FanNation - The Republic of Sport

By Shaun Payne Last week Chuck Johnson wrote an article for Dugout Central about hitter strikeouts. The article was rather negative towards today???s game and today???s hitters, front offices and coaches. Johnson wrote: ???Baseball is willing to accept an inferior attitude towards the game, and an inferior product, because that?s what the sponsors want.??? Do sponsors really accept an inferior product? If you were trying to sell something would you really pay advertising costs during inferior programming? I suppose it???s human nature to long for the days of yore. I suppose we think because we were once young and vibrant and more graceful at one time that all the things of our youth were better. This simply is not true. In many aspects the past is worse than the present or the future. Yes, it can be scary that things will never be like they were when we were young. We feel threatened when things change, and we desire to hang on to the world around us. But progress can be a very good thing. At any rate, back to the subject at hand. The true reason for more strikeouts is very simple: Weak contact doesn???t cut it and hasn???t in a while. And harder contact means swinging harder and missing more often, which of course leads to more strikeouts. But that doesn???t necessarily mean a lack of knowledge of the strike zone, not being able to recognize pitches and not being able to hit in certain situations, as Chuck implies. Anyone who studies statistics realizes there is no correlation between team strikeouts and team runs scored. But there is a strong correlation between base runners and total bases and runs scored. A team accrues base runners by avoiding outs. So strikeouts aren???t good. But even if a hitter strikes out a ton, he???s not necessarily going to hinder his on-base/out-avoiding ability. A team accrues total bases by hitting the ball past or over defenses. In order to hit the ball past or over defenses, a hitter must generate great bat speed. This is going to lead to more swings and misses and more strikeouts. In the past, a player could shorten up with two strikes and still have a decent shot to get on base. During Babe Ruth???s 1923 season (when he had a career-high 93 strikeouts) the Philadelphia A???s led the league with 517 strikeouts. This season the Mariners have 835 strikeouts ??? last in the American League. The differences between the AL in 1923 and 2008: in 1923 the AL slugged .388 while in 2008 they have slugged .420. In 1923 the best team had a .977 fielding percentage. In 2008 the worst team has a .978 fielding percentage. Better fielders means average or weak contact isn???t going to help a hitter as much now as it did in 1923. Also, front offices have most likely realized how much of a mistake it is to be obsessed with hitter strikeouts. Let???s look at a team of the best hitters at avoiding strikeouts: C Yadier Molina 1B Casey Kotchman 2B Placido Polanco 3B Marco Scutaro SS Yuniesky Betancourt LF Carl Crawford CF Jacoby Ellsbury RF Ichiro Suzuki DH Garrett Anderson Now let???s look at a team with the top strikeout hitters: C Geovany Soto 1B Carlos Pena 2B Dan Uggla 3B Mark Reynolds SS Hanley Ramirez LF Luke Scott CF Nick Swisher RF Mark Teahen DH Jack Cust The high-strikeout team looks like the better one. The reason is simple: How often hitters make outs matters more than the type of outs hitters make. Don???t get me wrong. Again, strikeouts are not a good thing in themselves. Strikeouts are outs. But in many situations strikeouts are no worse than other outs and sometimes they are a more efficient way for a team to make outs (a strikeout is better than grounding into a double or triple play). Much like batting average, it???s time for us to change our thinking about strikeouts. Time to stop viewing them as the worst type of out in baseball. In baseball, outs are outs. Though a strikeout is embarrassing, it still counts the same as a routine grounder to short or a deep flyout to the centerfielder.