When Will Double Digit Strikeouts in A Game Stop?

[Flash- bd]

No it means I want more runs.

Fired-Up: there are millions of slight correlations that mean exactly nothing.

Two things: 1) go to this site, 2) take a stats class, or a gen. psych class, or a poly sci class, or any kind of gen ed class offered in 99.9% of american universities which will help explain this issue for you.

[Fired-Up]

Fired-Up: there are millions of slight correlations that mean exactly nothing.

Two things: 1) go to this site, 2) take a stats class, or a gen. psych class, or a poly sci class, or any kind of gen ed class offered in 99.9% of american universities which will help explain this issue for you.

I don't care. The more runs the better. I'm not saying the correlation is strong enough that you should seek out high strikeout guys. I'm just saying hey, I'll take more runs.

[Flash- bd]

I don't care. The more runs the better. I'm not saying the correlation is strong enough that you should seek out high strikeout guys. I'm just saying hey, I'll take more runs.

[video=youtube;VdphvuyaV_I]

In the midnight hour, Fired-Up (fired up like Billy Idol) cries...

[Lucky Jim]

This thread is awesome.

[jjnono]

When will it stop? When the season ends.

It was obvious last winter that this team would strike out a lot. I really don't care about it much. But the team has hit below expectations independent of the high strikeouts.

Reynolds and Davis are actually striking out less than their career averages.

Ha ha, that's funny.... So what? It's slightly less than atrocious?

[Frobby]

Goof freakin grief. The correlation is very slightly positive and is basically insignificant. Exactly what I said it would be from the beginning. Don't be a rock.

Either way, it shows that certain posters' obsessions with how often this team strikes out are misplaced. It's just not that relevant. Reynolds struck out more often last year than this year - does that make this year's version of Reynolds superior?

[eddie83]

Of course it is, that is exactly the point. You can't pin your hopes on having higher than norm RISP numbers.

The following postions: 1b/3b/2b/LF/DH are all either inadequate or require platooning. You just can't do that. Johnny Gomes isn't going to solve any of that. He's just going to add the problem we have. Like it or not (I don't know what the cost was), players like Chase Headley are part of the solution to the problem.

Gomes would be a righty compliment to Davis/Betemit, that was my point. He wouldn't add to any problem if used properly. If Betemit is back next year he isn't playing vs lefties.

[waroriole]

I love when people won't back down when they're proven wrong.

[Tony-OH]

Either way, it shows that certain posters' obsessions with how often this team strikes out are misplaced. It's just not that relevant. Reynolds struck out more often last year than this year - does that make this year's version of Reynolds superior?

It's relevant when there are too many of them in a lineup. I don't have a problem with high strikeout guys but you can't have too many of them in the lineup. This lineup has too may high strikeout, low OBP, slow hitters. We also don't have anyone outside of Markakis who I would consider a good situational hitter. In my opinion a good lineup has a mix of hitters but the key is OBP, and at the end of the day we don't have many good OBP guys so it makes us rely on those homers far too often.

[Frobby]

It's relevant when there are too many of them in a lineup. I don't have a problem with high strikeout guys but you can't have too many of them in the lineup. This lineup has too may high strikeout, low OBP, slow hitters. We also don't have anyone outside of Markakis who I would consider a good situational hitter. In my opinion a good lineup has a mix of hitters but the key is OBP, and at the end of the day we don't have many good OBP guys so it makes us rely on those homers far too often.

You could have stopped with "this team has too many low OBP hitters". High strikeouts don't always correlate to having a low OBP or being slow. If you were to diagnose the cause of the Orioles' low runs/game totals, low OBP is the number one culprit and is probably 85% of the problem. The other 15% would be poor RISP hitting, poor speed and high strikeouts, in that order.

[CA-ORIOLE]

It's relevant when there are too many of them in a lineup. I don't have a problem with high strikeout guys but you can't have too many of them in the lineup. This lineup has too may high strikeout, low OBP, slow hitters. We also don't have anyone outside of Markakis who I would consider a good situational hitter. In my opinion a good lineup has a mix of hitters but the key is OBP, and at the end of the day we don't have many good OBP guys so it makes us rely on those homers far too often.

OBP and slow are fine. K's just don't matter. We don't have enough good hitters.

[wildcard]

I think Duquette thought he had addressed it last winter. Obviously, he was wrong.

I doubt that DD thought he addressed the strikeout problem last winter. He concentrated on pitching. Adding Betemit, Teagarden, Chavez is something I think even DD would say that he didn't address the offense or the strikeouts.

[wildcard]

I doubt the strikeouts get address this year or next. Jones, Hardy, Wieters and Davis are likely to stay. Andino could be traded and Betemit probably moves to a utility role. This off season I think the O's address 1B and 3B. LF is probably a combination of Reimold, Avery and Hoes.

The O's are not going to have much money to address too many weakness this off season. I have them at $79.2M without a 1B and 3B. And this is with Reynolds being nontendered, Andino and Lindstrom traded. Gregg, Chavez and Thome being FAs. The best that can probably happen is the O's get better OBP out of 1B, 3B and LF next year.

[Bradysburns]

OBP and slow are fine. K's just don't matter. We don't have enough good hitters.

I am still sorting out my opinion as to how K's matter - and how much. One other argument on the "K's don't matter side" might be that, if you're striking out a lot, you're also taking a lot of pitches. So in the early part of the game, when you're trying to knock out the starter, that could be valuable.

However, one other question/suspicion I have is this: I have a feeling that high-K hitters tend to be less *consistently* productive. In other words, they can go into deep dry spells where their productivity drops. Then they get hot and hit home runs in bunches. Adam Dunn and Mark Reynolds both seem to exhibit this tendency. I have no statistical knowledge to back this up. It's just a question. And if high-K hitters are less consistently productive, that could be a problem for obvious reasons. If you have high-K guys playing on a mediocre team and they don't hit for two months, that could be enough to sink that team's chances of "overperforming" and staying in the wildcard hunt. That could determine how management approaches the trade deadline, free agency, etc.

I read an interesting piece that says K's don't matter... until you start getting into the 25% territory or above. That's because there tends to be a correlation between lowered OBP, as a K - by definition - gives you no chance of getting on base (other than a pass ball, I suppose).

[Bradysburns]

You could have stopped with "this team has too many low OBP hitters". High strikeouts don't always correlate to having a low OBP or being slow. If you were to diagnose the cause of the Orioles' low runs/game totals, low OBP is the number one culprit and is probably 85% of the problem. The other 15% would be poor RISP hitting, poor speed and high strikeouts, in that order.

True, but there can be a correlation. So perhaps it's best to not make generalizations about K's, but look at any given hitter's combination of statistics to see if K's are a problem. They might be a problem for Player X but not be a problem for Player Y.