Posted by: () on Sat Jul 26 21:54:17 2003

Why are major league players striking out so much especially with men on base. There use to be a time when it was a disgrace for a player to strike out 100 times in a season. Now they tend to take it in stride. Even guys who don't have power are popping up, flying out and striking out at an alarming rate. I remember one year when Wade Boggs popped out less than a dozen times in one season. Is there a hitting style or stance that is better to allow players to make more solid contact and at least put the ball in play. I think a lot of players today are piling up numbers on guys that may not belong in the major leagues and when they face a guy with good stuff they are overmatched. Take the allstar game. Some of the top hitters looked like they had no chance! Some hitters can not even foul the ball of on some days.

If a hitter is getting rbi's and has good slg % numbers he gets in my lineup regardless of what his K's are. He can strike out half the time for me and hit .250 if his slg % and rbi's are way up there. Certainly I'm exxagerating here for the sake of illustration but my point is, BA doesn't win games. Runs do. And those come from rbi's. And yes, I want some high obp guys in the lineup, but I want someone to drive the ball too. I don't care for K's either, but BA or obp is not the holy grail. I have often seen a kid with a lower BA lead the team in rbi's and K's. Focus on run production. Contact as opposed to K's is only important to the extent it affects run production. Keep working on less K's but don't throw out the good with the bad. I certainly don't concede that high power numbers necessarily goes with low BA or high K's, but if it does for a particular player, that doesn't mean he can't be valuable.