The Royals have a walk problem. On behalf of the Royals, we, the fans, admit there is a problem.

Royals' pitchers are very generous with giving free bases, have been for years; Royals' hitters seem to find honor in declining the free pass, have been for years.

That's a problem, we admit.

The walk is an interesting event in baseball terms, effectively the batter does nothing more than take four pitches outside the strike zone and receives an offensive benefit - 100% guarantee of a free base. By comparison, a typical batter hitting .300, only gets on base 30% of the time by hitting the ball in play.

Whether the pitcher has lost control or is pitching around a tough hitter, the batter is given a free base. By itself, a walk is not a run and a walk does not cause a win or loss, but rather a walk is a sign that things are not going well for the pitcher and his team.

The logic is simple - give walks, walks turn into runs, opponent wins.

On this stat, the Royals are completely backwards - well, backwards, if you want to win games.

In a recent post, the home run was shown to be a strong predictor of a winning record. This post takes a similar look at how strong the walk is in predicting a winning record.

The three tables below show tabulated data from 2000-2011 (all teams, Yankees, Royals), for number of walks given by pitchers and taken by batters and the resulting W-L record.

Making sense of the tables - in Table 1, when batters get six or more walks while their pitchers only give up one or no walks, a team won 83% of games. When batters get four or five walks, regardless of pitching, a team won 57% of games. When pitchers give two or three walks, regardless of hitting, a team won 53% of games.

Table 1: All Teams, All Games 2000-2011, Win Percent based on Walks

Table 2: New York Yankees, 2000-2011, Win Percent based on Walks

Table 3: Kansas City Royals, 2000-2011, Win Percent based on Walks

Interesting things to note:

-The only situation the Yankees were below average was giving up 6+ walks

-Yankees have more games taking 6+ walks than the Royals (431 to 170 over 12 years)

-Royals have more games giving 6+ walks than the Yankees (348 to 247 over 12 years)

-Walks add about .5 to .7 runs per games

-In the three highest win percent combinations, the Royals have the fewest games

Conclusion:

The data shows an increase in average runs scored with each walk, and more runs lead to a higher win percent. Being backwards in this stat leads to a losing record. For the Royals, a winning record requires roughly two more walks taken than given - ouch - in serious need of walk therapy.