The Strikeout Kings

Reading an article on Bill James' site and I was made aware the Reggie Jackson is still the all time strikeout king for batters. Jim Thome made a run but came up short. ARod is about 3-4 years from breaking the record so he may or may not get there. Nobody else is anywhere near. Strikeout rates have been going off the charts the last 10, 15, 20 years, but nobody is particularly close.

And, of course, due to falling innings totals and freakish physical gifts Nolan Ryan will remain king on the pitching side forever.

It's just odd that strikeout rates are way higher than ever but the all time leaders are from 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Justin Upton could make a run at it. 1185 strikeouts through age 27, and averaging 160/yr or so in recent years. Nine seasons at that pace and he's there at age 36.

Adam Dunn could have smashed the record if he'd been able to hit in his mid-30's.

On the pitching side, I don't see anyone making a run at Ryan's record. Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw might have a shot at 4,000 strikeouts, which is "only" 1700 short of Ryan's mark.

Davis vs. Upton is an interesting chase. Davis is 95 behind and two years older - he might leapfrog him in a couple more seasons.

Joey Gallo looms interestingly a generation behind them, if he can manage to be a career-long regular.

http://birdswatcher.com/2016/03/10/baltimore-orioles-chris-davis-proving-strike-wrong/

I have my own calculation that I would use to better define a players ability to produce runs and define their value to the team. If you look at what you really want out of a batter, its how many times he steps into the batter’s box and it results in production. So if we take the average number of times he gets a hit and it results in an RBI and average it with the percentage of times he gets on base and results in a run, that should tell us what percentage of his plate appearances (PPA) he’s productive in.

Last year Chris hit 117 RBI’s in 573 At Bats. That means he was productive in .204 percent of his at bats. Chris was also on base 242 times which resulted in 100 Runs, which was .413 percent of the time. Therefore, if we average these two statistics out, that means that Chris Davis had a PPA rating of .309, meaning one out of every three times Chris steps into the batter’s box a run is going to score. That doesn’t suck.

This has to be one of the stupidest stats ever concocted to measure an individual player. First, both components are completely dependent on how good the player's teammates are. Second how can you take a stat that is per at bat, and a second stat that is per times on base, and average them? That makes no sense at all.

This has to be one of the stupidest stats ever concocted to measure an individual player. First, both components are completely dependent on how good the player's teammates are. Second how can you take a stat that is per at bat, and a second stat that is per times on base, and average them? That makes no sense at all.

Maybe they cut and pasted from a 1977 Baseball Digest and just changed "Ellis Valentine" into "Chris Davis".

On the pitching side, I don't see anyone making a run at Ryan's record. Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw might have a shot at 4,000 strikeouts, which is "only" 1700 short of Ryan's mark.

Randy Johnson came the closest at 4875. If he'd been able to make it in the majors before his mid 20's and not broken down in his early 40's he'd have made a run at it.