Major League Baseball

Picking the right narrow skill set

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 5:02 p.m. ET

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There was once a statistical revolution that was supposedly about on-base percentage. Scott Hatteberg showed us the power of patience, right? In today's league, though, it's virtually impossible to make a living if the ability to walk is your only real skill.

The Twins just designated Chris Parmelee for assignment. He might not be a perfect comparable for Scott Hatteberg, but he's close. Not a defensive asset anywhere but first, Parmelee also doesn't have above-average power. So far so good.

Parmelee hasn't shown great patience in the big leagues yet, but that's complicated. He did have a 12.3% walk rate in the minors, and there have been grumbles in Minnesota that he was too passive as a hitter. Perhaps he's been trying to be less patient in response to that pressure.

Parmelee himself admitted to me in May this year that he's spent the last few years searching: "I was trying to find who I was as a hitter." In the newest variant on his game, he's been more aggressive. This year, he swung more than ever. He reached more than ever, too. "It might not be that perfect pitch that you were looking for, but it's still a ball that you can put the barrel on and drive somewhere," he said.

No matter. To date, Parmelee's best skill has been his walk rate. He's been just about league-average with the bat, but he's been above-average with the patience. He could be a modern-day Hatteberg for the right team.

Except that it looks like, today, teams aren't really interested in players that can walk but have trouble adding value in any other way.

Let's look at the players with 900-plus plate appearances over the last three years. Now let's limit it to players with walk rates above eight percent (last year the league average was 7.8%). That brings the list to 166 players.

Now let's remove players that have a better-than-league-average strikeout rate (even if Hatteberg did have some contact skills, Parmelee doesn't). That leaves us with 75 hitters (including Mike Trout!), but most of them are sluggers.

Now let's remove the guys with above-average power. We'll use a .150 isolated slugging percentage to root out the big power-and-patience guys that litter baseball today. Bye-bye, Giancarlo Stanton. Hello, Austin Jackson.

But Austin Jackson provides defensive value in heaps. Let's take away the center fielders, the shortstops, and the catchers. Too bad, because there are a lot of catchers -- Derek Norris, Miguel Montero, John Buck. But Scott Hatteberg had to learn first base, so let's leave the catchers off.

Who's left?

Huh. Not many people with this skill set in baseball today. Really, David Freese offers some defensive value by playing third, so you could even remove him from the list. Among the first basemen, Jesus Guzman is a right-hander, and so is more easily used off the bench or in a platoon at first base, a traditionally left-handed position. If Parmelee can fake some outfield, you could put him next to Travis Snider and he wouldn't look too different.

Not too much love for the new Hattebergs in general, though. Once you remove the retired guys who only made this list in their final years, you get a grand total of four patience-only semi-regular players in the big leagues.

Of course, one-dimensional players are always a problem in a mostly two-way sport. If you repeat this exercise for other one-tool skill sets, do you get more players?

Defense-only players are obviously common. A search for worse-than-average patience, worse-than-average contact, and worse-than average powernets you at least ten players that have mostly only added defensive value since 2011. Players like Brendan Ryan, Peter Bourjos, and Michael Bourn join the catchers this time.

Power-only players always have a place in the game, if only because half the league has a Designated Hitter. You could argue that this list of impatient whiffers with bad gloves goes 20 players deep. The patron saints are Michael Morse, Dayan Viciedo, and Juan Francisco. And then, of course, you have a few catchers.

Contact-only players are rare if only because that skill is often paired with speed. But even if you ignore the Rajai Davis types, you still getcomfortably into double-digits with players like Michael Young, James Loney, Casey Kotchman leading the way. (Fewer catchers on this list.)

The speed-only list is actually devoid of the most iconic of the class -- Quintin Berry and Dave Roberts perhaps -- because they don't often get a ton of playing time. And if they do, don't they usually have defensive value as well? Turns out, yeah, the speedy guys that play often have some glove. The truly speed-only player list is probably about as deep as the patience-only list: Emilio Bonifacio might be the only name on that list.

But maybe that's eye-opening. Has the patience-only player fallen to almost the same level as the speed-only player in the marketplace?

It's possible that even the patron saint of on-base percentage has moved on a bit. When I pointed out to Athletics general manager Billy Beane that his new acquisition Joey Wendle was old for his minor-league levels in the Cleveland system and had no stand-out tools or stats, Beane agreed but pointed out two things quickly. First, "it wasn't his fault" that Wendle was old -- the infielder was drafted and played well at every level without stagnating. And as for the skill set? According to the Oakland talent evaluators, Wendle is "above-average across the board," said Beane.

It's a lot easier to provide on-field production if you've got a wide base of skills, obviously. One-tool players are always going to be on the fringes looking in. So, yeah, Chris Parmelee? It probably does make sense to try and be more aggressive and show that power tool. It'll put you in a better bucket at least.

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