Yes, I know. But you can't make an out in play unless you hit the damn ball in play. You can't hit the ball in play if you strike out.
Do you not agree that in some cases a fly ball out is better than a strike out? If so, then all outs are not equal.

B-L is doing his best to make his point with pithy, fortune-cookie-like blather. He's under the mistaken impression that it makes him sound insightful and witty.

All outs are NOT equal, unless you don't actually watch the game, in which case they are. B-L's arguments seem to be predicated on the belief that the actual playing of the game is irrelevant to the statistical analysis that comes afterwards.

Posted by wylie715 on 6/16/2016 7:23:00 PM (view original):
Yes, I know. But you can't make an out in play unless you hit the damn ball in play. You can't hit the ball in play if you strike out.
Do you not agree that in some cases a fly ball out is better than a strike out? If so, then all outs are not equal.

Let's make sure we have this straight. All hitters are trying to hit the ball. Hitting the ball is a necessary part of playing baseball.

No one is arguing that a ball in play is the same as an out (strikeout or otherwise). But, once that ball in play becomes an out, it makes no difference how it was made.

Regarding your example, yes, there are times when an out in play is preferred and there are times when it's a disaster. Over the course of a season or a career, those outs even out.

We know strikeouts are just another out because there is zero correlation between team strikeouts and team run scoring.

Posted by bad_luck on 6/16/2016 8:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by wylie715 on 6/16/2016 7:23:00 PM (view original):
Yes, I know. But you can't make an out in play unless you hit the damn ball in play. You can't hit the ball in play if you strike out.
Do you not agree that in some cases a fly ball out is better than a strike out? If so, then all outs are not equal.

Let's make sure we have this straight. All hitters are trying to hit the ball. Hitting the ball is a necessary part of playing baseball.

No one is arguing that a ball in play is the same as an out (strikeout or otherwise). But, once that ball in play becomes an out, it makes no difference how it was made.

Regarding your example, yes, there are times when an out in play is preferred and there are times when it's a disaster. Over the course of a season or a career, those outs even out.

We know strikeouts are just another out because there is zero correlation between team strikeouts and team run scoring.

Didn't Abbot and Costello do a skit about this?

How you keep saying that strikeouts is 'just another out' continues to baffle me. You completely ignore context when you say it.

Poor, dumb BL.

He made an incredibly stupid statement over a year ago ("a strikeout is just a different kind of out"), and has doubled down on it so many times that he has actually convinced himself that it's true.

He sits there feel smug about his exclusive in-depth knowledge of the game that nobody else seems to have, without the slightest bit of self-awareness about how dumb he actually is, nor about how others see him for the foolish person that he is.

Poor, dumb BL.

Posted by toddcommish on 6/16/2016 7:39:00 PM (view original):
B-L is doing his best to make his point with pithy, fortune-cookie-like blather. He's under the mistaken impression that it makes him sound insightful and witty.

All outs are NOT equal, unless you don't actually watch the game, in which case they are. B-L's arguments seem to be predicated on the belief that the actual playing of the game is irrelevant to the statistical analysis that comes afterwards.

Well, he did once state: "I don't have to watch the games. I have the stats."

That kind of poured the foundation for this foolishness.

Well, it is sort of dumb to say "All outs are the same" and then say some struck balls become double plays thus making them a "disaster". Seems like a "disaster" is not equal to a strikeout.

This might be my favorite BL folly of all time, even more than his love of WAR, his claim that Kenny Lofton should be in the HOF, or his defense of why rioting can be a good thing.

His head is stuck so far up his *** with his blind adherence to what he thinks the stats tell him, that he has absolutely no clue about how fundamentally stupid his argument is.

Christ, do you guys really want to argue this again?

ok

"An out is an out," doesn't mean that, in some situations, if you knew ahead of time that you were going to make an out, you wouldn't prefer a fly out to a pop out or a ground out to a strikeout. You would. Just like in other situations, if you knew ahead of time you were going to make an out, you'd prefer a strikeout to a ground out.

But you don't know ahead of time when you are going to make an out and the goal isn't to make outs, so it's stupid to focus on these types of situations. The hitter was at the plate trying get get a hit, not ground out to second.

When looking back at an entire season, how you made outs doesn't matter. How often you did is what matters. We know this. I think Mike even agrees. (Que Mike "I prefer hitters that put the ball in play." No ****.)

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/16/2016 1:35:00 PM (view original):
For ****'s sake. This has been done time and time again.

By and large, the type of out is irrelevant. For every advanced runner or sacrifice fly to score a run, there is a double play grounder.

The difference is you cannot do anything positive with a whiff. Teams don't make errors on whiffs and runners don't advance.

That's why it's different for a pitcher to get a strikeout. He's removed the possibility of advancing runners/making errors. A win for the pitcher.
A hitter striking out has removed the possibility of contributing or, in the case of a double play, doing more damage. A wash for the hitter.

My argument has always been a ball in play is better than a strikeout. Because the idea of hitting is to do something positive not avoid doing something negative. A batter can't go to the plate thinking "****, I can't hit the ball because it might be a double play." He's thinking "The big *** brunette in Section C, Seat 2 is gonna blow me after I knock in the game winner!!!"

Yep. Here's mike agreeing that an out is an out.

But the part you're ignoring is the idea of a batter changing his approach to cut down on strikeouts because that will cut down on his power and make him less productive.

Swinging from the heels with two strikes, or being extra selective on a close two strike pitch around the edge of the zone because "it's not your pitch" is foolish. You have to be willing to take a chance on a more controlled swing, even if it means less power, in order to put the two strike pitch in or near the zone in play. Or to foul it off to keep the AB alive.

You seem to be completely disregarding that as an approach to hitting, which is counter to what virtually everybody who understands baseball knows.

How do you know that doesn't happen?

He's just arguing semantics because he likes to argue. I'm sure he knows a ball in play is better because his "advanced metrics" like BABIP says it is. So his "an out is an out" is sort of silly because, if a guys strikes out 10 less times a season, the "advanced metrics" says he'll have 3 more hits. More hits = more better.

His silliness extends into Mike Trout striking out less = Mike Trout can't hit homers. That's high-level stupidity.

Posted by MikeT23 on 6/17/2016 11:59:00 AM (view original):
He's just arguing semantics because he likes to argue. I'm sure he knows a ball in play is better because his "advanced metrics" like BABIP says it is. So his "an out is an out" is sort of silly because, if a guys strikes out 10 less times a season, the "advanced metrics" says he'll have 3 more hits. More hits = more better.

His silliness extends into Mike Trout striking out less = Mike Trout can't hit homers. That's high-level stupidity.

Are you retarded?

You already agreed with "an out is an out."

No one is arguing that strikeouts are the same as hits.

Posted by bad_luck on 6/17/2016 11:56:00 AM (view original):
How do you know that doesn't happen?

It's not about what is or is not happening. It's about your argument.

Your argument has been that hitters should not change their approach to try to cut down on strikeouts because that could reduce their power and their production.

Agree or disagree?