsburgh Pirates — draw a walk more than 11.5 percent of the time and only six teams draw free passes in more than 10 percent of their at-bats.
“It says something about what we’re trying to do, which is not too much,” Heyward told ESPN. “Keep it simple. If we hit a homer, we hit a homer. If we don’t, we deal with whatever we get out of it.”
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In a pitcher’s league, where double-digit strikeout lines are increasingly becoming commonplace and the rate of walks is plummeting, that Chicago is frequently generating free trips to first base is significant. Consider that 2014 and 2015 were two of the three lowest seasons over the past 54 years for walk rates. As it stands, Chicago’s 13.3 percent average would be the highest March/April walk rate over the past decade, besting the Cleveland Indians’ 2012 campaign by 0.9 percent. Fangraphs’ August Fagerstrom said last week that the franchise could piece together “the most impressive single-season team walk rate we’ve ever seen,” after taking into account league average.
It goes without question, but getting free base runners is an offense’s best friend, and as the chart below indicates, it’s paying dividends for Chicago’s run production and is helping the team knock out opposing starting pitchers early on in games. Cubs’ batters, on average, see 3.97 pitches per plate appearance, which, despite being fewer pitches than the team averaged last season, is the eighth most of any team in the league. Per ESPN, only two teams — the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates — knock the opposing starting pitcher out of the game faster than Chicago.
The team also sees the lowest percentage of strikes (59.9 percent) and has one of the lowest percentage of swings at pitches outside the strike zone (24.6 percent). Having played less than 10 percent of the team’s regular season games thus far, it’s worth noting that figures almost certainly will fluctuate between now and October. But there’s reason to believe that the current success at drawing free bases isn’t an anomaly. While Chicago could certainly start seeing a higher percentage of strikes, the team’s hitters aren’t magically going to begin flailing at balls in the dirt; they rarely chase balls out of the zone — and are quite dexterous at making contact when they do swing, exemplified by the team’s low percentage of swings and misses.
With an already stacked lineup that is essentially devoid of weakness at any spot in the order, giving Chicago batters free trips to first base is a recipe for disaster. For Chicago, the proficient ability to draw walks is just another reason to be optimistic about this year, as the team chases history in more ways than one.
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