Balks Records and Details
What is Balks ?
A balk is an illegal move done by the pitcher immediatly before windup or during the pitching act. Most of these illegal moves involve a pitcher pretending to pitch when he has no intention of doing so, this would be done to try and trick a baserunner into leaving the base and becoming an easy out. Balks are only called when there are runners on base, when a pitcher has been assesed a balk all baserunners are awarded the next base, this includes runners on third who would then score a run since he was awareded home plate. The active batter is not given any bases and their plate apperance continues with no change to the count. Generally, for Balks, lower is better. (Source)
What is a good Balks?
What does good Balks mean? "Good" baseball stats can be very subjective and mean different things to different people.
I have attempted to quantify good and bad by taking season and career stats for MLB pitchers with a minimum number
of pitched outs. In this case 100 for career and 50 for a season. To find good and bad within this cohort of players I calculated the first and third quartiles,
anything between these quartiles I consider average. This makes up the middle 50% of players. In an example
where higher is better for a stat, below the first quartile (bottom 25% of players) would be bad and above the 3rd
quartile (top 25% of players) would be good. For stats where lower is better, flip around good and bad.
Career, Season, and Season Average Balks Records
For my hot take on Balks records most of the same rules apply from the first section. To be considered for my
prestigious lists the player must meet a certain threshold of pitched outs. Since this is a Pitching stat to be considered
for the career list the player must have over 100 pitched outs, for a season consideration the player must have
had 75 pitched outs. Additionally, the player's final game must have been after 1899.
Distribution of Career Balks by Player Generation
Distribution of Season Balks by Player Generation
Distribution of Career Balks by Player Position
Distribution of Season Balks by Player Position