Posted on 05/15/2019 12:33:21 PM PDT by C19fan
MLB did something in 2008 that looked fairly unremarkable. The league set a new record for strikeout rate, bumping just a hair above the record of 17.3% after having spent the last decade bouncing back and forth within the boundaries of a single percentage point.
The 17.5% K-rate was not dramatically higher than the previous record from 2001. But it was the start of something big. Baseball broke this record again in 2009—and 2010, and 2011, and every year since, with no signs of stopping. It’s looked like an unrelenting march across the Land of Balls in Play to the Sea of Three True Outcomes.
The 2019 season has only offered more of the same. In fact, it’s offered dramatically more of the same. It’s not just that the game’s strikeout rate is on track to set a record for the 11th straight year; at this point, the simple existence of a new record hardly feels worth remarking on. No, it’s that the strikeout rate is on track to set a record by a margin that is nearly a record in its own right. Entering Wednesday, 23.2% of plate appearances have resulted in a K—0.9 percentage points above last season’s rate, which might not sound like very much, but on this scale, a tiny fraction can equal hundreds and hundreds of strikeouts. It’s tied for baseball’s eighth-highest increase, year over year, ever, and it’s the second highest in the last quarter-century. So… what does it mean? What does it look like? And where is it going?
(Excerpt) Read more at si.com ...
Baseball is becoming increasingly a game of all or nothing hitting.
In 2018, 25% of runs scored were home runs.
In 2018, 13% of hits were home runs.
In 2018 there were 41,207 strikeouts, topping last year’s 40,104.
For the 2018 season there were more strikeouts than hits for the first time in baseball history, 41,207 strikeouts, 41,019 hits.
There were 6,105 home runs in both leagues last year, a record.
Since the year 2000, there have been 97,343 home runs.
The contact hitter is becoming a thing of the past. (Though the 2018 Red Sox are a refreshing exception, or so it seems to me.)
Joe Sewell is the best contact hitter of all time.
Joe Sewell struck out 114 times in his entire career! In 1925 in 608 at bats he struck out all of 4 times. Sewell holds the record for the lowest strikeout rate in major league history, striking out on average only once every 62.5 at-bats, and the most consecutive games without a strikeout, at 115.
Even Babe Ruth never struck out over 100 times in a season.
Link below are stats for the 2018 season:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018.shtml
The “Big Cat” Johnny Mize hit with power (led league in home runs 4 times and slugging average 4 times) and had a lifetime BA of .312 (led league in 1939 with .349). His lifetime OBP - .397!
In 1947 Mize became the first player in MLB history to hit 50+ HRs & strike out less than 50 times in the same year. He was also the first player to have 4 three home run games.
As Mize neared retirement, the New York sportswriter Dan Parker penned a fitting ode in tribute to the big first baseman: “Your arm is gone, your legs likewise. But not your eyes, Mize, not your eyes.”
If four fouls were an out, it would speed up the game and save pitcher's arms.
More relief pitchers coming in fresh against batters who've been in the game for three hours already?
-PJ
And yet, when I add in home runs TWICE to calculate a slugging percentage, the correlation with RBI+RS increases.
Sacrilege!
A small dose of salvation!
The weighted schedule favoring area teams, interleague play, the too-long season and the designated hitter are sacrilege. TV breaks (to the point of affecting player performance), all of the silliness of fun stuff promotions during the game, giving up "insensitive" team logos, Kate Smith not singing the God Bless America, that's all sacrilege.
How about Steve Carlton going 27-10 for the 1972 Phillies team that ended the year 59-97? Other pitchers not named Steve Carlton went 32-87
A little before my time. Excellent!
Excellent!
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