Walking is the very best exercise. Habituate yourself to walk...
— Thomas "Reggie" Jefferson

A walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
—William "Author" Shakespeare as quoted by Geddy Lee upon the gilded stage.

There's an email chain going around the SABR mailing list about statistical variations, one-year outliers in certain players' careers. Most of it is mental dross about Brady Anderson's 50-homer season, but the other day there was one entry about ex-Phil Gary "Sarge" Matthews 103-walk season in 1984 (with just two intentional walks). Matthews never had another season in his other 15 before and after 1984 in which he amassed more than 75 bases on balls.

So what's the deal? Did Sarge, who by the way had one of the best right-handed batting stances ever, suddenly learn how to be more selective in 1984 and then promptly forget it the next season? Could some strange statistical phenomenon have occurred in 1984 in which walks in general just went through the roof , affecting Sarge's stats?

Maybe a close look at his stats are in order. I took a look at Matthews' walks and walks per plate appearance for each year. Then I compared them to the league walks per plate appearance average to derive his expected walk total (based on the league average and his plate appearances). Then I compared his actual and expected walk totals to derive two stats: his walks above expectation and his actual-to-expected walk ratio. Here are the results (Note: IBB are removed from the walk totals in all calculations.):

First, the league average did not increase in 1984. In fact they went down slightly.

You'll note that 1984 was Matthews' career year for walks, but it was not completely out of line with what he did the previous year, what he would do the next year, or with his career in general. He was, after all, 42% better than the league average at acquiring a free base.

The biggest anomaly I do see is his dearth of walks when he was on the Braves. In 1980 he had a career low 42 walks, about three fewer than one would expect for the league average batter. He walked just 6.48 percent of the time. After being traded to the Phils for 1981, he doubled his walk rate to 13.38%. What's doubly odd is that Matthews had walked at about that rate the year before being sent from San Francisco to Atlanta (12.27% in 1975). His walk rate started to drop in his last season with the Giants and just continued to plummet when he was in Atlanta.

Another oddity in Matthews' career is that he is one of five men to ever steal twenty bases and yet ground into more double plays than bases stolen:

But I digress. So how good was Matthews at drawing a walk from an historical standpoint? Is he among the best ever? What about his 1984 season: is it among the best ever? And what about the walk king of the recent years, Barry Bonds? How history are his walks when you ignore intentional walks?

Here are the all-time leaders in career walks above league expectations per plate appearance (min. 400 PA):

Max "Camera Eye" Bishop? Ahead of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams? Bishop, the leadoff hitter in the great Philly A's teams, twice walked eight times in a doubleheader (the record) and drew five walks in a game twice. His career walk total is almost three times his strikeout total (1153 to 452). His on-base percentage was 152 point higher than his batting average. Even though he played in an era in which intentional walks were not tallied, his numbers were not padded due to pitcher avoidance—his career .366 slugging average, 57 points below the adjusted league average, did not intimidate the opposition's pitcher. On the contrary, with Al Simmons and Jimmie Foxx hitting behind him, pitchers would do whatever they could to keep him off the bases.

So where's Barry Bonds, the career walks record holder? He's at number 33. So one could claim bias in the stats due to IBBs. Matthews does fairly well. He's number 430 out of 5159 batters who qualify.

Willie McGill was a pitcher and yet he finishes two spots of Rickey Henderson, the one-time walk king. His odd career line goes like this: .202/.344/.250. He had more walks (101) than hits (97) for his career. It's too bad that he gave as good as he got. He had 701 walks against 510 strikeouts in his pitching career.

Here are the men who earned the most walks above league expectations for their career, and it's a pretty good list:

Now for the worst at drawing a walk. First, the worst based on walks above expectations per plate appearance, excluding pitchers:

Kim Batiste, ah yes, I remember him well. He's right behind the inappropriately named Johnny Walker. You've got to love that Oscar Azocar, the converted pitcher, made the list. Rob Picciolo, Gary Hancock, Angel Salazar, Devi Cruz, Gus Polidor—now them's some bad players, truly offensive. Stallcup, by the way, once drew nine walks in a 589-plate appearance season. His OPS was just 58% of the park-adjusted league average. Ouch!

Now here are the career worst at meeting the league walk expectation:

Shame on those Dodgers. It seems like they should have been more aggressive drawing a walk with their home park. Especially Bill Buck, whose career OBP was just 32 point higher than his batting average and who averaged just 29 walks per every 162 games.

Of course there's Roberto "You Can't Walk Off The Island" Clemente as well as a number of manager's pet (Ozzie Guillen and Shawon Dunston). And of course, I had to leave off with the Phils one-time leadoff hitter and offensive albatross, Larry Bowa.