Is the strikeout really that bad?
(Originally posted on February 4, 2009)
According to this article, “We don’t like the strikeout. We think it is a finite event. Nothing good can happen.”
Runner on 1st, 1 out, count is 3–2. What would you rather have happen as a risk-free move? Put the ball into play and potentially give up an inning-ending double play, or take the pitch and pray for a walk? Of course, it really depends on what hitter you have at bat. If it’s a 7–8–9 hitter, then taking the 3–2 pitch isn’t a bad idea. If one of your 1–2–3 guys are at bat, you want him to swing despite the GIDP risk; if he doesn’t pull it off, at least you still have your cleanup hitter up next with two outs, which isn’t too bad. In any case, if you take the 3–2 pitch, you could strike out and still give the on-deck batter a chance to do something. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Let’s see the reality of the situation.
According to baseball-reference.com, 3849 out of 59060 ground balls hit into play ended up as double plays, or 6.5%. I’m only including grounders, because, other than failed bunts and poor baserunning, a ground ball hit into play is the only way you can get yourself into a GIDP; if you include the number of fly balls and line drives hit into play, the league average GIDP rate decreases even further. Since 23.7% of ground balls ended up as hits, we can assume that around 70% of groundballs turned into only 1 out. If we include those other trajectories, only 2.8% of balls hit into play ended up as double plays. 2.8% isn’t a whole lot.
For strikeouts, I took the number of strikeouts that occurred after two strikes (by definition), and divided them by total plate appearances, giving me 36.7%. So let’s recap for a sec:
166715 at-bats
133831 balls hit into play
43972 hits
59060 ground balls hit into play
13994 hits from grounders
32881 strikeouts
3849 GIDP (not including bunt DPs)
Doing a little subtraction, we can see that there were 45066 ground balls put into play that resulted in at least one out, 8.5% of which were GIDPs. In comparison, there were 12185 fewer strikeouts, all of which only counted as one out (strike ’em out, throw ’em out plays count against the runner as a CS). In spite of all these numbers, though, the obvious difference between a ball put into play and a strikeout is that the strikeout carries incredibly low risk for a K-CS play. (433 CS per 89533 PA after 2 strikes = <0.5%) The risk, then, for a strikeout turning into two outs becomes around 3 times lower than for a ground ball to turn into a double play. The numbers look even worse for making contact if you consider that, as mentioned above, there were 12185 fewer strikeouts in all of MLB last year.
The main questions remain: is the strikeout really that bad? When do strikeouts become worse than putting the ball into play? The answer is this. Looking at outs, the strikeout carries basically the same negative value (i.e. a single out) as a groundball put into play with the risk of a GIDP. There are 8–9 occasions per game where you don’t want a strikeout, and 8–9 occasions where you don’t want a softly hit ground ball: 2 outs and runner on 1st with 1 out, respectively. Again, as stated above, the choice to go with either the strikeout or making contact really depends on who’s hitting behind the current hitter.
The main reason, I think, that strikeouts are so looked down upon is because they look really bad for the hitter. Visually. As long as they get on base regularly enough for their teammates, and have good baserunning skills, the strikeouts really shouldn’t matter. Putting the ball into play holds the edge over strikeouts if you want your team to have some form of consistency. You can’t get a hit by whiffing; sure, you can draw a walk here and there, but in the end, a hit is always more valuable than a walk. The stats may say that 70% of balls hit into play turn into outs, but keep in mind that it’s 70 per 100 attempts. The more you hit it into play, the more total hits you will eventually accumulate. It’s kinda like goaltending in the NHL — you might have a .930 save percentage, but if someone fires 100 shots on you in a game, you’ll still let in 7 goals, which is a lot to give up in a single game.
Teams and players with high strikeout totals usually come with a swing-for-the-fences mentality, or one that preaches hitting the ball as one possibly can (as opposed to placing the ball). The end result is what was discussed in the MLB.com article — you get a team that’s largely hit or miss. Either they’ll kick your ass by double digits, or they’ll be 0-for-5 across the board. This brings me to Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard, all of whom I shall discuss when and if I remember.
