Strikeouts are killing baseball

One reason speed became more important in the 60s through the 80s was the dual-use stadiums with their round fields, spacious outfields and often, artificial turf. Then came Camden Yards, and the new old-fashioned parks have teeny foul territories, natural grass, and shorter alleys for pull hitters. The Red Sox have never been a running team in their history, and Fenway Park is why. It's not like Betts or Bradley are slow, anything but. But it's crazy to run when you're one well placed pop fly away from a multi-run homer.

 

One of the major 'discoveries' of the analytical era is that, in many respects, an out is an out is an out. In fact, a strikeout might even be more valuable in some rare situations than a groundout because if you're Victor "Two Dead Knees" Martinez, you can't strike out into a double play (unless the runner gets caught, and then it's his fault).

Another major discovery of that ilk is, of course, the value of taking a walk and on-base percentage in general. It stands to reason that if batters are being more selective, they're probably seeing more two-strike counts in general and thus, more likely to K regardless of whether they're swinging for the fences or not. I don't have the data, but I bet the percentage of pitches thrown in two-strike counts per game is up significantly over the last 10-20 years.

That transitions nicely into the other side of the coin. From the pitching side, the amount of UCL tears and DL days has likely increased as a by-product of the near-ubiquitousness of 90-plus mph fastballs (and 'nasty' sliders). With teams trying to maximize their investments and keep phenoms (and for that matter, 13-year-olds) from visiting Drs. Andrews and ElAttrache, the pitch count phenomenon has taken over (to the frustration of hundreds of angry white sportswriters). To drive up a pitch count is considered a worthy sub-goal at almost every level of the game. And when Five-Inning Jake /crossthread heads to the showers, bullpen specialization means hitters take a higher percentage of their at-bats in a given game (or year) against middle- and late-inning relievers who are not employed for their control but rather because they have 95, 96 or 97 and then maybe one other off-speed pitch, whether it's a cutter, a splitter, a slider, etc. Besides, if that reliever has to deal with inherited runners, his job has to be not only to get outs, but to get outs that don't move those runners along.

So, in short, there probably are too many strikeouts in the game, but a large chunk of that problem is not a function of who's doing the striking out but rather that every tactical innovation that has taken place in the game since the 1990s has pointed to it.

 

Speed, of course, tends to help your infield defense.

Funny, back in the olden olden days a lot of cement-footed traffic-cone infielders were reputed to be great defensive players because they had great fielding percentages and rarely made errors. It was kind of the first glimmer of sabermetrics in the 60s/70s that these guys were covering about four square feet of ground.

Actually, though, I think Bill Veeck, while discussing some of Branch Rickey's great trades of the 1930s in his books in the early 1960s, quoted Rickey talking about minor league shortstops "setting fielding records because they were covering so little ground."

 

this may seem counterintuitive, at least until Hitters adjust, but it would help with ptcher's Pitch counts which would enable them to last longer into the game and also would help speed up the game at least somewhat
What if MLB limited batters to a certain amount a Certain amount of foul balls, say three after there's two strikes. ( whatever number everybody can agree on). The third Foul ball is a strikeout, The same as a batter is out on a foul ball bunt if he has 2 strikes.

Like I said it would lower pitch counts, hopefully enabling picthers to go deeper , it would eliminate those really boring at Bats where a hitter fouls off 10 pitches in a row, and probably would also shorten games .

 

So the solution to too many strikeouts would be to create more strikeouts?

 

Maybe throw a 4th outfielder out there and just lob the ball in.

 

If you can't watch a batter foul off five pitches in a row, you probably should just not watch baseball. There's other sports for short attention spans.

 

Used to go to a lot of Reds games in my youth. Loved Tom Browning. Worked fast, threw strikes. And you were NEVER late to a game he started. If you're 30 minute late, you missed four innings.

 

Lot more exciting than Steve Trachsel games.

 

The Human Rain Delay. Had him when I was on the Jays beat. Nice guy, hated his guts.

Mark Buehrle was the compensation.

 

A good, fighting at bat is one of the joys of the game. I'd be curious to know which active hitters have the most 10-pitch at bats.

 

Both difficult to watch. But have to appreciate both. How many guys had better arms, and consistently threw at least 8 mph better than both of those guys. Probably a decent amount who never made the majors. Buehrle obviously had the better career and there's more LHPs who couldn't break glass with their fastballs than RHPs.