You know, hitters COULD strike out a lot less than they do. It’s a conscious decision. They could hit earlier in the counts. They could bunt more. They could stop being so pull-conscious. They could go the other way more often. But as of right now, teams believe that they have a better chance of scoring runs with today’s hitting philosophy — even with a historic level of strikeouts — than they would going the way of, say, the Kansas City Royals, who don’t walk, don’t hit home runs, but put the ball in play.
Maybe they’re right. But for how much longer? How much higher can the strikeout rate go?
It’s mind-numbing to watch all these strikeout kings. Was baseball meant to be so dull that one in four batters can’t even put the ball in play?
So, strikeouts continue to go up and scoring continues to go down. I stole this from another writer- but if a strikeout is better than putting the ball in play, sign me up- I’ll strikeout every time for you.
Swinging and missing more not only increases your how many times you strike out but also increases how many times you walk in addition to your power assuming you are missing because you are swinging harder. The part that seems potentially sub-optimal to me is hitters approach these days with 2 strikes since the improved chance of walking is not applicable then. I don’t have the numbers to back this up, but I’d expect a more contact oriented mindset with 2 strikes might be better than no change in approach.
“When Aroldis Chapman is eligible to play, the Yankees finally might go with that slogan I’ve been pushing: “The New York Yankees: The Only team in baseball with more than one K in their name.”
Then again, they might not.”
Dave Barry called, and said that joke is worse than the elderly drivers around Miami.
Fixing this A) absolutely should not be on the teams and, B) is pretty simple really.
Just shrink the strikezone. There’s never been a strikezone consistently. It’s changed constantly over the years.
For goodness sake stop the low strikes.
Make the zone mid thigh to 3 inches above ye navel and k’s go down drastically and scoring goes up. Immediately. Overnight it would change.
You can’t have unhittable pitches called strikes and wonder what’s up.
If the bottom of the zone was brought up to mid thigh you’d have a fair zone where every strike was a pitch a batter could deal with.
Move the mound back to the exact middle of the diamond. About 3 feet. Would result on more balls in play.