Quote:
Originally Posted by D-Man
Yep, Law's article is far from "exceptional."
Just to drive home M2's point re: walks. For the bad rap that Dusty has received regarding his statement on walks, here is where his team actually ranked in BBs: 6th, 9th, 7th, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 14th, 14, 16th, and 16th. On average, that puts his teams pretty much in the middle of the pack in BBs.
I'd much prefer to take the objective evidence than some out-of-context quote.
And even though Dusty had the BB beast in the middle of his lineup in SF, one must recall that the Giants finished third in walks in 1999, the year when Bonds only played in 102 games. Warrants mentioning.
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It's not an out of context quote, it's an explicitly stated mantra. Of course the man's teams were league leaders in walks in the years that Bonds was acquiring more walks by himself than many teams #1-4 hitters combined. In 2002, for example, Bonds drew 198 of his team's 616 walks. Once Dusty joined the Cubs, they were amongst the worst in the league, whereas San Francisco remained at the top. That's a hollow point about SF's walk rate, and there is every reason to believe that Dusty could much more highly value a lesser players 'speed', or 'bat handling', or 'professional at bats' at certain spots in the order than he would one of our younger guys who has some walk driven OBP (Hamilton or Votto come to mind), and I don't think that's a positive for this team.
We have an impressionable young nucleus of players, and the last thing they need is to have a more free swinging, aggressive approach at the plate emphasized to them.