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Strike Outs

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  • #1

    Strike Outs

    I'm interested to see some of your opinions about strikeouts and their effect on the offensive production of a team.

    Do strike outs negatively impact a teams offensive performance and if so, how?

    Is putting the ball in play preferable to striking out?

    Does it make a discernible difference and if so, how?
    If I whisper my wicked marching orders into the ether with no regard to where or how they may bear fruit, I am blameless should a broken spirit carry those orders out upon the innocent, for it was not my hand that took the action merely my lips which let slip their darkest wish. ~Daniel Devereaux 2011

    Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.
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  • #2
    I think they are overrated as a negative stat. Obviously, putting the ball in play at least gives you a chance for something good happening, so that is better than striking out. However, to me an out is an out, so I don't see how a team making more conistent weak contact that produces outs is better than a team producing the same number of outs through strike outs. In fact, in a very small way, the high strike out team might have a slight edge in that the weak contact team is keeping the defense more engaged in the game.

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    • #3
      welll... the "duh" answer is that putting the ball in play you have a chance of a hit, or an error, or whatever. if you are going to arbitrarily say that you're deciding between strikeouts and outs in play, which is not actually the real-world choice, then strikeouts are marginally better because they usually involve a higher pitch count and no risk of double plays. if you're going to arbitrarily say that on a 0-2 count you can either strike out or hit a pop fly, those are pretty much equivalent except for the nonzero possibility of an error on the pop fly.

      so depending on how much you want your question to reflect actual baseball, you can answer this pretty much any way you want.

      hope that helps!

      - Mike
      In the best of times, our days are numbered, anyway. And it would be a crime against Nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were presumably designed in the first place, and which the gravest statesmen and the hoarsest politicians hope to make available to all men in the end: I mean the opportunity to do good work, to fall in love, to enjoy friends, to sit under trees, to read, to hit a ball and bounce the baby.

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      • #4
        There's no cut-and-dried answer for this one, but in general it's not so bad for a team to have a high strikeout rate. For all the talk that "putting the ball in play" increases your chance of getting a hit or reaching on an error, there is still the possibility of hitting into a double play. It does depend on the makeup of the team though - if you have a bunch of slap hitters striking out all the time, you're in trouble, but if you have a bunch of three true outcomes players (strikeout, walk, or home run), you'll probably do pretty well.

        So yeah, the pundits who look down on players with high strikeout totals aren't usually taking into account the whole picture, but it can be a highly undesirable trait.

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        • #5
          Another benefit of putting the ball in play is possibly advancing runners on the bases. I guess that's probably cancelled out by the double play possibility, though.

          I think in general it's more of a perception thing. It takes more skill for a player to actually make contact with the ball than to swing and miss or just take pitches. It may just be that we look down on the strikeout because, in the scope of the one-on-one matchup, the batter doesn't display as much skill as the one who put the ball in play. In the scope of the game, there probably isn't as much of a difference whether the batter struck out or popped out. So, maybe it's a matter of how you evaluate the player - how he does in the one-on-one matchup against the pitcher or how he much he's a factor in helping the team win.

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          • #6
            good points - I don't see strikeouts as necessarily worse or better than any other kind of out, however it could be an indicator ... a batter (or team) who's struggling might tend to strikeout more than one that is simply facing a string of elite pitchers. Like any baseball stat, it requires more analysis to get a proper reflection of a team's offensive production.
            It certainly feels that way. But I'm distrustful of that feeling and am curious about evidence.

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            • #7
              Strike Outs are good!? Cool. Then my baseball career can begin, because I KNOW that I can strike out tons.

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              • #8
                I think it's a question of context--who strikes out, the game situation, and the overall team K rate. Overall, IMO it's like a lot of things in that it's not so bad in limited quantities, but a lot or only a little is bad.
                Only the madman is absolutely sure. -Robert Anton Wilson, novelist (1932-2007)

                Faith is believing what you know ain't so. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

                A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
                -- William James

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                • #9
                  Rays led the league in strikeouts last year....and walks....and had the 3rd highest run total in the AL.

                  They're bad because they don't move runners over but they're good because less balls in play with runners on base means less double plays as well.

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                  • #10
                    Well if we assume that BABIP is relatively fixed, then the only things that change are the number of balls in play and the number of hits that go over the wall for HRs. They tend to be mutually exclusive. If BABIP is .300, a team that never ever struck out and only hit singles would hit 300/300/300. If that team struck out 25% of the time and hit HRs 10% of the time they'd hit 255/255/625 (I think that's right)

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                    • #11
                      The strikeout is certainly the worst of the Three True Outcomes, but it doesn't define the hitter as much as the other two. You can K over 190 times, but if you hit 40+ dingers and walk a hundred times, you can be a valuable commodity.

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                      • #12
                        To get a little more specific, TangoTiger ran the linear weights numbers for all the situations where a K is/isn't different from a regular out:

                        http://www.tangotiger.net/lwbymob.htm


                        There are no situations where a K is better than another out, but there might be when you factor in GIDPs.

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