Can Integrity be Measured in Games?

I’ve received a number of e-mails telling me I’m nuts to suggest pitchers walk Bonds every time he steps into the batter’s box. Looking at the numbers, I don’t think I am.

To get an idea of what the impact of walking Bonds would be I went back and looked at his numbers for 2004, the last season he played a full year. Below are a few of his statistics:

Games played: 147
Plate Appearances: 617
Batting Average: .362
Hits: Singles: 60
Doubles: 27 – scored 12 times
Triples: 3 – scored 2 times
Home Runs: 45
RBIs: 101
Runs: 129
Walks: 232
HBP: 9


Those numbers give you all the information you need to understand that not only am I not crazy, but that pitchers should start walking Bonds today and never give him another opportunity to inch closer to the Babe or to Hank.

My argument is simply this: If the statistics that played out in 2004 are indicative of what one can expect from a SF team with Bonds on it, then pitchers and managers will not only Help Save Baseball by not pitching to Bonds, they can improve their chances of winning.

In 2004 Bonds stepped into the batter’s box 617 times. The results were:

45 Home runs
101 RBIs
129 Runs

The questions are: How many times Bonds could have been expected to score if he had been walked 617 times? How does that compare the actual number of runs he generated during the season?

We start by looking a Bond’s actual productivity during the year. He stepped into the batter’s box 617 times. He ended up on base a total of 331 times, 301 on first. Starting on first base he would eventually go on to score 70 runs. (45 of his runs came from HRs, 12 came after he hit doubles and 2 came after he hit triples. 129 - 59 = 70) He therefore scored while starting at first 23.26% of the time.

Imagine now that rather than pitching to Bonds, he was walked 617 times and ended up on first base. If we take the 23.26% scoring rate from above, we would imagine that Bonds would have scored 143 runs.

To see how this theoretical 143 runs compares to the actual runs he generated we look at the following:

101 RBIs + 84 Runs = 185 Runs Generated. (The 84 runs comes from subtracting 45 HRs from his 129 Run total because HRs are already counted in RBIs)

The resulting comparison is 143 theoretical runs scored vs. 185 actual runs generated. Therefore, by intentionally walking Bonds, opposing pitchers and managers can expect that the Giants will score 42 fewer runs during the season. The numbers demonstrate that pitchers and managers can choose to Help Save Baseball by walking Bonds without sacrificing wins. Indeed, just the opposite is the case. This is not a perfect solution, and by a team telegraphing the fact that Bonds will be walked, Felipe Alou may make some lineup changes that impact the outcome. Nonetheless, the numbers speak for themselves and I'm not certain that there is much Alou can do to overcome a 42 run deficit.

While this may cause some fans dismay, I would suggest that it should not. Intentional walks have been a part of baseball forever, and unlike steroids, HGH and Insulin they are not cheating. It is not often that an opportunity comes along where doing the right thing helps not only the few but also the many, and this is one of those times. By deciding to Help Save Baseball, pitchers and managers can not only help the game, but they can help themselves win at the same time. They can help preserve the Integrity of baseball so that Hammerin' Hank will remain the HR champion rather than someone who had to find his greatest games at the end of a needle or in a bottle of pills.

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