When Will Double Digit Strikeouts in A Game Stop?

[section18]

Does anyone have the number of called strike three's we have in proportion to our total strikeouts? I'm guessing the called strike three's make up at least 70% of our strikeouts. I might be a little high with that guess. The reason it's important is because we have a team of guess hitters who seem to guess wrong too many times when they have 2 strikes on them. They need to change their 2 strike approach and maybe they can cut down on some of their strikeouts.....especially with runners on base. It's just not acceptable to stand and look at strike three called with 2 outs and runners on base.

[CA-ORIOLE]

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.

If you want to look at an individual player and say his overall performance is poor because he K's too much, that is fine. When you say that a player or players are hurting the team because of K's and irrespective of performance (which is often done) then you are wrong. From a statistical standpoint, K's are largely insignificant. In the end it's about performance and not K's

[Frobby]

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.

We were talking about OBP, not strikeouts. The guys Duquette brought in had better career OBP's than the guys they were going to replace. I also think he believed Antonelli and Flaherty would bring good OBP's based on their MiL track records. Obviously that hasn't panned out, and guys like Hardy and Andino have fallen into an OBP hole. I think Duquette expected this team to have a better OBP than last year.

[Dr. Unk]

When we get rid of Reynolds. He's a waste of space. It's sad that when he gets up with runners on base, you know it'll be 3 whiffs.

[Frobby]

Does anyone have the number of called strike three's we have in proportion to our total strikeouts? I'm guessing the called strike three's make up at least 70% of our strikeouts. I might be a little high with that guess.

You are way off. The Orioles get called out on strikes in 26% of their strikeouts, compared to 24% league average. The worst culprits are Markakis (41%), Hardy (34%) and Andino (34%). But Markakis and Hardy don't strike out much in total so their percentage of strike outs looking has to be viewed in that context.

[CA-ORIOLE]

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?

I really don't understand why people have such an issue with this. Right now, the team is approximately 125 K's over average. Taking Tom Tango's high estimate of .02 runs per 100 over average and doubling it to .04 runs, the K's (over average) would have roughly cost us 5 runs so far this this year. Five runs is about 1.2 % of our overall run production of 439 runs.

[Frobby]

I really don't understand why people have such an issue with this. Right now, the team is approximately 125 K's over average. Taking Tom Tango's high estimate of .02 runs per 100 over average and doubling it to .04 runs, the K's (over average) would have roughly cost us 5 runs so far this this year. Five runs is about 1.2 % of our overall run production of 439 runs.

I get the fact that it's frustrating to see a guy strike out, especially in a key situation. It's just way overrated. Just tell me how often the guy gets on base and I really don't care much how he makes his outs.

[Fired-Up]

I don't think strikeouts are the problem. We don't take walks as a team. The BB% is low. Another thing I noticed is the BABIP isn't that good. I'm fine with players striking out. When you do make contact though it would be nice to just crush the ball to the big part of the field. Guys like Hardy and Wieters roll over a lot. Hardy is pull concious. Wieters just hits lazy fly balls. Markakis and Jones have a pretty solid BABIP at .302 and .308 respectively. They use the entire field. Davis has a ..330 BABIP this season and a .334 for his career because he uses the entire field and he can punish the baseball. We need to make better contact as a team. Hitting for a high BABIP is a skill that can be repeated every year.

[Malike]

I don't think strikeouts are the problem. We don't take walks as a team. The BB% is low. Another thing I noticed is the BABIP isn't that good. I'm fine with players striking out. When you do make contact though it would be nice to just crush the ball to the big part of the field. Guys like Hardy and Wieters roll over a lot. Hardy is pull concious. Wieters just hits lazy fly balls. Markakis and Jones have a pretty solid BABIP at .302 and .308 respectively. They use the entire field. Davis has a ..330 BABIP this season and a .334 for his career because he uses the entire field and he can punish the baseball. We need to make better contact as a team. Hitting for a high BABIP is a skill that can be repeated every year.

I think Hardy is starting to come around to hitting to the opposite field. He gets nothing to pull, and from what I saw the other night, all of his balls in play went to RF. Reminds me of a couple of years ago, when Nick got absolutely nothing on the inner half of the plate, and he just slapped singles to LF all season long. At some point, you hope they adjust to how they are being pitched. I hope Hardy is coming around.

[Brendan25]

I get the fact that it's frustrating to see a guy strike out, especially in a key situation. It's just way overrated. Just tell me how often the guy gets on base and I really don't care much how he makes his outs.

Same here, strikeouts are frustrating, but are no worse, sometimes better, then a groundout.

[crowmst3k!]

When we get rid of Reynolds. He's a waste of space. It's sad that when he gets up with runners on base, you know it'll be 3 whiffs.

Hey, Unk. You've migrated over from the Scout Boards! Always enjoyed your talk on the Ravens board. Hope you enjoy posting here.

I agree with Reynolds. If his HR total was anywhere to his career norm, I'd accept it, because you could at least anticipate a HR in every 16 PA, now he has 3 more HRs than Andino total this year. It's beyond awful.

I'm not saying that he's a terrible player overall, I mean, look at Dunn's pitiful last year compared to now, but he's currently hurting the O's...big time.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I get the fact that it's frustrating to see a guy strike out, especially in a key situation. It's just way overrated. Just tell me how often the guy gets on base and I really don't care much how he makes his outs.

I chalk to emotion I guess. It is amazing that even some seemingly smart people on here can't get over it.

[Dr. Unk]

Hey, Unk. You've migrated over from the Scout Boards! Always enjoyed your talk on the Ravens board. Hope you enjoy posting here.

I agree with Reynolds. If his HR total was anywhere to his career norm, I'd accept it, because you could at least anticipate a HR in every 16 PA, now he has 3 more HRs than Andino total this year. It's beyond awful.

I'm not saying that he's a terrible player overall, I mean, look at Dunn's pitiful last year compared to now, but he's currently hurting the O's...big time.

Thanks! There's finally something to be excited about...after 14 years.

[OFFNY]

Same here. Strikeouts are frustrating, but are no worse, sometimes better then a ground-out.

And once in a blue moon, strikeouts are actually better than any other out that you can make:

http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0910/mlb.postseason.bloopers/images/mickey-owen.jpg

[primetime]

I get the fact that it's frustrating to see a guy strike out, especially in a key situation. It's just way overrated. Just tell me how often the guy gets on base and I really don't care much how he makes his outs.

You pretty much hit it on the head here, as a fan it's frustrating to watch. Particularly when Davis gets to 2nd on a wild pitch with no one out, in a 1-0 game and a ground ball to the right side could get him to 3rd and afford us the opportunity to score without getting a hit.

I know that's picking one very specific instance from last night's game but it's simply a snowball affect. The last 4-6 weeks we've struggled mightily with RISP, the last 2 games we're 0 for RISP, so you couple that with big K's in a tight game and you get this thread.