The Yin And Yang Of Whiffs

[Crash Course]

Anyone who knows me in these parts knows that I think strikeouts are bad for batters.

I've done a few features for NetShrine.com on this topic - expressing my point of view on the matter. And, like clockwork, every time I do, the Saber-police come after me with study after study on how a strikeout is no worse than any other form of out.

Yet, today, in the Kansas City Star, Joe Posnanski writes:

Strikeouts are so important for pitchers. Here's the stat from my friend and newly crowned Red Sox super-genius Bill James — he ran the numbers on every pitching season since 1990. He then took the top 100 strikeout seasons and the bottom 100 strikeout seasons. Here's what he found.

In the top 100: Eighty-five of the pitchers had winning records, and almost half of them (46 to be exact) won 15 or more games.

In the bottom 100: Thirty-seven had winning records and only 10 won 15 or more.

You see? Strikeouts, not double plays, are the pitcher's best friend.

And, this is what vexes me. If strikeouts are so good for pitchers, then, in return, why are they not bad for hitters? Should not the Yin and Yang of a thing be equal? Or, is that just common sense and therefore has no place in the saber-debate arena?

[KCBOOMER]

I don't think citing Joe Posnanski as an endorsement of your position is that good a thing. Joe is a nice man, but is rather clueless when it comes to baseball.

But, anyway, there is a strong correlation in pitchers who strike out more than their share being more successful than their more contact oriented brethren. No such correlation exists for hitters (ignoring pitchers of course). Guys can strike out a ton and still have fine seasons. See Jackson, Reginald.

[Crash Course]

Still, Joe cites James, who knows a little something. You state:

there is a strong correlation in pitchers who strike out more than their share being more successful than their more contact oriented brethren. No such correlation exists for hitters (ignoring pitchers of course). Guys can strike out a ton and still have fine seasons.

But, think of hitting as defense against pitching, instead of it being "offense" - after all, in baseball, the pitcher controls the ball - and in other sports, it's offense that controls the ball.

And, if strikeouts are good for pitchers, then why in the world would not a batter who can prevent strikeouts (and defense against pitching) not be more valuable than those who lend towards the whiff?

[hmrsf]

Outs are the most valuable thing to a pitcher. In what world is a strike out better than a double play? Double plays will always be a pitchers best friend. It can also be achieve potentially in one pitch vs. at least 3 for a strike out.

[Crash Course]

Scoring 101: You cannot assume the DP.

[RichG]

Using Posnanski's remarks to back a point of view is like citing George King's work to confirm anything - the words might be there but "there's no there there"

[Crash Course]

And what about Bill James remarks?

[RedSeat]

I don't have that strong an opinion on this, but here's my take on the discrepancy between pitcher and batter.

I'm not 100% sold on DIPS, but I think it does make a lot of sense. So for a pitcher to amass a lot of strikeouts, he's limiting the number of balls in play. The balls that are in play, he has very little control over where they go, and whether they're hits or outs. The more outs he records via strikeout, the fewer chances he takes relying that the balls fall near his fielder.

Batters on the other hand, have a dgree of control over what they do with the balls put in play. Control might be the wrong word. What I'm getting at, is that better hitters will tend to hit the ball harder, and hard hit balls are more likely to turn into hits.

A good player can strike out a lot, as long as still turns a high percentage of the balls in play into hits, something he has a degree of control over.

A pitcher who doesn't record many strikeouts has to rely on balls in play being caught/fielded, something he has very little, if any, control over.

[PianoMonkey]

Here's the difference as I see it:

A pitcher wants to strike out the hitter. This is pretty much universally accepted (Tony Pena and crew notwithstanding). Similarly, batters never want to strikeout. I'm pretty sure no one here would argue that point either.

But, some batters increase the likelihood of a strikeout and, doing so, also increase their overall offensive production. This hasn't been conclusively shown, maybe, but it seems possible. "Free swingers" who succeed at hitting despite high K rates, we assume, have the capacity to NOT strikeout as often as they do, but in some cases they judge the gains in power/contact/whatever outweigh the few extra outs a year, and take the K's as they come.
Obviously, they STILL don't want to strikeout on any given AB. This is the necessary contrapositive of pitchers wanting to strike them out. But not wanting a K and not wanting to concede a power swing to avoid a K are two very different things.

A pitcher cannot control the batters approach to an at bat. He cannot force him to concede power to decrease the chance of a K. But perhaps he would nonetheless like him to. Obviously, no pitcher would want to give up a guaranteed K. But for certain batters (namely those of the type above), a pitcher would rather cut the likelihood of a highly-damaging extra-base hit by a large amount while slightly lessening the chances of a strikeout than leaving him the option of swinging away. (But as explained below, the pitcher is all but powerless to do this.) This is the necessary contrapositive of the rare batter who strikes-out more often in order to increase total production.

So both theories are self- and inter-consistent. The discrepancy, then, comes from the fact that while the batter, can, to a certain extent, directly work against any specific strikeout (contrapositive 1), the pitcher is entirely unable to change a batter's overall batting strategy to undo any substantial production gains derived from aggression--and a tendency to strikeout (contrapositive 2). Hence, all a pitcher can do is to strike out every batter he faces as often as he can, while the batter can both work against that directly and/or to permit it, to some extent, and gain some significant offensive boost. Therefore, strikeouts are paramount to all pitchers, while some batters can use their advantage in the second arena (i.e. their batting strategy) to improve their offensive worth.

It may be that tomorrow I'll notice something faulty with the above, but I think the incorporeal tendrils of truth are in there somewhere. It's all just game theory, after all

[RichG]

Originally Posted by Crash Course

And what about Bill James remarks?

In the case of strikeouts I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone they're better for a pitcher than if he doesn't get a strikeout. But based on the statement you're referring to I wonder how many stats like homers, earned runs, walks, etc., wouldn't have the same or similar mix of win-loss records of the top 100 and bottom 100 of those categories, too.

[Crash Course]

Well, we know that some pitchers can give up a ton of HRs and still win 20+ games. And, we know that some pitchers can have a very small ERA and not break 10 wins on a season. And, there have probably been pitchers to walk 100+ and win double digits and walk few and lose a lot of games.

[Crash Course]

Originally Posted by RedSeat

I'm not 100% sold on DIPS, but I think it does make a lot of sense. So for a pitcher to amass a lot of strikeouts, he's limiting the number of balls in play. The balls that are in play, he has very little control over where they go, and whether they're hits or outs. The more outs he records via strikeout, the fewer chances he takes relying that the balls fall near his fielder.

Batters on the other hand, have a dgree of control over what they do with the balls put in play. Control might be the wrong word. What I'm getting at, is that better hitters will tend to hit the ball harder, and hard hit balls are more likely to turn into hits.

A good player can strike out a lot, as long as still turns a high percentage of the balls in play into hits, something he has a degree of control over.

A pitcher who doesn't record many strikeouts has to rely on balls in play being caught/fielded, something he has very little, if any, control over.

I agree with all of this - and, would add, IMHO, that a batter who whiffs a lot needs to really crank it on non-K-ABs, like to the tune of a .950 OPS, to have any value.

[Crash Course]

Originally Posted by PianoMonkey

Similarly, batters never want to strikeout. I'm pretty sure no one here would argue that point either.

I would disagree. I think there are a ton of current professional batters now who care nothing about having huge K totals. Otherwise, we would not see the Dunn, Sosa, Preston Wilson, and Jose Hernandez, types.

[PianoMonkey]

Originally Posted by Crash Course

I would disagree. I think there are a ton of current professional batters now who care nothing about having huge K totals. Otherwise, we would not see the Dunn, Sosa, Preston Wilson, and Jose Hernandez, types.

Adam Dunn never wants to strikeout. Sammy Sosa never wants to strikeout. They never go up to the plate thinking "Gee, I hope I strikeout this time." Come on, Crash.

If you ask those guys (any of them) "Hey, would you like to get rid of half your strikeouts for the year with no ill effects on your BA, SLG%, and OPS, etc.?" You would get four immediate "Yes, please!!" responses. The complications are that none of them have that as an option, and while they are always trying to reduce their K totals, they use batting strategies which slightly increase the likelihood of any given K but which increase more the likelihood of a HR/double/RBI, etc.

Think of it like this:
A batter will always try to reduce the possibility of a strikeout for any given AB. Some batters, however, also slightly increase the likelihood of a strikeout on EVERY AB in a season in order to increase the likelihood of a powerful hit on EVERY AB in a season--this is what dilutes the importance of a K to some hitters. These two actions are not mutually exclusive, although they may seem so.
In contrast, a pitcher will always try to increase the possibility of a strikeout for any given AB, the game-theorhetic opposite of the former action. However, pitchers are essentially helpless to stop the latter action--so it doesn't affect the importance of the K to a pitcher.

I'm having trouble succinctly explaining this. It seems clear enough to me, but the concept is awfully convoluted, and I'm not the writer I wish I was. The essence is that hitters like Adam Dunn gain more from striking out perhaps 30 extra times a season than they lose by it, while a pitcher can gain no such boost by striking out guys proportionally less.

Ack. This is why I love math and hate English.