Is the Greek God of Walks Still Patient?

We've spent some time recently previewing the Bill James Baseball IQ app for the iPhone and iPad, featuring the K Zone and Pitch Location charts in recent Stats of the Week. In honor of its public release today, we'll take a look at another feature the Baseball IQ app offers: the Batter Comparison tool.

Kevin Youkilis gained noteriety in Michael Lewis's book Moneyball as a Red Sox prospect with a penchant for drawing walks. Over his seven-year career Youkilis, dubbed the "Greek God of Walks", has walked in 12.5 percent of his plate appearances, not quite a league-leading rate but well above the league average. (Jack Cust, at 17.3 percent, tops the list of active players with 1000 plate appearances, while new Brewer Yuniesky Betancourt comes in last at just 3.4 percent.) Youkilis is known for taking pitches early in the count and his still being an effective hitter if he gets behind in the count.

Let's compare Youkilis with Derek Jeter of the arch-nemesis Yankees using the Batter Comparison tool in the Baseball IQ app. Specifically, we'll look at the rate that each player swings at the first pitch of an at bat.

As you can see, Youkilis swings at 9-12 percent of first pitches throughout the year, while Jeter goes after the first pitch more than twice as often, around 24-26 percent. Obviously, their vastly different styles still work well for each of them.

Check out Bill James Baseball IQ today, in the App Store or online!