But the reality is that Scutaro ACTUALLY WAS a patient hitter coming up.

At Buffalo (AAA) in 1999 he had 61 walks and 69 Ks.
At Buffalo in 2000 he had 61 walks and 53 Ks.
In 2001 he was 62BB:83K, not great but still not horrible.
Then the Met's screwed him up in 2002 and he was 30:72.
But in 2003, his ratio was 46:48, pretty darn good.

Looking at those stats, it appears Marco's track record is that he's been much more patient in the past and last year might be an abberation.

It's a matter of what's taught and stressed in an organization. It's just that it's hard to teach it to guys who have been successful being more "aggressive."

Remember, these guys got drafted by major league teams by hitting, not walking. They were the best hitters from little league to high school to (for some) college. They think they're pretty good by the time they get into the system.

I'd argue that it's a lot easier to teach an undisciplined hitter to be patient than it is to teach a patient player to take better swings. The skills involved in hitting are pretty darn hard and I think much more determined by genetics than instruction. Obviously good coaches and hard work help then develop their potential, but great hitters are born not made.

If you think of major leaguers as "adults" and lower level minor leaguers as "kids," then it stands to reason that plate discpline can be taught more to single-A players that to major leaguers--not as much a matter of whether it's "an innate skill" or "a learnable skill" but more because in some fundamental ways, "kids" are more teachable than "adults."

Interesting debate for sure, with no clear answer in sight.

But you can only walk as much as the pitcher is throwing balls. A player's got a ceiling in how much he can walk ... and I'd argue Durazo is right at his. If he takes walks in 90 percent of his walkable at bats, he can't improve that much. Hard to get to X+1 if X is already close to 100 percent.

On a related note, Jim Palmer made an excellent point last night on the Orioles broadcast about the A's approach. He talked about the A's stressing "plate discipline" not walks.

He said how the system stresses looking in a particular hitting zone for pitches and not swinging if you don't get them. It's not about always taking the first pitch of an at bat, but looking for a pitch in a particular location.

He relayed a story about Swisher. In spring training, Swisher said Maddux kept getting him out with pitches that were low and away. Once Swisher realized he couldn't hit those pitches anyway, he stopped swinging at them. Didn't matter if they were balls or strikes.