Posted by burnsy483 on 5/14/2014 9:45:00 AM (view original):
I'll say this about the "an outs an out" argument, but I'm not getting into a conversation about this - the Mets have obviously adopted the "an outs and out" mentality, and there have been plenty of times in the last year or so when the Mets were in situations where a ground ball or a sac fly would have been beneficial, and the Mets struck out. Drives you insane. So, yes, generally putting the ball in play and making out has little benefit. But you can be sure I'd rather the guy who slugs .500 with 100 strikeouts rather than the guy who slugs .500 with 200 strikeouts. There's a benefit to putting the ball in play.
A couple different things going on here. You'd rather have a player who slugs .500 with 100 k's vs a player who slugs .500 with 200 k's. The guy with 100 k's is going to reach base between 30 and 50 more times than the guy with 200 k's. The question is, can the high K guy maintain that .500 slugging percentage if he makes an effort to reduce the strikeouts. I don't think he can. I think that, for some players, the cost of a high slugging percentage is the strikeouts.
Over a large sample, an out is an out. Obviously, there are certain situations where a ground ball out helps more than a strikeout. There are also certain situations where a ground ball out hurts a lot more than a strikeout. How often someone makes an out is infinitely more important than how they make their outs.