Posted by: Thorpe Facer (tfacer@yahoo.com) on Thu Feb 7 08:53:51 2002

>
> i acually never heard of him, i read what he wrote and i think he
> brings up some valid points, what really jumped out was the K
> factor, guys like bigmac/sosa are K'ing at almost triple the clip
> as the old timers!!! its laugable!!! the only thing that is gained is a
> few more HR...sluggers today hit less doubles and triples than
> sluggers of yester year....i mean you HEAR guys like bigmac say
> "its my job to get the ball in the air" "if i hit a single or go the other
> way its and accident"....that says it right there, slugger are
> working on pulling the ball and getting it into the air....this add the
> K's AND the HR...


More good points. Baseball has gone the way of most team sports: specialization. Used to be that starting pitchers took pride in pitching a complete game. They undoubtedly still do, but the 'peer pressure' to do so is gone. Now we have long relivers, setup guys, closers, etc. I think the same is true of hitting. If you read some of the comments from old timers, you realize that when they played, there was a real stigma attached to striking out. Players were embarrassed! Not today.

But there are other ways to measure offensive success than numbers of K's. I'm not a stats guy, but I think some of the more recent statistical categories such total bases reflect different ways to measure offense. Compared to some players of yesteryear, Sosa does strike out a lot, but look at his offensive contribution to the Cubs. His rbi's and runs scored are impressive and ultimately, offense is about scoring runs.

Returning to Ellis: he thinks there are one or two mechanical reasons why players strike out more today (just one example). I think that it's much more involved than that and don't think you can look at an older player's low finish and supposedly more level swing as the reasons. I believe in keeping it simple but there's a difference between simple and simplistic.