Should we put a lot of stock in Sanchez's walk rate?
Absolutely not. For one, walk rates don't generally stabilize until around 200 PA, and Sanchez has only had 47 plate appearances at this point. His walk rate is therefore highly prone to natural regression.
But if you take a look at his Swing % data, you can find what is perhaps a reason for optimism.
Swing percentage just so happens to stabilize at 50 PA, so -- to a certain extent -- we can expect Freddy to stay at or around the same rate.
Sanchez seems to be taking a slightly less aggressive plate approach this year, swinging at pitches at a rate that is roughly 5% below his career swing percentage. Chris Quick (Bay City Ball) quickly ran the data through Excel and found that there is some correlation between Swing% and BB%.
So perhaps Freddy's less aggressive approach has paid dividends with respect to his walk rate. Only time will tell (I can't stress it enough: small sample size).
ZiPS projects Sanchez for a 6.1% walk rate on the year, and it'd be nice -- at the very least -- to see Sanchez surpass that and match his 2010 rate of 6.7%. So far, so good. This is also another reason to play with the idea of putting Freddy Sanchez in the leadoff spot against LHP.
Follow SP on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook
