Unlike your neighbor’s golden retriever, Zach Eflin despises walks.
“I hate giving people a free pass … It really comes down to… I don’t like giving in to guys and just letting them take first base,” Eflin said with a smile in his first interaction with Baltimore reporters after being traded to the O’s back in July.
The right-hander went on to toss over 55 innings for the Orioles in the second half of last season. In that stretch, Eflin only walked 11 batters. The veteran’s aptitude for limiting free passes helped him allow just 16 total earned runs in his nine starts in Orioles orange.
Eflin excels at commanding the strike zone. His 3.5% walk rate put him in the 98th percentile in the majors in 2024. And when he did move out of the zone, he did so intentionally, to the tune of a 32.6% chase rate according to Statcast, good for the 88th percentile in baseball.
Nearly 100 pitchers in baseball had a fastball of at least 95 mph last season, but Eflin doesn’t pitch that way. The righty boasts a six-pitch arsenal, but none exceed an average of 93 mph. He won’t rack up the strikeout numbers, nor tout a huge whiff rate.
But despite Eflin's hatred for walks, Orioles' starting pitchers were middle-of-the-pack in walks allowed. They ranked 14th in the majors with 272 free passes. A full season of Eflin and some new additions to the rotation should help that number.
Thankfully, Eflin isn’t the only pitcher who hates walks of the 90-foot variety in the O's 2025 rotation. I see Eflin’s 1.3 walks per nine inning in 2024 and raise you Tomoyuki Sugano’s 0.9 walks per nine for the Yomiuri Giants last season. Twenty-four starts with a 1.67 ERA and 16 walks allowed.
Free passes might be hard to find at Camden Yards next season. But still, the additions of Eflin and Sugano raise a question: Just how much better can Orioles' starters be at limiting walks in 2025?
Now, I didn’t major in analytics, but I did minor in it, so bear with me for a thought experiment.
In 2024, Eflin walked 1.3 batters per nine innings and averaged roughly 6 innings per start. So, he walked about .87 batters per outing. If the baseball gods are kind, which they rarely are, and Eflin maintains his walk rate over a fully healthy 33-start season, we can estimate that Eflin will walk around 29 batters in 2025.
Still with me? Let’s apply that math with last season’s walk rates and average length of starts to the other four projected starters in the rotation for 2025: Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, Charlie Morton and Sugano. Breaking up the 162-game season, let’s give Eflin and Rodriguez 33 starts, while Kremer, Morton and Sugano get 32. In total, we can estimate that the Orioles starting rotation will walk 248 batters in 2025. Or, at least in this thought experiment.
That would’ve ranked 7th in baseball in 2024, and mark a 24-walk improvement for Baltimore from last season.
Of course, the baseball gods are never this kind, and Baltimore will most likely need much more than just five starting pitchers this season. But the premise of the exercise stands - a full season of Eflin and the addition of Sugano should greatly improve the O’s walk numbers.
Why does that matter? Conventional wisdom would point you to the fact that limiting baserunners is limiting the opposition’s opportunity to score runs. Last season’s numbers would strengthen that case.
The 248 walks that we estimated are right around where the Cubs stood last season, 5th in baseball with 246. Chicago’s starting pitchers were also tied with Baltimore’s starters for the 5th best ERA in the game at 3.77. The Mariners and Tigers, two other teams that ranked in the top-5 in starting pitchers’ walks allowed, were also top-5 in starters’ ERA.
The correlation is an obvious one - the best rotations at limiting walks often find themselves among the best in the league in ERA. In adding Eflin and Sugano, two pitchers with elite walk rates, the Orioles have increased their chances of limiting free passes, and thus improving their ERA.
Spring training is just around the corner, and Sugano isn’t just joining a brand new clubhouse, but a brand new league. But maybe he and Eflin can bond over their hatred of those 90-foot walks.