A CITIZEN'S BLOG

I pride myself on offering you information you simply cannot get anywhere else, which is why I follow things most conventional baseball writers don’t know about or don’t care about (e.g., Gross Productive Average, Isolated Power, etc.) Recently I was thinking about how often the Phillies strike out. One of the common complaints about the team in the media is that they strike out too often and don’t make contact with the ball. Two things occurred to me:

1. What’s so bad about a strikeout, compared with a pop-fly? Same result. Why is the sight of a guy trudging back to the dugout on strike three so much worse than trudging back to the dugout on a flyout to centerfield?
2. Are the Phillies really that bad at making contact? Do they strike-out a lot?

I sat down and ran the numbers, and here’s what I got. I don’t know of anyone who follows the stat of strikeouts per plate appearance, but here it is:

National League (K/PA):
1. San Francisco: .135
2. San Diego: .144
3. Montreal: .150
4. Florida: .157
5. Houston: .159
6. Arizona: .167
7. St. Louis: .172
8. Chicago: .172
9. Pittsburgh: .174
10. Philadelphia: .175
11. Los Angeles: .175
12. Atlanta: .183
13. Colorado: .186
14. New York: .187
15. Milwaukee: .211
16. Cincinnati: .213
NL average: .173

Do the Phillies strike-out too much? Well, they strike out at about the league average, so it’s hard to see how that’s “too much”. The Phillies look a lot like the Cubs: they hit with power and part of that sacrifice is striking out a few times instead of flying out. Given how good the Phillies are about drawing walks compared with the Cubs, I don’t think you could accuse the Phillies of being wild swingers at the plate. In fact, the Phillies were the NL’s second most selective team at the plate, averaging 3.84 pitches per plate appearance (just 0.02 behind the Milwaukee Brewers). The Cubs? Fifteenth of sixteen: 3.64.

Unsurprisingly, the teams with the lower strikeout rates happened to be the teams that got on base a lot: the Giants and Pads.

What amazed me was the gap between Milwaukee and Cincinnati and the rest of the NL. It’s not a gap so much as it is a gulf: .024 and .026 higher than the Mets, and the Mets are just .014 off the league average.

Another thing that amazed me was the lack of correlation between teams that are choosey at the plate and their strikeout rates. Logically, a team that is patient at the plate won't strikeout, correct? Well, what is the conclusion to derive from the fact that the least patient team at the plate, the Giants, had the lowest strikeout rate, and that the most patient team, the Brewers, had the second worst strikeout rate? Or that the second most choosey team, the Reds, had the worst strikeout rate?

NL (Pitches per plate appearance):
1. Milwaukee: 3.86
2. Philadelphia: 3.84
2. Cincinnati: 3.84
4. Montreal: 3.81
4. Los Angeles: 3.81
4. New York: 3.81
7. Colorado: 3.79
8. St. Louis: 3.78
9. Florida: 3.74
10. Atlanta: 3.73
11. San Diego: 3.72
12. Houston: 3.69
13. Pittsburgh: 3.69
14. Arizona: 3.68
15. Chicago: 3.64
16. San Francisco: 3.60
NL average: 3.75

Check out how that phenomenon worked out with the Phillies … Here is how the individual Phillies did in 2004:

Starting Lineup: (K/PA)
SS Rollins: .100
2B Polanco: .070
RF Abreu: .163
1B Thome: .233
LF Burrell: .243
3B Bell: .124
C Lieberthal: .130
CF Byrd: .179

Bench:
IF Utley: .139
IF Perez: .232
IF Howard: .310
OF Michaels: .231
OF Ledee: .186
OF Glanville: .120
C Pratt: .255

Team: .173

Again, what I found to be interesting was how choosey players like Pat Burrell (4.21 pitches per plate appearance), Jason Michaels (3.93) or Jim Thome (4.06) struck out more than Jimmy Rollins (3.41), Doug Glanville (3.68) or Placido Polanco (3.45). Ryan Howard was choosey, in his limited time with the team, averaging 4.43 pitches per his 42 plate appearances, and he struck out a lot.

Conclusions:

Do the Phillies strikeout too much? No.

Do patient hitters avoid striking out? Clearly no.

Which brings me back to the first point: what’s so bad about a strikeout? I think it is one of those things like conventional wisdom still has a hold of. “Teams that strikeout don’t score runs.” Or, “Teams that strikeout aren’t consistent.” Teams with low strikeout rates don’t necessarily have success at the plate: otherwise the Montreal Expos would have been offensive juggernauts instead of bottom-feeders. Three of the NL’s better offensive groups were the Cubs, Cardinals and Phillies, three teams that basically had the NL average for strikeouts. The Colorado Rockies may have been the NL’s best offense and they struck out .013 higher than average. So don’t fear the strikeout, Phillies fans. And the next time you hear someone complain "the Phillies strikeout too much...", tell 'em that they're wrong.