re: MLB Strikeouts

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Now, everyone assumes that Voros McCracken's research regarding batted balls in play is correct, and the hitter and pitcher have little control whether the ball in play becomes a hit. Guys will hit about 300 on balls in play.

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I don't think that theory holds for hitters. Hitters have a lot of control of balls in play. Exit velocity, batted ball profile and a player's speed heavily influence their BABIP. That's why Trout consistently runs sky high BABIPs. And Ryan Schimpf has a .229 career BABIP because he hits everything in the air, including a ton of pop-ups.

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I watched two errors score runs for the Astros last night. Carlos Correa committed an error in the 8th of the 2015 ALDS that scored 2 runs and allowed the go ahead run to 3rd. If he makes that play the Royals are likely eliminated.



Balls in play matters.

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Defenders make errors sometimes. I'd argue they don't make them nearly enough to make it worthwhile to sacrifice power for contact.

i dont even think this comes from people swinging for the fences so to speak as much as its a by product of the current flyball revolution

Moving runners over is overrated. Playing for one run is usually a mistake

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This was a decent assumption when we had limited batted ball data. Given all the data we have now, I'd say the statement in bold is incorrect.

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Which in no way refutes my hypothetical. Who is going to be more prone to hitting more fly balls, the Three True Outcomes guy swinging for the fences, or the slap hitting guy with excellent bat control?

If anything, that shows there are even MORE hits to be picked up by not striking out.

Moving runners is never overrated. Purposely giving up outs to move a runner over is typically not a good idea, but moving runners is your entire purpose while at the plate.

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go extreme the other way. 20 K and 2 HR. That's 480 BIP = 144 hits + 2 HR. That's 292. So a league average hitter can hit 290 by simply not striking out. Add some speed to that plus a good batting eye, and you have an All-Star.

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An all star? Absolutely not. Sounds like you just described a .650 OPS player who would need to be a gold glove caliber defender to even justify being in the lineup.

In today's game only striking out 20 times in that many at bats would be amazing. But in most cases that would be a sign that the hitter isn't working deep into counts, which would result in a low walk rate. A low walk rate + no power is a terrible combo.

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Go to the extreme of 200 K and 30 HR. 300 BIP = 90 hits. Now he's hitting 240. Even with walks, its hard to get a decent OBP.

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That strikeout rate would be awful. But again with those Ks comes more deep counts and more walks. Look at Mark Reynolds for example. Does he have good plate discipline? Hell no. But he was still walking 70+ times a year when he was striking out 200 times a year. The year he hit .220 and struck out 196 times he still managed a .323 OBP. His 2008 season is actually a good comp for the player you described. 204 Ks, .239 AVG, 28 HR. That year he posted a .779 OPS. Everything else being equal and that is worlds better at the plate than the .296 hitter who doesn't walk and has no power.

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He's not a speed guy, but Joey Votto is high contact(when he swings),

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I frickin love watching Joey Votto hit.

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I get Baloo's point, but the examples he's given would work on a one person per team basis. A special, mega speed, plus plus defender type guy.

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of course it's one type of player. But you need all types to form a team. You need both Juan Pierre AND Rob Deer. And now teams have a stockpile of Deer-types and no Pierres. But I also don't think people truly understand how striking out a lot makes high batting averages impossible. Putting the ball in play is just more chances to get hits.

I think one of the things watching 1980s baseball taught me is that there is no one way to win. There was such a diversity of styles, and nearly every different kind of strategy won a World Series. And I think we've gone away from that to everyone playing the same variation of station-to-station baseball dependent on walks and homers. Which is also pretty boring.

But you know who is the master of not striking out? Ichiro. And he's going to the Hall of Fame, most likely. He's also fun as hell to watch.

But let's look at last year. 24 players struck out 150 or more times. Of them, 5 had a BA anywhere near 300, and those were primarily exceptional players who would be great in any era (Bryant, Goldschmidt). However, 14 of them hit 250 or less. And a guy like Chris Davis may have walked 88 times, but he still had an OBP of 332. There is no larger component of OBP than your BA.

Of the leaders in batting average last year, not one had less than 50 strikeouts. The lowest K total was Daniel Murphy with 57. He hit 347/390/595. So even though he lacked patience as a plus skill, he still had a near 4000 OBP thanks to a sky high BA. Put the ball in play.


Let's compare that to 1987, 40 years ago. Only 5 players stuck out 150 times our more. There was Deer, of course, but most were low OBP, high slugging players. Danny Tartabull had the highest BA, at 270.

OTOH, 3 of the top 5 in BA had less than 50 K's. The other two had 60 or less. And here's their slash lines, is anyone gonna say these weren't productive players?

357/453/486 (939 OPS)
352/394/573 (967)
334/413/476 (889)
332/390/441 (830)
329/381/467 (848)

BTW, those players are Boggs, Mattingly, Raines, Sax, and Gwynn. All five were All-Star players, and three are in the Hall of Fame. We didn't know in the 80s the power of the walk, but today, we've forgotten the power of not striking out. BOTH are important.