As Brown says, a whiff of fresh air.
Reynolds and Strikeouts
As Brown says, a whiff of fresh air.
Reynolds and Strikeouts
Last edited by tixe; 09-10-2009 at 03:23 PM. Reason: OCD
It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. Carl Jung.
The point people forget is not that strikeouts are any worse than an out, but when you do strikeout, you take that 30% chance or so you gain of getting a hit out of the equation. Striking out itself is not inherently bad, but if you don't put the ball in play, you cannot get a hit. Every 10 strikeouts put into play instead results in roughly three additional hits.
Point is, I'm not one that gets all bent out of shape about strikeouts. But I also don't agree with the cavalier attitude toward them, either. When you start striking out at that pace, you're leaving a lot of potential runs on the table just by chance.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
About 30% of balls put into play *with a regular swing* result in a hit. Simply choking up on the bat and trying to make some kind of contact will usually result in *poor* contact. And you've got to assume that poor contact results in an out more than 70% of the time.
"I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful
Yay... a strikeout debate!!
Good times.
My take is that K's are part of the game, they're more acceptable these days, and a couple of high K guys don't hurt too much.
A whole bunch can drag your offense down though.
Other than that.. precede with any doctrine taught to you in knothole or by your grandpas.
While that's true, we're talking about a 3% difference between a "regular" swing and "poor" contact. It's the difference between 2.7 hits in 10 balls in play and 3 hits in 10 balls in play. Further, you can make contact without having to choke up. It's simply trying to go with the pitch and not having an upper cut or yanking your head trying to drive the ball. Choking up helps, but it's not a must to make contact.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
Striking out hurts more on a date then in baseball.
That's what I've heard anyway.
"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)
An Adam Dunn debate, Drew Stubbs debate, and now a strikeout debate, all happening at the same time. Awesome. Someone needs to start a Bob Boone thread.
In order to strike out, you need two strikes. I'm sure that under normal circumstances, a ball in play becomes a hit about 30% of the time, but what are the odds of that ball becoming a hit when there are two strikes?
For what it's worth, I agree with you, but just to keep the conversation going, if a runner's on first base with less than two outs, I'd rather Brandon Phillips be struck out than have him ground to second base just to keep the ball in play.
It does depend on that batter. Generally, you need a ground ball for a DP. Ground balls occur on roughly a third of batted balls. However, some of these ground balls will go for hits. So I suppose the risk of grounding into a DP is still outweighed by the odds of getting a base hit. Even if you do hit a ground ball, some runners are fast enough to beat it out half of the time. Certainly not all batters, and this is where there are times a strikeout might be a benefit to a batter as opposed to the risk of grounding into a DP.
On the whole, though, the odds are more in your favor of getting a hit than being tagged for a DP.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
WOY, you are a breath of fresh air to this forum!
Thank you!
Bum
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