I think Dusty is spot on and I personally hate the argument that strikeouts are no different than any other out because you are cherry picking outcomes to meet your argument.
The fact is when you strikeout there is a 0.2% chance of something positive happening. When you don't strike out there is roughly a 35% chance of something positive happening and I will not even bother talking about productive outs.
I also despise the argument about comparing the OPS with the highest K rate guys, to the OPS of the lowest K rate guys. Since the names were brought up in an earlier post I will use those as an example. Here are the OPS number of Jay Bruce and Marco Scutaro with 2 strike counts. For point of comparison I threw in Chris Davis and Drew Stubbs (just to see how bad strikeouts are when you have no power
0-2 Bruce .289------Scutaro .209 -------Davis .465 ------Stubbs .128
1-2 Bruce .392------Scutaro .712 -------Davis .518 ------Stubbs .314
2-2 Bruce .505------Scutaro .500 -------Davis .483 ------Stubbs .461
3-2 Bruce .821------Scutaro 1.016------ Davis 1.263-----Stubbs .553
Is Scutaro a more productive hitter than Bruce with 2 strikes. I would say he is. Look if your a big swinger and you want to go for the downs on 0 or 1 strike counts I have no issue with it. In fact when you look at the high OPS guys, that is when then do the overwhelming amount of their damage and where their OPS difference is significant over the low power/low k guys. With 2 strikes though you need to change your approach because it is pretty obvious all that power does not benefit you when you are catching nothing but air.
Since I am on a rant I will throw this other issue that has been sticking in my craw lately. The whole Ted Williams theory of hitting, where you work deep into the count to get a better pitch is nowhere near as effective as it once was.
Back in Ted Williams day, pitchers would throw 200 pitches in a game. They would try to get you to chase a bad pitch or 2 early in the count and work back to the zone later on, hence his theory worked well. In today's baseball with pitch counts front and center, pitchers try to get ahead 0-1, so its very possible the best pitch you will see is the first one.