Los Angeles Dodgers: Could Cody Bellinger bat .400?

Willing to walk?

One of the keys to making a run at .400 is a willingness to accept a base on balls rather than making outs on pitches outside the strike zone. Williams was legendary for his refusal to stray outside the strike zone.

During his 1941 season, Williams accepted a league-leading 147 bases on balls, reducing his 606 plate appearances to only 456 times when he was even susceptible to making an out. That put Williams’ walk rate at nearly one in four.

That skill is virtually non-existent in today’s game, and Bellinger has only begun to refine it. To date he has accepted 14 walks in 108 plate appearances, a 13 percent walk rate.

But it may encourage Bellinger backers to know how much of an exception Williams was even among the greats. When he made his 1980 run that ended at .390, Brett’s walk rate was only 11 percent. During their 1977 and 1994 attempts, the walk rates for both Carew and Gwynn were just 10 percent. And Suzuki accomplished his career-best .372 batting average in 2004 despite only a 6.5 percent walk rate.

The lesson here is this: While running up a high walk total tends to reduce the prospect of making outs, it isn’t an absolute requirement to a high average. And to the extent that it is, Bellinger seems to be holding his own with most of the past half century’s serious .400 challengers.