Pitchers in control

Nobody was better than Greg Maddux in putting the ball where he wanted

Apr 26, 2022

Greg Maddux wasn’t imposing on the mound. He didn’t loom above hitters like six-foot-10-inch Randy Johnson or come after them with the blazing speed of Nolan Ryan. The six-foot, 170-pound, bespectacled Maddux subdued them with the best control exhibited by any pitcher in the Modern Era.

“He can hit a target like no pitcher I’ve ever seen,” said Leo Mazzone, who was Maddux’s pitching coach for 11 seasons in Atlanta, where an additional pair of Hall of Famers, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, worked at the same time. Maddux was the acknowledged ace of that staff, known as “The Professor” for his cerebral approach to pitching and his ability to put the ball precisely where he wanted.

The bottom line for Maddux’s 23-year career shows 822 unintentional walks in 740 starts and four relief appearances, equaling a paltry 1.48 bases on balls per nine innings. His walk rate of 4.1% — expressed in decimal form as .041 — was the lowest for any Modern Era pitcher who worked at least 2,500 innings.

Walk rate is easy to compute, though perhaps not quite as simple as you might expect. It’s the quotient of walks divided by batters faced, but only after all intentional walks have been removed from both the numerator and denominator. The resulting fraction for Maddux is 822 unintentional walks divided by 20,244 batters, which equals .041.

Bret Saberhagen (.042) and Juan Marichal (.043) finished second and third among the era’s control artists. Neither was able to match the sheer length of Maddux’s career, but both were well-known for efficiency and control, allowing fewer than 1.60 unintentional walks per nine innings.

Scroll below to see the 10 best control pitchers of the Modern Era. All stats are confined to the period from 1961 to the present, a cutoff that clips the beginning from Marichal’s and Jim Kaat’s careers.

Each pitcher is displayed with his walk rate, batters faced, walks (both total and intentional), games and innings pitched, win-loss record, earned-run average, career span, and the big-league clubs he pitched for.

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1. Greg Maddux

Walk rate: .041
Batters faced: 20,421
Walks allowed: 999 (177 intentional)
Other stats: 744 G, 5,008.1 IP, 355-227 W-L, 3.16 ERA
Span: 1986-2008
Clubs: Braves, Cubs, Dodgers, Padres

2. Bret Saberhagen

Walk rate: .042
Batters faced: 10,421
Walks allowed: 471 (34 intentional)
Other stats: 399 G, 2,562.2 IP, 167-117 W-L, 3.34 ERA
Span: 1984-2001
Clubs: Mets, Red Sox, Rockies, Royals

3. Juan Marichal

Walk rate: .043
Batters faced: 13,908
Walks allowed: 681 (81 intentional)
Other stats: 460 G, 3,425.2 IP, 237-140 W-L, 2.90 ERA
Span: 1961-1975
Clubs: Dodgers, Giants, Red Sox

4. David Wells

Walk rate: .046
Batters faced: 14,413
Walks allowed: 719 (65 intentional)
Other stats: 660 G, 3,439.0 IP, 239-157 W-L, 4.13 ERA
Span: 1987-2007
Clubs: Blue Jays, Dodgers, Orioles, Padres, Red Sox, Reds, Tigers, White Sox, Yankees