This just in: Mark Reynolds strikes out a lot. In 2008, he struck out more than any player ever had in a season, the first to top 200 strikeouts (at 204). On Tuesday night, he broke his own record, striking out for the 204th, 205th and 206th times with ten meaningless 2009 D-Backs games yet to play (as I write this, it's the bottom of the first on Wednesday and he's already got his 207th). In his career, Reynolds has struck out in 32.3% of his plate appearances. The all-time career strikeout leader, Reggie Jackson, struck out in 22.7% of his plate appearances; the all-time career leader in strikeouts per nine (minimum 1000 innings pitched), Randy Johnson, has struck out 28.6% of the batters he has faced. Reynolds turns every pitcher into a kind of uber-Randy, strikeout-wise.

Adam from The Ghost of Moonlight Graham echoes the thoughts of a lot of us SABRheads when he writes: who cares?

Strikeouts for a hitter is the most overrated stat in baseball. Here is all you need to know about strikeouts. Reggie Jackson is the career leader in strikeouts with 2,597.
Did anyone even know Jackson had that record? Does anyone remember Jackson for striking out the most times in the history of baseball? No, you don’t.
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The fact is, Reynolds is having a phenomenal year. Reynolds is in the top-1o in the National League in homeruns (43), RBI (100), slugging percentage (.562), runs (93), and stolen bases (24).
Reynolds also has a .919 OPS, which ranks 12th in the NL.

First of all, do people really not know that Reggie struck out a whole ton of times? Am I just getting old, or what?

But anyway, I agree with Adam in a lot of ways. Strikeouts (by a hitter) are very overrated, in that a lot of hitters strike out a whole bunch and are still great or very good hitters. As much as it may have driven Reds fans batty, Adam Dunn taking a called third strike with the bases loaded isn't substantially worse than Brandon Phillips popping out with the bases loaded, and it's certainly better than grounding into a double play. A strikeout isn't any worse than any other out, and in some situations, it's better.So holding the all-time record for strikeouts (and the #2 slot) isn't nearly as shameful as, say, the record (and the #3 slot) for homers allowed in a season (love ya, Bert). But there's a problem with this line of thinking, a big one, and you can read about it after you click "Read more."

So here's the problem: no one strikeout is all that bad, but a whole ton of strikeouts are bad, in that they cut into your ability to, you know, get hits. Adam again:

As long as Reynolds keeps producing the way he is, he can strikeout as much as he wants.
At the end of the day, it’s no big deal.

The thing is, it's really hard for a guy who strikes out 200+ times a season to keep producing the way Reynolds has. Sure, if he keeps hitting 30-40 homers and drawing 70-80 walks, he'll keep being a good player. But it all comes back to the natural law of BABIP: if you put the ball in play, you have about a 30% chance of getting a hit (it might be 32-33% in Reynolds' case, since he hits the ball so hard, but we don't have enough data to know that). If you don't put it in play, you have a 0% chance. If (not counting walks and other non-at-bats, now) you strike out 38% of the time, homer 8% of the time and put the ball in play the other 54% of the time, as Reynolds has in 2009, you can expect to hit (.54 * .3) + (.08 * 1) + (.38 * 0) = .242. A Reynolds who hits .240 can absolutely still be a productive player, but there's no point in pretending that all those strikeouts don't limit exactly how productive he can be.

Another annoying block quote, and it's me this time. About six weeks ago, I wrote:

Reynolds' BABIP right now? .371. He's young enough that that significantly impacts his career number (currently .358), but in his one other full season, 2008, his BABIP was .329, right about what you'd expect from a power hitter who hits it hard.
...
I'm going to throw out wild guesses because they'd be fun to check on later: from August 10 (since the data I'm using is through August 9) through the end of the season, Reynolds will hit .250 with 9 HR (giving him 45).

All I expected was for Reynolds to come back to earth, not to drop straight through it. The season isn't over yet (and I'll do some sort of big wrap-up to make fun of all my brilliant predictions when it is), but since August 10, Reynolds has hit .192/.298/.400. With seven homers and 55 strikeouts in 130 AB, that's a .265 average on balls in play; unlucky, but not even that unlucky.And yet, he'd have to hit .500 in his final ten games just to get to my pessimistic prediction of .250 (over this arbitrary stretch).

That just shows you the kind of margin of error he's working with: when Reynolds is hitting the ball hard and getting the bloops to fall in, as he has for most of this year, he'll look like a superstar. When he hits a string of bad luck and just a couple line drives are hit straight into gloves, he'll look completely hopeless.Those strikeouts just seriously cut down his range of possible outcomes.

So, no, strikeouts aren't a singularly bad thing. A big part of me is glad that Reynolds himself doesn't care. For the most part, I agree with Adam that we shouldn't care, either. Is a hitter with a .392 wOBA who strikes out 200 times any worse than a hitter with a .392 wOBA who strikes out 70 times? No.

But is a Mark Reynolds who strikes out 200 times worse than a hypothetical Mark Reynolds who strikes out, say, 150 times? Almost certainly, yes. And as a guy with a vested interest in Mark Reynolds, I can't help thinking that this is a bigger deal for his career than we'd like to think those silly little strikeout totals can be.

Comments (4)

Mathiness
written by jcb, September 24, 2009

I generally agree with your points, but cringe at your math. First, the equation you use in one of the last graphs (which is quoted by Rob Neyer), uses .56, even though you said 54% of Reynolds ABs are BIP, so the percentages don't equal 100%. Furthermore, .56*.3 = .170, not .240, so your result is way off.

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written by Bill@TDS, September 24, 2009

jcb, thanks for the comment. I fixed the .56 to .54 (though now that it's been picked up by Mr. Neyer -- for which I am eternally grateful -- I don't suppose it makes a difference). But about the rest, I think if you look at it a little more closely, you'll see what I was trying to do, and that it's (now) correct, however oversimplified. If you don't see, I explained more fully in the comments to Rob's post.

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A thought on one passage...
written by Barry Gillis, September 28, 2009

Hi Bill,

My first response since you've moved to the new location. I like the new place. Easy to get to, fresh paint, could use extra parking, but nice...

"A strikeout isn't any worse than any other out, and in some situations, it's better."

I think it is fair to mention (since you've mentioned it's better in some situations) that a strikeout is worse than other outs in some situations. Strikeouts don't score runs. Deep fly balls with a runner on third and less than two outs score runs. An early inning slow ground ball with a runner on third and less than two outs will usually score a run.

Aside from that, it is the concept of a strikeout not being any worse than any other out that glosses over a negative of the strikeout.

Teams make errors on balls in play. So every ball put in play that results in the batter reaching base via an error is not only a baserunner that wouldn't be there were it a strikeout, but it is also a non-out.

I've coached youth baseball for many years, and always kept full stats. "ROE" (reached on error) is one stat I've kept for younger age groups. Looking at OB% as just a function of the typical methods of reaching base just wasn't effective, because the better hitters also got on base more often by errors.

The effect for MLB would obviously be less, but I'm sure the effect is there.

If Mookie Wilson strikes out in game 6, the Red Sox win the world series...

Regards,

Barry

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written by Bill@TDS, September 28, 2009

Hey Barry,
Thanks for the comment. You're absolutely right, of course, that most other types of outs with less than two out and a runner on third are much better than a strikeout. And then of course a strikeout is better than a sharp grounder to short with less than two outs and a guy on first. But I shouldn't have mentioned one without th'other.

As for reaching on an error, that's not really making an out, and it gets to my point -- all else being equal (and we can't be sure that all else *would* be equal with someone like Reynolds; maybe he just has to swing as hard as he can every time to be effective), there's a huge advantage in being able to put it in play and see what happens. Because while you might not reach on an error very often in the majors, that's just a smaller subset of the pretty decent chance of reaching base that you always have just by putting the ball in play somewhere. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I'll just leave it there.

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