If you take a look at the American League standings, you’ll see Boston, Cleveland, and Houston at the top of their respective divisions.
I don’t think any of these teams count as surprises to be leading their divisions: Cleveland came close to winning the World Series last year, the Red Sox added Chris Sale to a team with a playoff-level roster, and Houston is cashing in years of draft and trade acquisitions coming into their prime. Phrasing that differently, I think that all of the teams currently in first place in the American League are the teams most of us thought would be in first place. There’s no news there.
What isnews….or what could potentially be news, is just how those teams are winning.
Here are the AL team ranks for strikeouts by hitters:
Ranks
|
Team
|
Batter SO
|
1
|
Rays
|
779
|
2
|
A's
|
719
|
3
|
Rangers
|
718
|
Lg Avg
|
…
|
632
|
12
|
Royals
|
569
|
13
|
Cleveland
|
539
|
14
|
Red Sox
|
536
|
15
|
Astros
|
532
|
The Royals have one of the best contact rates in the American League. This isn’t anything new: that’s been one of the defining traits for that team in recent years. What’s surprising is that the three teams currently pacing the AL are all posting better contact rates than the Royals.
And they’re a fair bit better. The Royals have struck out in 20.5% of their plate appearances, while Cleveland is at 18.5%. That two percent translates to a difference of about one strikeout every two or three games.
That’s interesting.
Here’s something more interesting…here are the league ranks for pitching strikeouts:
Ranks
|
Team
|
Pitcher SO
|
1
|
Astros
|
788
|
2
|
Cleveland
|
750
|
3
|
Red Sox
|
712
|
4
|
Yankees
|
706
|
Lg Avg
|
…
|
633
|
In a rare instance of synchronicity, the teams that make the best contact are also the teams that are striking out the most hitters. Houston, Boston, and Cleveland are avoiding strikeouts when they hit, and getting strikeouts when they’re pitching. They are winning both sides of the strikeout battle.
And they’re winning games.
Which begs the question: are we seeing the start of a bat-on-ball revolution?
* *
I hate the current rate of strikeouts. I think the ever-rising percentage of strikeouts is Problem #1 in baseball, just ahead the pesky notion that lefthanders shouldn't be allowed to play shortstop. I'd like to see the strikeout rate change.
But I would like to see it change because baseball teams realize that strikeouts are suboptimal outcomes of at-bats, and try to adjust to a more contact-focused approach. I am less interested in solutions like moving the mound back, or reducing the number of pitching changes, or narrowing the strike zone. I prefer on-field, in-play solutions to the more distant and external changes that are occasionally suggested. Hitters are the ones that have gotten themselves into this situation: I’d like to think they can get themselves out of it, if there is enough of an incentive for it.
What I’m wondering is if baseball has reached that moment of incentive. The Royals back-to-back World Series run got me thinking along this line: as the strikeout rate rises, there is more and more value in contact ability, regardless of contact quality. I wish I could graph that in a compelling way, but I’m on a new computer, and I don’t think I’ve made a convincing graph of anything since high school. The gist is that strikeouts influence the gap between good contact and all contact.
Well...let me try to dive into that for a second. Let's imagine a low-strikeout era. Let's imagine an era when the average is two or three strikeouts a game, per side.
In that game…in that context…almost all of the value lies in the nature of the contact the batter makes, instead of the rate of contact. There is no value in purely making contact because the biggest possible advantage would be two or three balls in play. If your opponent strikes out three times and your team never strikes out, that’s the absolute maximum advantage. That’s about one hit a game, give-or-take. That’s not nuttin’, but it’s probably not enough to make up for a deficiency in contact. There’s not a particularly sizeable gap to exploit.
But if you’re playing in a high strikeout context…if you’re playing in a league where the average is nine or ten strikeouts per game per side, there is tremendous value in just making any kind of contact. If your opponent’s hitters are going to whiff ten times and you have a team that never strikes out, you’re getting ten more balls into play per game. That’s three more hits…that starts to cut into any gap that might exist in the quality of contact.
But actually, that advantage compounds on itself. If you have ten more balls in play, and three of them land as hits, that’s three more outs you get to spend. And if one of those extra outs manages to get one past the infield, that’s another at-bat. So the difference, in an absolute understanding, isn’t nine or ten additional balls in play….it’s closer to thirteen or fourteen extra balls in play.
Those examples are at the extremes of possible outcomes, of course, and we’re speaking in generalities. None of this is hard math.
But those extremes give some insight into how valuable building a gap between your strikeouts and your opponent’s strikeouts. That gap would also help to explain the strangeness of the Royals successful run, which I would count as the most surprising team outcome I’ve ever witnessed. And those extremes might give us some indication of where baseball is heading.
* *
Of course, it might just be a fluke. While the teams with the best contact approaches are pacing the AL divisions, the contact teams in the NL are losing a lot of baseball games. The only good team that has a below-average strikeout rate are the Nationals. Meanwhile, the upstart Brewers are pacing the NL in batting strikeouts. Colorado, Arizona, and Los Angeles are 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The Cubbies are 6th. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.
That said, the three AL teams I cited at the start of the article are all pretty smart organizations. I have as much knowledge of the inner workings of those franchises as you do (almost none), but if you had to predict which teams would lead the vanguard for finding new avenues to win games, I think those teams would make most shortlists.
And I hope it’s the case. I think that there is more value to just being able to contact than our best math can anticipate, and I hope that teams will try to adopt strategies that avoid the strikeout. Leaving aside my aesthetic preference for more defense and fewer games-of-catch, I think that a contact-focused offensive approach in the current environment would be a winning strategy, and I hope that teams pursue those kinds of strategies aggressively.
Much of the noise in baseball this year seems to be about elevated swing planes and rookies hitting dingers. This makes sense: Judge and Bellinger are amazing, and it’s a little surreal to see Ryan Zimmerman resurrected from the dead. I’m fine with the attention those stories are getting: they’re great stories. But the story I’m most interested in is the story that started Kansas City, and the one that seems to be playing out right now in Boston, Houston, and Cleveland.
I don't want a rulebook change, or a slight adjustment to the strikezone. I want a contact revolution. I dream of a baseball where the tyranny of the strikeout has been overthrown by the better justice of a baseball put into play.
Maybe the day is coming.