It has been 15 years since I played competitive, organized baseball. Although I never played above the high school level, I think I can accurately say that many things in the sport have changed over those 15 years. One of those things is the perception and proliferation of strikeouts, both from a hitter’s and a pitcher’s point of view. Aside from losing, there was nothing I hated more as a baseball player than finishing an at bat with a strikeout. I would try my best to make sure that didn’t happen (often unsuccessfully). I would shorten my swing with two strikes, choke up on the bat, and generally do whatever I could to put the ball in play.
I believe a majority of professional hitters used to have a similar approach. But I seriously doubt this is still the case. The numbers would certainly indicate otherwise. Today, Major League hitters are striking out at record breaking rates. So far in 2013, teams are averaging 7.63 strike outs per game. This is well ahead of last year’s all time high of 7.50. Just five years ago, that number was 6.34 and a decade ago it was 5.80. That is a pretty incredible increase in whiffs in just a ten year period. And it’s having a major impact on the game. Scoring is down to just 4.25 runs per team, per game. That is the lowest rate since 1992. The significant increase in drug testing is the most cited reason for the drop in offense in recent years, and I think that is a completely valid reason. But the inability of hitters to put the ball in play is a major factor as well.
So let’s figure out why this is happening. Are pitchers just better than they were ten years ago? Do they throw nastier offspeed pitchers that are tougher to hit? Are teams more willing to promote and play guys who sacrifice contact for power? Or, in general, do today’s hitters step up to the plate with significantly different approaches to hitting than the players from previous generations? In my opinion, the answer to those questions are yes, yes, yes and yes. The end result is less scoring and a whole lot more whiffing.
During the Moneyball era of about a decade ago, the emerging philosophy to hitting was to take more walks. Do whatever it takes to get on base. Working a count in an attempt to walk naturally leads to more strikeouts as well. There has always been a place in baseball for guys who strike out a ton, but hit for power and also receive more than their share of walks. But what’s really interesting about the recent surge in strikeouts is that there has been no increase in walks at all. In fact, last season’s 3.03 walks per team, per game was the lowest rate since 1968! So the Moneyball era is clearly over. What we have now is something entirely different. It’s a pitching dominated league in which hitters struggle to reach base and strike out a ton. And I hate it!
This season, only one team has a worse offensive K/BB rate than my very own White Sox. But since the Astros are fielding an AAA roster, I’ll put them aside and focus on the Sox instead. They are the perfect example of what is wrong with today’s general approach to hitting. Sure, they have plenty of guys who can hit home runs. They have the 4th highest HR ratio in the league. Yet only the Marlins and Dodgers score fewer runs per game. This is because the Sox strike out at the third highest rate (an alarming 23.7% of their plate appearances end in strikeouts), yet find themselves as the least walked team in all of baseball! Home runs are great. I would much rather have guys who hit them than guys who don’t. But if you field a lineup full of players who don’t take walks and constantly strike out, you are going to struggle to score and will lose a lot of games. That is exactly what is happening to the Sox this year. Their leadoff hitter, Alejandro De Aza, has 42 strike outs (tied with teammate Adam Dunn for 9th in MLB). Their #2 hitter, Jeff Keppinger, has not taken a walk this season in 117 plate appearances. His laughably pathetic .188 OBP is somehow lower than his batting average. After looking at the numbers from De Aza and Keppinger, it is no wonder why the Sox struggle to score. They never have anybody on base when the heart of the order comes up. The White Sox are hardly alone in their poor plate discipline numbers, but they are the best example of the current trend in the game.
As a quick aside, have I ever mentioned how much I love Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs? Easily my two favorite web sites. All of the numbers I am quoting in this article came from one or the other. Which leads me to my next topic. FanGraphs has advanced stats in a category called “Plate Discipline”. Here is a FG page displaying league-wide plate discipline stats for the past ten years. These stats show how often players swing at, and make contact with, pitches inside and outside the strike zone. For the most part, there haven’t been dramatic changes in these stats over this ten year period, except in three key categories: O-Swing% (percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone), O-Contact% (percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat) and Zone% (overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone). The O-Swing% and O-Contact% numbers have been creeping up, despite the overall swing and contact percentages remaining relatively steady. This means hitters are swinging at far more pitches outside of the zone than they used to. And they are seeing fewer strikes as a result (Zone% number has been trending downward). So hitters are swinging at more bad pitches, allowing pitchers to throw fewer strikes yet walk about the same, if not fewer hitters.
To me, these numbers scream out that there is a problem with plate discipline in baseball right now. I’m not discounting the possibility that pitchers are simply getting better and are harder to hit. In fact, I am almost certain that is the case. But if I were a MLB general manager, I would definitely start looking for hitters who are more disciplined at the plate. It might be time to go back to the Moneyball approach, with a twist. It is fine to have a few hackers in the lineup, but you better find some players who will take a walk too. And it isn’t the worst thing in the world to employ hitters who are head and shoulders above their peers in terms of putting the ball in play, particularly if they bring other skills to the table like speed, elite defense, or maybe even decent power.
I think there has been less of a change in how pitchers are viewed. Strikeout pitchers have almost always been preferred over pitch-to-contact guys in the eyes of scouts and baseball execs. Pitchers have a difficult time advancing through a system if they don’t produce impressive strikeout ratios. This is nothing new. But there has definitely been a decrease in the number of successful pitch-to-contact pitchers in the big leagues. I saw one such pitcher in person just last night. Nationals young lefty Ross Detwiler is a rare breed in today’s game. He is a hard throwing lefty who just doesn’t strike out many hitters, but is still a very effective pitcher. But I would have a hard time naming more than a couple other similar type of pitchers.
I’d like to delve into the pitching side of things to a much greater extent some other time. For now, I’m concluding that poor plate discipline and the willingness of teams to play guys who struggle to hit a baseball are leading factors in why we are seeing more strikeouts than ever before. As one who despises strikeouts from a hitting perspective, I can only hope this trend will stop sometime soon.
By the way, I had been planning on writing about this topic for a few weeks now, but happened to read a great article by CBS’s Scott Miller on this very thing just a few days ago. I highly recommend his article which is obviously much more professional and thorough than mine. You should check it out too.
