Taylor Ward has made a surprising leap that's making him slump proof

When the Orioles traded for Taylor Ward last November, the number that came up a lot when talking about him was 36. Almost every time Ward was mentioned in an article or a podcast about the Orioles offseason, his homer total came up. People would say "The Orioles added two 30+ homer bats in Ward and Pete Alonso" or "between Ward and Alonso, the Orioles added 72 home runs". Despite all of the excitement around his ability to hit for power, Ward's offensive calling card this season has been much quieter; he's leading the league in walks.

As of right now, Ward's walk rate this season is over 20%. Nobody has had a walk rate that high since Juan Soto in 2022. Last season, Ward posted career bests in several plate discipline metrics, so this development is not entirely out of the blue, but last year his walk rate was 11.3%, and the two years previous it had been in the single digits, so this represents a fairly drastic shift in both approach and results.

Taylor Ward stopped swinging and now he's a walking machine

Looking at his year-over-year stats, you can see what's changed.

The formula is pretty simple. He's swinging less than anyone in the league, he's chasing less than anyone in the league, and when he's swinging at pitches in the zone, he's hitting them at a similar rate to Jose Ramirez and Yordan Alvarez.

The result is that he's been a more effective offensive player than he's ever been in his career. Despite the precipitous drop in home runs, he's putting up career highs in wRC+ and wOBA, and he's leading the Orioles in WAR.

This is a fascinating development. Ward has basically decided that he's not going to swing unless it's a pitch he feels he can hit or there are two strikes, and that if the ball is on the edge of the zone, he's just ok taking strike three and heading back to the dugout. The math has worked out for him so far. His approach has resulted in him seeing a ton of pitches, living in full counts, and leading the league in walks. The question now is, will he be able to sustain it?

It will be interesting to see how pitchers adapt to Ward's very unusual approach. At some point, pitchers are going to realize this guy is not swinging early in the count and just start pounding the strike zone trying to get him into an 0-2 count. So much of Ward's approach is based on him taking the first few pitches of each at-bat and getting into a nice hitters' count where he can do damage. If pitchers just decide they're going in the zone early in the count, chances are they'll be able to get ahead of him and make it hard to work all these pesky walks.

That's easier said than done, though. Most pitchers want to start each at bat 0-1 anyway, so it's not that they're trying to fall behind Ward as is. Also, this could end up playing right into Ward's hand as he's shown he's very capable of hitting balls in the strike zone when he decides to swing at them. If pitchers start grooving fastballs down the middle, trying to get ahead 0-1, he might start ambushing those pitches.

That's the key to the whole thing. As long as Ward punishes pitches in the heart of the zone, pitchers aren't going to throw the ball there even if the scouting report says he's overwhelmingly likely to take the first pitch of each at bat.

If Ward's in-zone contact rate drops from where it's at in the low 90s back to where it's been the last few years in the mid 80s, that will be an indicator that a regression is coming. As long as that stays nice and high, expect a lot more walks from Ward.

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