Without all those walks, he’d be a marginal player. They really elevate the OBP.

Without all those home runs, no one would know who Henry Aaron is. Without all those shutouts, Nolan Ryan would be just another successful pitcher. Without all those walks, Barry Bonds wouldn’t have had the best offensive season in the history of baseball.

Fact is, Cust earns all those walks (and always has). They’re an important part of the way he contributes to a team. Yes he’s having a worse year than last year (last year he was one of the best in the league) but he’s still good.

Baseball Prospectus has a number of valuable statistics regarding this, at
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=398888 that help. Let’s look at a few examples:

Cust has had the 2nd most chances to score people, according to Plate Appearances with Runners on base, he has 208 compared to Bobby Crosby’s 216.

He is third in total Runners On Base with 283, compared to 284 for Ellis and 319 for Crosby.

He is far down the list unfortunately in OBI%, 18th, with .11307, behind such RBI machines as Rajai Davis, Donnie Murphy, and Eric Patterson (Disingenuous I know because of small sample size, but still funny.) He is also better than only Hannahan and Denorfia at plating Runners on 2nd base, and is 18th on the team at plating runners on 3rd.

These stats speak a little to how anemic the A’s offense is though, since Crosby only ranks 52nd in the MLB in Runners On Base (Justin Morneau leads that category with 408) and 73rd in Plate Appearances with Runners on Base (Cust ranks 86th.)

So a few thoughts in conclusion:

1) Cust does get a lot of RBI opportunities for this team, but not compared to the rest of the league. However, he is not the best at plating these runners, and if we’re determining batting order strictly by OBI, perhaps those shots would be better put to use by Ryan Sweeney (.163337 OBI) Emil Brown (.16045 OBI% [I know, this will bring about a lot of grumbling) and Bobby Crosby (.13793 OBI%)

2) Cust obviously does not hit the ball often, which is required to bring runners in. So where do we bat a man that hits the home run or is otherwise station to station? Stat guys like to point to the idea that, statistically, you’re best off playing your highest OBP guy leadoff, and maybe there’s more to it here as well. If your best OBP guy isn’t actually very good at batting others in (other than himself with solo home runs) than perhaps he is best served at the top. It’s not like the A’s run a lot anyway.

3) Just because he doesn’t plate runners as well as he should, it does not mean he’s not a a very good hitter. He does get more chances than the average teammate, and there’s not much knowing how well the others would do since most of the other guys are rookies without much reliable data (you could do this for Brown, M Sweeney or Thomas, but there isn’t much debate to be had there.)

But are you really suggesting he doesn’t have a good eye?

 "Pretty clearly, Cust is not the type of hitter who’s good enough to convert walks to hits. He can get the walks and he’s great at doing that, but if a team NEEDED him to actually NOT walk and instead DO something with the pitch, he’s not the right guy for that.

There are some cases where teams will pitch around him because the A’s have no other threats to go deep, but it’s nowhere near a Barry Bonds type of thing. He was very tough to strike out where Cust is very easy to strike out."

I would agree with the Cust supporters that he hasn’t had many chances to drive in runs this year — I would also agree that Cust is a decent player that would actually be very good hitting down in the lineup on a team other than the A’s (IOW, one that can hit) — and many of you insist that all the stats prove that OBP is most conducive to winning ballgames.
But Jack Cust walking twice a game does very little to help the A’s. And when there’s a man on second and third with one out? We don’t need a friggin’ walk. (And we REALLY don’t need a K) — we need a guy to make contact. Because usually, simply making contact will score the run.
Personally, I’m amazed whenever a pitcher walks Cust. Just throw strikes … sure, he’ll beat you occasionally … but usually he’ll strike out. If Jack Cust were on another team, he sure as hell wouldn’t scare me when he came to bat, that’s for sure. He’s not that good a hitter. He’s got a great eye, but he’s not that good a hitter. And there is a difference.
I still think a walk is more the pitcher doing badly than the hitter doing well.