Unintentional Walks

Of all HOF pitchers, Greg Maddux may very well have the lowest rate of Unintentional Walks. Intentional Walks were first tracked in 1955. Of the twelve 300 game winners who pitched since then, no one even comes close to Greg Maddux's 82.3% of unintentional walks. Only Gaylord Perry and Tom Glavine had less than half Maddux's percentage.

Of all twenty-four 300-game-winners, only four walked fewer batters than Maddux. Pete Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Pud Galvin, and Old Hoss Radbourn. These four retired before 1930, before intentional walks were tracked.

Late in the 2008 season Maddux had 999 career walks. Not wanting to pass the thousand walk barrier, Maddux did not walk a batter in his next four starts – the last four starts of his career.

%IP – BB wins YR player – year retired
8.0% 1434 363 21 Warren Spahn 1965
17.7% 999 355 23 Greg Maddux 2008 – 5008 IP
3.9% 1580 354 24 Roger Clemens 2007
8.2% 1833 329 24 Steve Carlton 1988
2.8% 2795 324 27 Nolan Ryan 1993
7.6% 1343 324 23 Don Sutton 1988
4.8% 1809 318 Phil Niekro 1987
11.9% 1379 314 22 Gaylord Perry 1983
8.3% 1390 311 20 Tom Seaver 1986
9.7% 1500 305 22 Tom Glavine 2008
2.5% 1497 303 Randy Johnson 2009
4.9% 1775 300 23 Early Wynn 1963

BB wins YR player – year retired
1217 511 22 Cy Young 1911
1363 417 21 Walter Johnson 1927
 951 373 20 Pete Alexander 1930 – 5190 IP
 848 373 17 Christy Mathewson 1916 – 4788 IP
 745 365 15 Pud Galvin 1892 – 6003 IP
1272 361 15 Kid Nichols 1906
1233 342 14 Tim Keefe 1893
1191 328 12 John Clarkson 1894
1072 326 17 Eddie Plank 1917
 875 309 12 Old Hoss Radbourn 1891 – 4527 IP
1297 307 13 Mickey Welch 1892
1187 300 17 Lefty Grove 1941

While Robin Roberts has a lower walks per 9 innings ratio, his unintentional walk rate is much higher than Maddux.

Maddux was not even a unanimous HOF pick by the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. The vote was similar to the BWAA 10 player maximum vote. Two voters did not vote for Maddux. Both chose to vote for players on the cusp, rather than the no-brainer. http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2014/01/08/my-hall-of-fame-ballot/

Peter Gammons posted Quality Start data for the pitchers on this year's HOF ballot: http://www.gammonsdaily.com/quality-starts-and-ultimate-quality-starts-for-hof-candidates/