We Don’t Mind Missing
In my piece for the Wall Street Journal today, I note the exponential increase in strikeouts over the last 50 years. Over the last 10-15 years especially, there has been an extreme shift towards the acceptance of whiffing, as teams have discovered that it’s okay to build an offense around non-contact hitters as long as they do good stuff when they put the bat on the ball.
Perhaps nowhere is the change in management philosophy more obvious than the Mariners. Last year, the Mariners struck out in just 15.8% of their at-bats, fewest in the majors. This was by design, as the Bavasi regime placed significant value on guys who didn’t strike out. The M’s saw contact rate as a big positive, and the team was constructed to maximize balls in play as an offensive strategy.
Jack Zduriencik? Couldn’t care less about strikeouts. Seriously, look at the list of guys he’s brought in.
Branyan – 34.6% K%
Hall – 34.4%
Langerhans – 27.4%
Hannahan – 23.1%
Gutierrez – 22.4%
Practically every position player the team has added since the new administration took over has had contact ability listed as a weakness. They do other things well, and that’s what they were acquired for. Defense, extra base hits, walks… these are the things that are valued now. Making feeble contact just for the sake of making contact? No thanks.
You might not like to watch the offense as currently constructed, but you should still be encouraged – the GM has shown that when it comes to bringing in hitters, he’s not going to be looking for the same kind of slap-hitting, anti-walk, contact specialists that formed the basis for the lousy teams that we saw the last five years. This offense isn’t good, but our GM realizes that strikeouts by his hitters aren’t a problem, and that’s just another reason to be optimistic about the future.
Strikeouts have their disadvantage (see striking out with the bases loaded and less than two outs, a Mariner habit of longstanding), but they have their advantages, too. You can’t strike out on the first pitch; you have to see at least three. Unless there is some dumb baserunning, you can’t hit in to a double play with a strikeout. They can’t get the lead runner, who may be faster than the guy whos strikes out.
And you’re not Yuniesky Betancourt if you strike out a lot.
In fairness to the previous M’s administration, strike outs are slightly less valuable (more invaluable?) than other kinds of outs. Just not enough to matter.
Advising good friend Yuniesky to strike out more often is not the solution to his – or Royals fans’- woes. (I know that’s not what you were advising Mr. Baker.)
I would like to see our line up make more contact. A strikeout is never a good out. I have liked most of the thins the Zduriencik has done and I’m really excited to see the talent the organization will get from the future drafts since I think this is now a strength of our organization.
I can accept a high strike out rate from Branyan since he did hit 30 bombs, but he is also not a very good RBI guy with the number of stikeouts he seems to get when there are runners in scoring position. The other 4 guys in your post are the type of player that shouldn’t have high strike out rates, they are not homerun hitters and should have more bat control.
Just becase you can draw walks doesn’t mean you should strikeout a lot, it could mean you know the strike zone and make the pitcher put pitches in the strike zone.
I got a different read on that. It seems to me that Breadbaker isn’t giving advice. I think it’s more like rejoicing the fact that Yuni isn’t on the team.
A strikeout is never a good out.
So? There’s no such thing as a good out. The “productive out” is a myth. A base hit or a walk is always better, which is why I’ve always found it bizarre that people can complain that Ichiro is too focused on getting hits.
Bottom of the 9th, tie game, runner on third with less than two outs. The batter hits is fly ball moderately deep, winning runs scores.
That would be a bad out?
Again, so? Extremely specialized situation.
You’re focussing on the wrong thing. Not getting out is MUCH more important.
And, again. Think about it. With two outs, striking out is irrelevant. With no one on, striking out is irrelevant. In all cases, it’s way more important not to make an out.
The “productive out†is a myth.
A productive out is slicing across rather than down. You’re still headed in a bad direction, just not quite as fast.
I think anyone who really paid attention to the Mike Cameron years, and what happened when he was dumped because of strikeouts, should realize they aren’t the end of the world. Our offense may be painful to watch at times, but it’s nowhere near as bad as what the previous philosophy was putting together.
Of the 90 players with 375 or more at bats in the AL, only Albert Callaspo of Kansas City has fewer strikeouts than Yuni.
For those of you who detest strikeouts, Yuni is your kind of ball-player.
Mike Cameron.
Rinse and repeat.
I can live with the strikeouts, as long as the OBP does not suffer for it. The correlation with OBP and # of pitches per at bat are to important stats IMO. The Angels do a awesome job at making a pitcher earn his outs. I hope Jak Z can keep our OBP on the uprise, the hits will come. The Mariners need to get rid of their Beltre/Yuni stigma of swing wildly you may hit the first pitch. Guti is the right direction , .347 OBP and over 4.1 pitches an AB. More players with those skills please.
The “productive out†is a myth.
Seems to me that the world is divided into two types of outs – totally non-productive (e.g. strikeout) and not totally non-productive (e.g. first out of an inning on a deep fly that moves runners up to second and third).
Agreed – all outs are non-productive when compared to a hit or walk. But not all outs are equal – some are more productive than others and those are the ones people usually refer to as “productive outs”.
Making an out is bad. Always. The fact that somebody else managed to take advantage of the circumstances in which you made an out, and accomplish something positive (maybe even win the game), is not something you did. The “productive out” is akin to claiming credit for it when you reach base on a fielding error.
I wonder if or how our GIDP rate has been affected (this year vs. previous years)?
If only there were a site that tracked this kind of thing.
Seems to me that this is like trying to differentiate between getting killed by gunshot wound and getting killed by machine gun fire.
Again, Mike Cameron. Rinse and repeat.
So rosters should be built in order to limit the potential for a strikeout to occur in the bottom of the 9th of a tie game when a runner is on third with less than two outs?
Seems to me that every single out made by the defense could be considered to be productive…
Seems to me that every single out made by the defense could be considered to be productive…
Caught foul ball leading to the winning run scoring, when it could have just been dropped.
Sorry, allowed to drop.
Also, you could argue throwing to first on a squeeze that wins the game.
I think terry makes the appropriate point, here. There is not much use in arguing about what qualifies as a productive or non-productive out. (Though if was a quick and easy definition could be anything that increases win probability is productive and anything that decreases it is non-productive.)
The issue is what type of players do you want to have on your team to maximize wins. There is a strong argument that a player’s contact rate doesn’t really matter all that much compared to some of his other attributes.
Seems to me that
every single outmost outs made by the defense could be considered to be productive…fixed
If your strike out rate doesn’t effect your OBP, then you’re alright, but when you have a high strike out rate and a low OBP, that’s what gets me.
I guess I just hate the opportunity to have the opposing teams’ defense not be able to convert the out. A strikeout very rarely turns into a runner on base. A batted ball has a greater opportunity to fall in, get through, get booted, or allow a baserunner to take advantage of the out. (Dumb question, does an error contribute positively to a batter’s OBP?) Losing that opportunity seems like a waste.
At the same time, it seems that the guys who miss a lot (Reynolds, Howard, Branyan, et al) have a greater opportunity to really create stuff when they make contact, thereby lessening the negative impact of their whiffs. But when it’s guys without the bludgeoning power of those guys (i.e. Rob Johnson), it’s really frustrating to see them swing through pitches, especially bad ones, because then they don’t even have a chance to single. They just suck, relative to other major leaguers.
“Productive outs” are sometimes better than a strikeout, yes. But sometimes outs in play are worse that strikeout: the double play is the most obvious one, but not the only one (Breadbaker listed getting the lead runner who may be slower that the batter, and the fact that on a strikeout you have to see at least three pitches, so you have a chance to see a stolen base or wild pitch).
The people who despise strikeouts always cite productive outs, and never cite the outs that are worse than strikeouts.
Got me scraps, I left that out of my diatribe. Double plays do suck.
And I shake my head at strikeouts, especially when the batter swings at a clear ball; but I hate a double play.
If watching Jose Vidro trickle into one double play after another can’t change a man’s mind than nothing will, but I sometimes wonder what Bavasi thinks of all this – if anything he has seen or read in the past 7 months has changed his philosophy.
Um, the point of the post was the difference in the types of hitters being brought in.
If you concentrate on batters who get on base and slug, you get production and runs. If you concentrate hitters with contact rates and not striking out, you don’t necessarily get that production and runs.
I’ll take the production, thank you.
Mike Cameron. Rinse and repeat.
If I remember correctly (and a quick search of Tango’s site did not yield results), using linear weights for strikeouts versus in-play outs with runners on base is virtually zero (something in the one/one hundredths in terms of run values). With only a runner on first, I think a strikeout is slightly less damaging than an in-play out because of the possibility of a double play. Strikeouts are slightly more damaging in other situations with men on base, especially with a runner on third and less than two outs, but those circumstances happen less often than simply a runner on first.
Ha! Slipped by a similar sentiment.
I’ll take a bad lineup of strikeout guys who can do something WHEN they make contact over a bad lineup full of contact-just-because guys any day of the week.
Bad lineups who are good at making contact means they’re a bunch of hackers, which means you have a hacktactular offense, which means you’re going to have barrels of fun (not) watching them bail out mediocre pitchers time and time again.
This offense has been much more enjoyable to watch in terms of process. Even when all three batters struck out with the bases-loaded vs. Scott Kazmir the other day, Mike Sweeney’s K was called-looking in a 9-pitch AB.
Jay Buhner says “and hey, don’t forget about my OBP better than .370 from ’93-’97!”
Hell, I’ll take a lineup of strikeout guys if they can get on base at a .400 clip and slug at an average pace. Some people, like Bavasi, were putting things in the wrong order. Once you get the production, I can see selecting for guys who don’t strike out as much, but first things first: GET ON BASE. SLUG.
Him, too. Though I vastly prefer Cameron’s defense.
The biggest disadvantage of a stikeout is that by not putting the ball in play you do not force the defense to make a play which may lead to an error. (unless of course its on the catcher on a 3rd strike.)
K machines:
Branyan – 34.6% K% – 4.11 P/PA
Hall – 34.4% – 4.14 P/PA
Langerhans – 27.4% – 3.94 P/PA
Hannahan – 23.1% – 4.33 P/PA
Gutierrez – 22.4% – 4.15 P/PA
“Contact” hitters:
Yuni – 8.0% K% – 3.27 P/PA
Ichiro – 10.1% – 3.74 P/PA
Lopez – 11.2% – 3.50 P/PA
Johjima – 12.0% – 3.34 P/PA
So outside of Ichiro, the guys who have more “productive” outs also see 3-4 pitches fewer per game. If you had a full lineup of those guys, you’re looking at about 30 fewer pitches thrown per game.
30 additional pitches per game (from a lineup of “unproductive” out guys) holds a huge amount of value. Discounting this in the discussion is a failure to analyze all possible outcomes.
The biggest advantage of a strikeout is that you force the pitcher to throw more pitches. Against most teams, I’d rather get to their bullpen than make their fielders make plays.
Oh, yeah…good insight. Seems to me, 30 extra pitches means one less inning from the starter, one more of the bullpen. Against a back of a rotation guy, not as big a consideration (but still valuable), but against a top of a rotation guy, say, perhaps in a playoff game…
I think the entire “productive out” vs. strikeout theory depends on the situation at hand. I’ve watched this years M’s routinley fail miserably in situations like bases loaded nobody out and come away with 0 runs, a major league team should at absolute bare minimum come away with 1 run in that scenario, really should make 2 runs come across, just by making the right kind of/or productive out. In this case no excuse for a strike out or a double play. The M’s have failed numerous times this year in that regard to even bring across 1 run, **note** i’m not sure if it’s above/below the league average, but it sure as hell feels like it’s well above. Also don’t get me wrong, I’d take base hits that drive in multiple runs out of these scenarios versus ground balls to 2nd or sac flys that bring home a single run, but if we are going to make an out, make it one that makes sense.
Now take the otherside, example game in Detroit where Branyan hits the homer in the 8th to win it. If he hits a routine flyball out that does nothing or heck even a strikeout because he is trying to win the game in that situation, I’ll take that.
Point being it depends on the scenario, and I’ll take the hitter who is as proficient as possible, who understands situations and has the ability to more often than not make the minimum play happen with potential for the maximum.
Natewag – according to baseball-reference.com, with the bases loaded and less than 2 outs, the Mariners – as a team – have hit: .318/.350/.488.
Admittedly, you provided anecdotal evidence w/r/t a “no outs” scenario, but, ummm…I still think you might be wrong.
While Dave’s points are valid, the difference in strikeout out rate between the 60′s and now is hardly exponential. Granted, a lot more hitters are striking out 100+ times per season, but that is greatly influenced by the fact that there are a lot more hitters who have a chance to strikeout 100+ times. In 1960, there were 16 MLB teams…the NL has that many now. Plus, the addition of the DH in the AL gives one extra hitter per team a change to strike out on a daily basis.
Still, the strikeout rate has increased about 10-15% since the 60′s in the AL, and 20% or so in the NL, and that is significant. In fact, 2008 and 2009 have the highest strikeout rates in history in both the AL and NL. Neither year is among the SLG PCT or runs/game leaders though, so I’m not convinced that a higher strikeout rate necessarily correlates to greater run production.
Nice…now I *am* wrong. My info above was the M’s line with a runner on third (only) and less than two outs.
The bases loaded line (0, 1 or 2 outs) is .319/336/.489.
I’ll show myself out.
I think the other factor here to remember is the possibility of making two “unproductive” outs — a redundancy, I know — in one fell swoop, but consider:
GDP% of total PA for the M’s
2009: 1.9 (101/5089)
2008: 2.2 (137/6176)
2007: 2.4 (154/6209)
2006: 1.9 (118/6213)
2005: 1.9 (115/6095)
2004: 2.1 (132/6362)
I know these figures are a little crude, because they don’t take into account the fact that the more runners a team puts on base the greater the possibility that a single plate appearance may result in multiple outs, and I’m not sophisticated enough a statistician to figure out (quickly, anyway) how the wOBA for each year would skew these numbers (though, the variance across these seasons, for those interested, is a whopping .024 — .309 in ’05 to .333 in ’07 — and this year the M’s are at .310). The fact remains, though, that the M’s have just about the best GDP rate they’ve had in six seasons (the ’05 and ’06 seasons are slightly better, but only by roughly 1/100th of a percentage point).
I guess the lesson from all of this is that a better GDP rate in and of itself is predictive of nothing, since ’05 and ’06, which were comparable, were of course terrible seasons, and this year is not.
I will say this, though, in the spirit of a completely unquantifiable fan reaction: with the bases loaded and one or no out, I’d far rather have a guy up there who’s willing to watch a borderline pitch with two strikes and preserve the rally than a guy who would rather top it to the shortstop because he can’t stand NOT to put the ball in play, even if it costs his team two outs.
What Jack Z said at the USSM/LL event at Safeco about the market undervaluing defense applies to strikeouts as well. In other words, if other GMs shy away from players who strike out a lot and miss the things they do well, then you can upgrade for them on a trade of someone who strikes out less. And that’s a way of improving your team. What Dave is saying is, vive la difference!
In a lot of ways, I think looking for “productive outs” is planning for failure. It’s a contradiction in terms.
Look for success first–look for the hit or walk. Similarly, look for the successful hitter first.
Okay. An an out is bad no matter what. Got it. But with all the talk on BABIP, even if a guy has as low BABIP (lets say .250 or lower) that’s still a 25% chance of getting a hit. Batting average on SO is .000.
That’s the sort of Bavasi logic that got us into this mess.
So you’re saying Willie Bloomquist was a more productive hitter than Branyan?
The biggest disadvantage of a stikeout is that by not putting the ball in play you do not force the defense to make a play which may lead to an error.
The biggest advantage of a strikeout is that you force the pitcher to throw more pitches. Against most teams, I’d rather get to their bullpen than make their fielders make plays.
You can still work a count, not strike out and put the ball in play. I believe Edgar had one of the best pitches per plate appearance rates every year when he played and I don’t think he struck out alot. Just a guess.
Isn’t that kind of the exception rather than the rule? I mean, if Russell Branyan or Franklin Gutierrez had Edgars contact abilities they’d probably be future Hall of Famers as well.
No, I’m saying a Strikeout is not equal to putting contact on the ball. Branyan is worth it because when he does make contact it goes very, very far. Bloomquist is not worth it because he doesn’t do much when he does make contact.
My point is a generalization that Strikeouts are not good. They are never “productive”.
Certain players are worth it however, despite the Strikeouts, not because of them. You accept the good with the bad. And I don’t care how you cut it, strikeouts are bad.
So are outs.
Spending the valuable currency that is an out in order to score a run is bad baseball.
If it happens when you’re going to make an out anyway, great; but building your roster to maximize the amount of times you trade outs for runs gets you the 2008 Mariners.
Dirk, the point people are trying to make is that focussing on strikeouts are looking at the exact wrong thing.
The difference between strikeouts and other kinds of outs is MUCH MUCH MUCH smaller than getting on base and making an out.
Ergo, focus on people who can get on base. Don’t worry about the strikeouts. IT’S THE WRONG THING TO WORRY ABOUT.
Mike Cameron. Rinse and repeat. Add Jay Buhner to accent.
Put it another way…if there’s a batter that bats .300, gets on base at .500, but ALL his outs are strikeouts…are you really gonna focus on the strikeouts and not on his OBP?
Agreed, and if you are making 100+ that have zero chance of becoming a hit then the other 400-500 ABs better have a much better chance of doing something (ie Branyan making the ball very flat on one side).
Let me restate my case:
SO = Bad
SO + low power = Very Bad
SO + low power + shitty defense = slit my wrists terrible
So + lots of Power = okay
SO + lots of Power + HOF defense = good player with minor flaw (ie Mike Cameron)
Edgar may not have struck out quite as much as Branyan and Buhner, but he wasn’t exactly Betancourt or Johjima in terms of making contact either.
Uh huh. Here’s the thing. You’re thinking of Ks as black holes of offense and other outs as some kind of… potential hit.
But they’re not. 100 strikeouts are just as out-y as 100 outs. They are, in terms of game outcomes, a little bit more harmful. But they’re still 100 outs to 100 outs. And they’re just as close to being potential hits or walks as the 100 ground outs are. Outs are outs. They’re bad.
No, I agree with what you’re saying. All I’m saying is a SO should not be considered a good thing. Just like hitting a week pop-up is not a good thing, or is hitting into a double play or fouling out. But if a guy crushes the ball and it’s caught at the warning track or hits a sharp liner and it gets snared by a leaping fielder, at least he did something positive that resulted in an out.
DMZ, maybe I’m missing the point but were talking fractions of percentage points right? So if a SO has 0% chance of resulting in anything good then how is that equal to something that is has 1% chance of resulting in something good. Over the course of a 162 game season maybe it makes a difference, maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know.
I do know that as a fan watching a SO irritates me much more than a hard hit liner that gets caught.
Has anybody, anywhere, suggested that a strikeout is a good thing?
No, but it seems like there are people that say the SO isn’t a bad thing. Or maybe I’m putting words in their mouth (post) . But that is the impression I’m getting from this thread.
What they’re trying to say is that a strikeout is not a worse thing than other kinds of outs. It may sound like a defense of striking out sometimes, mostly because people feel like they have to overcompensate for the general sentiment that strikeouts are an absolutely horrible thing.
Mike I would agree that under the following circumstances an is an out:
Two outs
any number of outs and no runners on.
But with runners on and less than two outs, a SO is the third worst outcome (w/ DP and TP as the two even worse outcomes).
I’ll spot the fielders choice that takes out the lead runner as worse too if the lead runner is faster, but if the batter is slower then that should be DP normally and is worse anyway.
While outs that end up not moving runners are equally bad as SO, isn’t the percentage chance that a good outcome will occur still higher?
I know I’m being circular, I just can’t understand if we agree that a SO’s negative run value is higher than other outs how we don’t call it a worse outcome.
Bottom-line, I’m not arguing that High strikeout players are bad and we shouldn’t have them on our team. All I’m saying is that the individual event that is the SO can be a worse outcome than another out under certain circumstances.
Then I should clarify that the focus was on outs in general, not in specific situations. Sure, anybody can construct scenarios in which some kinds of outs are more tolerable than others, but in order for that to matter in the context we were discussing originally, you have to believe that situational hitting is a skill.
these arguments are pointless, because even the guys making sense aren’t swerving the discussion to the salient points. It’s not about what a player does bad (strikeouts, weak grounders and popups, etc). It’s all about what a player does well and how much you have to pay for it. Thank god the Mariners GM gets that… because the bulk of the Mariners fan base has never been able to get it, much less the front office.
Player A does x things well. Player B does y things well. If x > y, then I’d much rather the team do what it takes to get Player A depending on the money.
I don’t mean to single out the Mariners or their fans since most of baseball doesn’t get this either.
Remember, we’re not the only team who gave up on Mike Cameron and Jay Buhner. Cameron will probably still be looking for a job this winter after being one of the more productive players in baseball with his bat as well as his glove… no matter how many times he strikes out.
There are bad hitters out there that don’t strike out at all. There are productive hitters out there that don’t walk much. There are simply more important things to look at than how many times a player specifically makes an out by striking out.
Sure, I would like my players to do less striking out through improving the skills which diminish strike outs and increase the productivity of player’s plate appearances… but not if it will come at the expense of said productivity.
I would love for anybody to make the argument that they hate strikeouts so much they would like to see their team implement skill M to reduce strikeouts even if it reduces the chances to score runs.
If every out the Mariners recorded on offense was a strikeout, but they improved their scoring by even .5 runs per game… you’d all learn to love strikeouts.
You would think, but you mention Cameron — he was a stellar defensive center fielder here and also hit pretty well — but people would not stop complaining about the strikeouts.
So I’m a little skeptical of the claim that people would come around. I think there’s a kind of emotional hook for some people where strikeouts can’t be regarded entirely rationally.
Beyond that, yes, absolutely.
yes, i know… we booed his ass out of here… but there are stories like that all over baseball. Every strikeout by Russell the Muscle is going to look worse to fans because this team doesn’t score any runs. After the 2001 season, this team has had problems scoring runs.
Mike Cameron is the perfect illustration of this point. In 2001, when this team was scoring runs and winning record number of games, nobody complained about how many times anybody struck out. When they started to score less runs and win less games, the complaints started.
Mariners fans “get it” a little bit… score more runs good, win less games bad… but they express their blame for the problems in the wrong areas… consistently and, in Cameron’s case, criminally.
Ks indicate the inability to put the ball in play. We need hitters who have less of this inability. Or do we? Looking at team stats, there is a real nice correspondence between runs and OPS, but no apparent correlation between runs and Ks.
Another way to look at this is from the pitching side. Do we care if our pitchers are strike out pitchers or pitch-to-contact types? No, we just want outs. The thinking on the offense should be no different. We need to minimize outs.
“Ks indicate the inability to put the ball in play.”
No… actually they don’t. They indicate that a player didn’t put the ball in play on that particular plate appearance… and unless you’ve looked at every single plate appearance for a batter, you really can’t say it indicates anything else. More information is necessary to evaluate a player. A strikeout is just one possible result of a plate appearance. We need to stop being so results-oriented, especially if we’re not going to objectively look at every result.
“We need hitters who have less of this inability. Or do we? Looking at team stats, there is a real nice correspondence between runs and OPS, but no apparent correlation between runs and Ks.”
If you slave away at more than half of your games at “pitcher’s parks”, it would be better to put a team together independent of a direct correlation between the productivity of their balls in play and how many runs they’ll score.
Just because the ball is in play in SafeCo Field, doesn’t mean something productive is going to happen. If you’re swinging for the sake of swinging (yes, I’m talking about you, Yuniesky Betancourt), you have a much greater chance of creating an out and/or killing a possibly productive situation than if you are practicing good strike-zone judgment.
This might lead to a few strikeouts as you get deeper in to counts. Sure, you could swing at a few of the pitches which are borderline, if you could correctly identify them, but the chances of making something productive out of those pitches is reduced in a pitcher’s park, whereas there is benefit to every extra pitch a pitcher has to throw.
I hope by now you’re seeing what I’m getting at here. If you can practice good strike-zone judgment in a pitcher’s park, you have a better chance of converting plate appearances into something productive, rather than take your chances with just getting a ball in play.
Batters such as Adam Dunn, Carlos Pena, Prince Fielder, Jason Bay, Jack Cust and, yes, Russell Branyan are proving you can use this approach effectively. It gets lots of walks, lots of strike outs and the most out of the times they do put the ball in play.
They’re striking out INSTEAD of, not as well as, making other kinds of outs. I’m very much ok with that… and am starting to see very clearly it’s the correct strategy if you play in an environment where it’s tough to pile up runs, or if most of the value of your team is held up in run prevention.