Posted by tecwrg on 5/29/2014 4:00:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 5/29/2014 3:35:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tecwrg on 5/29/2014 3:11:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 5/29/2014 2:33:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tecwrg on 5/29/2014 2:29:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 5/29/2014 2:25:00 PM (view original):
Posted by burnsy483 on 5/29/2014 2:20:00 PM (view original):
It's better to put the ball in play than to strike out. It's also better to hit the ball hard than to bunt the ball back to the pitcher. There are different "levels" to putting the ball in play.
Why does every struck ball, with two strikes, have to be a dribbler to the pitcher? We're talking about 400ish of the best baseball players in the world.
I think the assumption is that a "just making contact with 2 strikes" means that you swing like an eight year old girl.
You never answered this:
Why don't teams score more runs when they strike out less?
2013 MLB totals: 19.9% strikeout rate for all hitters. 4.17 runs/game for all teams
2008 MLB totals: 17.5% strikeout rate for all hitters. 4.65 runs/game for all teams
2003 MLB totals: 16.4% strikeout rate for all hitters. 4.73 runs/game for all teams
Do you see a trend between strikeouts and runs scored?
I do.
A) If you look at scoring for teams, there's no correlation between Ks and runs scored.
B) When looking at the entire league, you need to do more than just cherry pick three seasons. Runs scored will vary depending on tons of variables.
Strikeouts are absolutely up in 2014. The K/game rate for the entire league is over 2 standard deviations up from the 1969-2014 mean. If that's causing a problem, there should be some sort of corresponding reduction in runs scored. There isn't. The runs/game total for 2014 is easily within one standard deviation of the 1969-2014 mean.
"Runs scored will vary depending on tons of variables."
If "tons of variables" are involved, then how can you specifically pick one variable (strikeouts) in the equation and say "No, that has nothing to do with it"? Perhaps the "tons of (other) variables" are masking the negative impact that strikeouts are having on runs scored.
It's actually pretty easy.
You can do it the way I did above, which is certainly not fool proof, and take a look at each stat's standard deviation. K's are above the normal range but run scoring is still easily within the normal range.
Another way to do it is scatter plots. When something correlates, like OBP and runs, the plot looks something like this:
When there's no correlation, it looks similar to this chart of runs per game and caught stealing per game:
Pulling all of the runs/game for both leagues from 1910 to 2014 and plotting that against the K's per game for the same time frame, you get this: