Jays Centre: are strikeouts really that bad?

[Bull]

40 minutes ago, chopsx9 said:

Nobody has said to stop trying to make hard contact.  The original question was are SOs less bad than perceived.  Strike Outs are inevitable - even players that don't try to hit home runs are going to SO.  Just because they are inevitable doesn't make them less negative.  Those two are not mutually exclusive.  In the age of the universal DH has there been a single at bat with a runner on third where anyone has thought "Well I hope he strikes out here"? - without issuing some sort of qualification on the contact made.

 

The question was how negative are SO's - not should players try to avoid strike outs at all cost.

But I'm sure you see that the two are inextricably tied. No one hopes that their favorite player strikes out, but that's a strawman; now on is saying that. 

The point is that the same behavior that leads to harder contact also leads to more strikeouts. So the strikeout RESULT is not as bad because it is part of a PROCESS that leads to greater results more often.

 

Though I'd suggest that Anthony Rizzo's going for contact with 2 strikes is an interesting balanced approach.

Edited March 11, 2025 by Bull

[chopsx9]

6 minutes ago, imb said:

well, you're taking micro issue - a single at-bat - and using it to justify a take on a macro position, if a strikeout is worse than bad contact (or however we're framing it.) And you just can't do that. Is a strikeout worse than bad contact? Depends on the situation. 

What macro position am I justifying?  I am absolutely referring to the micro issue of a single at bat.  Absolutely a SO CAN be better than bad contact - but you are presupposing that the contact is bad.  To make good contact you have make contact in the first place and just like a SO can be a side effect of an effective hitting approach (it can also be the side effect of a bad hitting approach)  so is weak contact.  You can't avoid either but with a SO you have 0% chance of making good contact - putting the ball in play gives you roughly a 30% chance of getting a hit. Making weak contact can have better results than hard contact but nobody tries to make weak contact - well, I guess that's not true; players bunt all the time and shorten their swing with 2 outs, and try to hit and run.  

[chopsx9]

34 minutes ago, Bull said:

But I'm sure you see that the two are inextricably tied. No one hopes that their favorite player strikes out, but that's a strawman; now on is saying that. 

The point is that the same behavior that leads to harder contact also leads to more strikeouts. So the strikeout RESULT is not as bad because it is part of a PROCESS that leads to greater results more often.

 

Though I'd suggest that Anthony Rizzo's going for contact with 2 strikes is an interesting balanced approach.

" but that's a strawman; now on is saying that." - but it's not a strawman because in my post I literally suggest that nobody has ever thought that.

"So the strikeout RESULT is not as bad because it is part of a PROCESS that leads to greater results more often"  - You can make the exact same type of argument for putting the ball in play. And there are many a player who are now selling used Fords for which that process did not yield greater results more often.

"Though I'd suggest that Anthony Rizzo's going for contact with 2 strikes is an interesting balanced approach." - hmm I wonder what his reasoning for that approach is.

In any case I've used up my 25 minutes of allotted  NSBB time for the week so I'll horsefeathers off now 

[imb]

1 hour ago, chopsx9 said:

What macro position am I justifying?  

the entire discussion is about micro or macro

we're trying to figure out the age old question of if a strikeout is worse than a different type of out. (It's a false premise.)

youre looking at the micro - a single at bat that ends in a strikeout - and using that outcome to try and determine a much larger question. Sure there are situations where you'd rather that one at bat end in weak contact rather than a K for the reasons you've described - maybe you force an error, maybe you bloop into a hit. But that same hitter that just struck out is going to come to the plate 699 more times that season. if that one single strikeout was the result of an approach that leads to more hard contact and more xbh, or if that one strikeout was the result of an approach where the batter is trying to see more pitches, leading to more walks and more hard contact on mistake pitches, over the course of a year, that's far more important and valuable than one individual at bat over the course of 162.

[chopsx9]

On 3/11/2025 at 6:34 PM, imb said:

if that one single strikeout was the result of an approach that leads to more hard contact and more xbh, or if that one strikeout was the result of an approach where the batter is trying to see more pitches, leading to more walks and more hard contact on mistake pitches, over the course of a year, that's far more important and valuable than one individual at bat over the course of 162.

That's a lot of ifs and placing value on outcomes that may or may not happen in the future, in situations that may or may not come about.  It's also not a single at bat it is the totality of all the single at bats over the course of an entire season.  You are also pre-supposing that that approach leads to success in all hitters - it may in some but the flame out rate in MLB hitters tells you that's they are going to be in the minority..  Sure, Judge and Soto come up then, hey, swing away like River Phoenix in Signs but we've already stated that these guys are unicorns and in over 85% of the bats it's going to be some player with lesser skills and lesser results.

[imb]

5 minutes ago, chopsx9 said:

That's a lot of ifs and placing value on outcomes that may or may not happen in the future, in situations that may or may not come about.  It's also not a single at bat it is the totality of all the single at bats over the course of an entire season.  You are also pre-supposing that that approach leads to success in all hitters - it may in some but the flame out rate in MLB hitters tells you that's they are going to be in the minority..  Sure, Judge and Soto come up then, hey, swing away like River Phoenix in Signs but we've already stated that these guys are unicorns and in over 85% of the bats it's going to be some player with lesser skills and lesser results.

so you've gone to all this effort to conclude that some hitters should swing for contact, some should swing for power, and ultimately the approach should be situational. impressive

[chopsx9]

On 3/15/2025 at 6:42 PM, imb said:

so you've gone to all this effort to conclude that some hitters should swing for contact, some should swing for power, and ultimately the approach should be situational. impressive

Get out your umbrella's it's raining strawmen.

[imb]

???? I’m not sure you even know what you’re saying at this point but good luck with figuring out if sliding into first base is faster or whatever you’re after sir!