Why Mets' Brett Baty hasn't walked even once this season

Yahoo Sports22h ago2 min readOriginal source →

TL;DR

Brett Baty of the New York Mets has not recorded a single walk this season, making him the only qualifying hitter in MLB without one. His current OPS stands at a low .520.

Why Mets' Brett Baty hasn't walked even once this season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Brett Baty hasn't walked once all season.

As in, the New York Mets' youngster hasn't had a base on balls yet. He's the only qualifying hitter in MLB for whom that is true.

It's not automatically a bad thing, although Baty isn't hitting well at all so far -- his OPS is just .520 in the early going.

The lack of walks feels like it's at least a part of what's going on here, so it's worth breaking down a little further.

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Why hasn't Brett Baty walked at all?

Baty hasn't put a very good combination of traits together so far this season.

One of the biggest problems is his chase percentage, which ranks in the 12th-percentile of MLB in the early going. He has swung at 38.4% of the pitches out of the strike zone.

That alone will make it tough to walk, because it's on those pitches that he's chasing that he could otherwise get balls called and have a chance to walk.

Baty also loves to swing. He swings at pitches in the zone 65.8% of the time. So when you combine that with his chase percentage, he's swinging at more than half the pitches he sees (52.2%).

He also swings very often on the first pitch, 42.1% of the time, which makes it that much tougher to walk.

Essentially, Baty doesn't have the profile of a guy who will walk very much at all. He could tone things down a bit and work a walk here or there, but he'll also have to simply start making better contact, because he innately loves to swing, so he just better swing well.