As many have noted, Missouri has shown quite the propensity for walking through 25 games.
The Tigers have taken 163 bases-on-balls, which is fourth in the NCAA and first in the SEC by a broad margin. In second place is No. 13 Auburn — incidentally, MU’s opponent this weekend — which has walked 142 times.
It may seem abnormal, then, that the Tigers are just fifth in the SEC on-base percentage, getting on base in 41 percent of their plate appearances. The top four teams’ OBPs are supported by high batting averages. All four — Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn and Alabama — are getting hits at a much higher clip than .287, which is what the Tigers have batted this season.
Nonetheless, Missouri is walking a lot. You could say this could be expected to a degree because of head coach Steve Bieser’s philosophy, which is largely predicated on plate discipline. Time after time this season, the second-year coach has preached about getting his players to let the game come to them and wait for the right pitch.
One of the starkest differences seen in Bieser’s first year after 11 years under Tim Jamieson is how much that Missouri team walked. The 2017 Tigers walked 277 times — 42 more than the previous year. In 2016, in Jamieson’s final season, MU drew 235 walks, which was actually a huge outlier when compared to the teams that came before.
From 2003 to 2012, it at least made the regionals in eight of those nine years. It only missed in 2011, when the Tigers had a losing record for the first time in nine seasons. I’ll save you the year-by-year numbers — all of those teams walked way more than 200 times.
But after that, it stopped. In 2013, Missouri walked 161 times. It walked 191 times in 2014, and then 182 times a year after that. Then came the huge jump to 235 in 2016 — that team had six players walk more than 20 times.
Bieser approached this new position as an opportunity to take a program that simply never drew walks and evolve it into one that focuses on them. And the results are obvious: after taking 163 bases-on-balls through 25 games, Missouri is on pace to reach about 365 on the season. That is an extreme mark and is probably unrealistic, but just for some perspective, that would be the most on record. The next-closest would be in 2005 when the Tigers drew 357 walks.
Of course, you can’t discuss walks and Missouri baseball without mentioning Kameron Misner. Misner has arguably been the team MVP this year, posting a triple-slash of .415/.565/.696 and stealing a team-high 12 bases in 17 attempts (Misner’s ability to steal bases while being 6-4 is deserving of an article by itself). He leads the country in walks, he’s second in walks-per-game with 1.24 and OBP with .565, and he’s tied for third in runs (with Trey Harris) with 34.
Many were expecting Misner to take a jump in his sophomore season, but this has exceeded expectations. His 31 walks take up 19 percent of Missouri’s total — only Georgia’s Keegan McGovern has a higher percentage, and that’s mainly because Georgia has walked just 117 times.
Missouri’s clear strength is its ability to go deep into counts, tax opposing pitchers and ultimately draw the walk. But this all must be taken with a grain of salt, because on-base percentage isn’t the only part of the equation.
Few teams have had better plate discipline than MU, but it has seen other areas of its offense suffer. The Tigers have a slugging percentage of just .395, which is 12th in the conference and actually lower than their OBP, which is goofy. While many teams have multiple players with at least ten extra base hits, the only Tiger with such is Misner. Missouri is tied for last in home runs, 12th in total bases and tenth in doubles.
The difficulties in the power department bubbled to the surface last weekend against Mississippi State, when Missouri scored just ten runs in three games. The Tigers got away with an SEC series win, but too often a Tiger got on base but was stranded because the team struggles to get extra base hits.
Yet Missouri is in the top ten in the nation in runs scored, so it’s all balanced out to reveal a strong offense. It will be tested when it takes on No. 13 Auburn this weekend after Wednesday’s game at Western Illinois.
