The term “walk year” is commonly defined as the final season of a player’s contract prior to when he becomes free agent eligible. The view is that the player can walk away from his current team and ostensibly join a new, higher-paying one – if the results are there.
Just prior to training camp and before the very first injury is reported is the time of the year when optimism is at its peak – and when “walk years” get tossed around as a potential reason for players to improve their performance.
Reporting on a recent discussion with St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan the other day, the Post-Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz turned the phrase in question when referring to number five-by-a-thread starting pitcher Joel Pineiro (pictured).
“Duncan didn’t say this, but I will: remember, Pineiro is pitching for a new contract. He’s in his walk-year of a two year deal,” Miklasz offered.
After letting that sink in a bit, I went looking for some fact-or-fiction justification addressing walk years, sort of like I do whenever my brother-in-law emails me another idiotic urban legend that he thinks is real – you know, like the old yarn about earthworms in McDonalds hamburger meat.
I did find a 2003 study at ESPN, written by an author of Baseball Prospectus. Since it was a BP author after all, he couldn’t resist using their PECOTA predictions instead of actual results. To top it off, he compared players to other players instead of to themselves over a single year.
Other external factors like injury, role changes, schedule differences and Father Time are acknowledged as variables that cannot be properly accounted for, a valid point for any method used, in my opinion.
The headline of that story: ‘Hitters love the ‘walk year’. It’s conclusion:
“… this quick statistical glance does indicate that there might well be something to the motivational effect of the walk year, at least for hitters.”
Hardly conclusive, but I was amused by the most-valid point made that at its essence, hopes of walk year success is fueled by a basic belief that if only the player tried harder, he would perform better. Sort of like the old Janis Joplin tune, “Try Just a Little Bit Harder”, which ironically popped up on my satellite radio receiver just as I was typing this.
Instead of hope, I’d like to grab onto something more meaty, or should I say, substantial.
What I am going to do here is compare the stats of former Cardinals players for the duration of their Cardinals career prior to their walk year with their walk year itself. I strongly believe that for relevance, a player needs to be compared to himself, not to a body of other players as in the ESPN study.
My ground rules are simple: The player had to have been a Cardinal for at least three seasons, had a multi-year contract and departed via free agency, as opposed to trade, release or retirement. The idea behind three years is to have at least two years of results prior to the walk year. A multi-year deal is required to ensure not every comparison year was a walk year, too.
The Cardinals saw 12 such walk year players depart the organization in the last six years.
For pitcher stats, I selected ERA+ as the measurement, which takes into account performance relative to the league each season. For the hitters, I used OPS+ for the same reason.
I am showing each player’s St. Louis high- and low-water marks but am using the average ERA+ or OPS+ to compare against each player’s walk season. The bar isn’t that high, in my opinion. All the player has to do is post an above-average year. Either the walk season is higher than his previous average with the club or it isn’t.
| walk year | walk ERA+/OPS+ | average | previous year | StL high | StL low | |
| Jason Isringhausen | 2008 | 75 | 164 | 177 | 198 | 75 |
| Braden Looper | 2008 | 102 | 107 | 89 | 125 | 94 |
| Mark Mulder | 2008 | 39 | 71 | 36 | 116 | 36 |
| David Eckstein | 2007 | 93 | 90 | 81 | 99 | 81 |
| Jason Marquis | 2006 | 74 | 109 | 102 | 115 | 74 |
| Jeff Suppan | 2006 | 108 | 111 | 119 | 119 | 103 |
| Matt Morris | 2005 | 103 | 126 | 90 | 167 | 90 |
| Mike Matheny | 2004 | 65 | 67 | 79 | 79 | 51 |
| Edgar Renteria | 2004 | 88 | 99 | 130 | 139 | 77 |
| Woody Williams | 2004 | 102 | 151 | 106 | 189 | 102 |
| Steve Kline | 2004 | 239 | 155 | 108 | 240 | 108 |
| Fernando Vina | 2003 | 82 | 92 | 79 | 100 | 79 |
The story is pretty compelling.
The results of ten of the 12 players or 83% DECLINED in their walk year over their previous years’ Cardinals average. Only two players, David Eckstein in 2007 and Steve Kline in 2004, improved in their final season.
Lowering the criteria to simply improving in one year – in the walk year compared to the previous single season – delivers slightly better results. In that case, six of the 12 or 50% showed improvement in their final season over their second-to-last with St. Louis.
The six improvers are Braden Looper (2008), Mark Mulder (2008), Eckstein (2007), Matt Morris (2005), Kline (2004) and Fernando Vina (2003).
However, Mulder’s numbers were so bad in both years (39 vs. 36 ERA+) that calling his 2008 season a step up over his 2007 would be a cruel joke. Putting him aside would drop the walk year-to-previous year success rate to 5-of-11 or 45%.
Further, three of the 12 walk year performances represented the player’s absolutely WORST year as a Cardinal. They include Jason Isringhausen (2008), Jason Marquis (2006) and Woody Williams (2004).
On the other hand, not a single one of the dozen players had their BEST year in St. Louis during their final season there.
Conclusion: You can pick your favorite reason as to why, but the data has spoken. Considering the most recent six years at least, expecting walk year improvement for impending St. Louis Cardinals free agents, whether pitchers or hitters, is a low odds proposition at best.
Sorry, Joel, but it looks like there is a very good reason Duncan didn’t say it.
Addendum: After publishing, I recalled that Jim Edmonds was in his walk year in 2006, just before then-GM Walt Jocketty surprised both the player and the Cardinal Nation by ill-advisedly offering Jimmy two more years. As we know, the Cards ate $2 million just to get out of year two.
| walk year | walk ERA+/OPS+ | average | previous year | StL high | StL low | |
| Jim Edmonds | 2006 | 110 | 153 | 137 | 170 | 110 |
Anyway, Edmonds just reinforces the conclusion already made, as his 2006 “walk year” was his worst as a Cardinal up to that point. (He posted an OPS+ of 88 in his final St. Louis season, 2007.)
There may have been other mid-Cardinals career walk years that I missed here, but I think the point has been adequately made.
Good digging on this, Brian. It would be more compelling to look at the entire league, given the small sample size here. That said, one obvious element of all this is that the Cardinals rarely sign free agents in their prime, but instead pick them up on short (1-3 year) deals after they have already peaked.
But, yeah, in general, I think the “walk year” phenomenon is bunk. We all remember Jeff Suppan as having a great 2006. But it was really just an exceptional playoff performance. His year was pretty good, not great. Izzy and Mulder are obviously special cases.
Another thing the Cards rarely do is let young free agents leave, not that they’ve had much of a pipeline of top homegrown talent until recently. They did smartly tie up both Wainwright and Molina before they ever hit their first walk years.
Studying the entire league or better yet, all of MLB would provide a more comprehensive answer. On the other hand, that is a huge effort and I don’t really care about anything other than the Cardinals. Different clubs behave differently with regard to free agents. For StL, I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go back, but once I hit 2002 and the results were so obvious, I just stopped.
Good stuff, Brian!
It would be interesting to see if the other side of the coin is false as well. You know, the ‘once you have signed the long-term contract’ you get lazy and don’t try as hard, hence your performance goes down.
Agreed, most of these players were older players in their decline phase or players with serious injury problems. So good news for Green, Glaus, and Ankiel. Not so good for Kennedy. Don’t know what to think about pinero, and is this welly’s walk year?
Cot’s ;lists Wellemeyer with 5.009 ML years experience so it lookw like this is his walk year.
Technically, nine Cardinals players are in their walk year. Four, Pineiro, Kennedy, Franklin and Glaus, have been on multi-year contracts but of them, at the end of this coming season, only Pineiro and Kennedy would have over two StL years against which to compare.
The other five are Miller, Wellemeyer, La Rue, K Greene and Ankiel. For example in La Rue’s case, going on one-year deals means every year is a walk year for him. In other words, he has no “non-walk years” as a Cardinal to compare to. We could look at Welle and Ankiel after 2009, though.
This is probably worth revisiting after the season.
UConn, darn you! With the multi-year contracts idea (a good one), I just got another item put on my to-do list!
Anytime, Brian!
Wouldn’t results also be valid for players that are resigned instead of just leaving? Obviously you would want to keep the players that had good walk years and let the others go.
c13, that is why I added Edmonds. What other recent Cards players re-signed after their first multi-year deal ended or even first-time free agents that walked, for that matter?
Mulder did re-sign in 2006-2007, but we know how that turned out. Double checking, Morris actually had walk years in both 2004 and 2005. I included 2005 above, but his 2004 example was worse. There just aren’t many of them that come to mind.
Can you think of others?
There were lots of guys that only spent two years in StL, but I didn’t want to make a comparison of just one year to one year. The idea was to have at least two previous years as a Cardinal to compare their walk year result against. I did not include time spent on other teams.
I’ve certainly never heard of a serious analysis that defends the walk year theory. While it certainly might apply to a few individuals, you’d have to figure that most players aren’t out there dogging it unless contract negotiations are imminent.
It is a sensitive and clearly not-well understood subject, but I really wonder if the trade rumors and his contract situation will affect Rick Ankiel’s 2009 play one way or the other. We will most likely never know if there is any cause and effect. Yet if the impending uncertainty inherent in a walk year could affect anyone, one might think it could be him.
Nice work, Brian, although you Eckstein numbers seem to be his total bases as opposed to his OPS+. Either way, they support your conclusion.
DD, thanks for the correction. I thought those OPS+ looked too high. Should have double checked them. I fixed them along with the supporting text above. I appreciate you pointing this out.
Yeah, I’d take a shortstop with a 166 OPS+ even if he had the range of a fence post.
Bernie mentions “walk year motivation” again in his most recent column, but it is one of his most optimistic pieces in some time. He didn’t use the term “Dewallet” a single time, while noting the attendance forecast is down 400,000 fans. That is most significant.
[...] that both Pineiro and Todd Wellemeyer are now in their walk seasons. (No, I do not think they will pitch better in 2009 because of [...]