Don’t Blame Hitters for All the Strikeouts
There is considerable teeth-gnashing going on around the game due to a lack of action on the field. Those criticisms are not unfounded. All things being equal, the game is better with more and not less action. A walk might be nearly as good as a hit when it comes to scoring runs, but it is considerably less exciting. A strikeout does have some excitement of its own, but on a large field that ranges out to 400 feet in most parks, concentrating much of the action to the first 60 feet has some drawbacks when it comes to demanding and retaining the attention of fans.
In any given confrontation, both the pitcher and batter exert considerable influence over the outcome of an at-bat. Because of that, it might seem reasonable to place equal blame on the hitters and pitchers for the increase in strikeouts. In an era defined by greater velocity and more frequent shifts, one argument goes, batters are failing to adjust. If they would just take the ball the other way, they might strike out less, get more hits, etc.
That might be true. It is also possible, however, that changing their approaches might lead hitters to produce less valuable outcomes or, worse, abandon the very strengths that allowed them to become major leaguers in the first place. That isn’t fair to hitters. What I’d like to posit here is a much simpler explanation for the rise in strikeouts — namely, that pitchers are too good.
Fastball velocity has increased at a steady rate, some of that due to the rise of relief innings around the league and some of it probably to dramatic improvements in training and development. That’s not really the point of this post, though. The point of this post is to discuss one particular cause of the increase in strikeouts that likely has little to do with launch angle or players trying to hit home runs, but rather the talent level of the pitchers and a change in philosophy.
Below is a scatter plot of MLB strikeout percentage and average fastball velocity.
As you can see, the two are highly correlated. That’s something we probably already knew. Over the same time period, I compared a whole host of other stats — mostly rate stats, as well as plate-discipline numbers — to see if I could find other numbers that moved in the same, or opposite, direction of strikeouts over the last decade and a half. The most similar was the increased use of offspeed pitches, as seen below.
At the same time we have witnessed a rise in fastball velocity, we have also witnessed a decline in fastball usage. No other metrics reveal such a strong relationship. I suspected that walk rate might have moved with or against strikeouts, but that hasn’t really been the case. I thought that if hitters had been selling out for power, we might see a correlation with ISO, but that’s not really true, either. When I ran the strikeout numbers against the plate-discipline numbers, there were several really good relationships. One such relationship was first-strike percentage, though perhaps that is a bit too obvious, as getting strike one is clearly going to increase the odds of a strikeout.
As for the other plate-discipline numbers, the closest relationship occurred on zone percentage, perhaps in the opposite direction we might expect.
Pitchers have steadily worked in the zone less often over the years, even as strikeout rate has moved up. In order for that to happen, players would have needed to swing on a lot more pitches outside the zone… which they have. Graph:
What’s interesting here is that O-Swing% has been fairly steady over the last seven years even while strikeouts have continued to climb. It’s possible to place some blame on the batters for increasingly swinging at pitches outside the strike zone, but contact on pitches outside the zone actually went up with O-Swing percentage a decade ago, and it wasn’t until after the swing rate hit a plateau that contact rate moved down over the last few seasons. The 62.5% contact rate on pitches outside the zone this year is actually higher than for any season between 2002 to 09.
To put these changes in more concrete terms, let’s take the numbers from 2013, where hitters swung at 30.3% of pitches outside the zone and made contact 66.5% of the time. Knowing only that pitchers were pitching in the zone one percentage point less often, we would expect a change in whiff rate by 0.1 percentage points. When we factor in the drop-off of contact on those pitches from 66.5% to 62.5%, the number of whiffs due to pitches swung at outside the zone changes things just .11 percentage points. That’s not a whole lot when whiff rates have moved up 1.2 percentage points during that time.
If the change in whiff rate over the last five years isn’t due to hitters chasing pitches outside the zone, then what is the cause of the climb in whiffs and strikeouts?
Let’s attempt to answer that by revisiting a couple of the earlier graphs above. The two strongest relationships with strikeout rate have been fastball velocity and percentage of offspeed pitches. Let’s see how those changes from 2013 to 2018 might have had a tangible effect on whiff rates.
The table below puts fastballs into buckets by velocity and the compares outcomes in 2013 and this season, per a number of searches over at Baseball Savant.
| Velo | 2013 Pitch% | 2013 SwStk% | 2013 wOBA | 2018 Pitch% | 2018 SwStk% | 2018 wOBA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 86-88 | 2.5% | 5.5% | .375 | 2.2% | 6.9% | .358 | |
| 89-91 | 10.9% | 5.6% | .368 | 10.1% | 6.8% | .354 | |
| 92-94 | 16.3% | 7.4% | .342 | 14.9% | 8.5% | .348 | |
| 95-97 | 6.9% | 9.4% | .314 | 8.1% | 11.1% | .313 | |
| 98+ | 0.9% | 13.6% | .265 | 1.1% | 11.9% | .261 |
Given the roughly equivalent offensive numbers by wOBA in roughly similar offensive environments, players seem to have adjusted pretty well to velocity over the past five years — or, alternatively, have been aided by a juiced ball. While the whiff rates have gone up in the 95-97 mph range, the overall outcomes are the same. It is at the lower velocities where hitter numbers have declined the most. Those numbers are relative as hitters still hit better against lower velocity than upper velocity.
What is interesting is that if you ignore the whiff numbers in 2018 and looked at only the whiff rates in 2013 as well as the change in frequency of pitches at 95 mph and above, you would expect a change of about .14 percentage points in whiff rate, which is more than the change on hitters chasing pitches out of the zone.
Let’s do another similar analysis with offspeed pitches, just looking at whiff rates.
| Season | Pitch % | Whiff % | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 42.5% | 14.3% | .275 |
| 2018 | 44.2% | 15.1% | .274 |
So we see, again, that hitters have adjusted (or been aided by a juiced ball) to the increased use of offspeed and breaking pitches, putting up similar offensive performances in the 2013 and -18 seasons. The big problem for hitters is that breaking pitches have always induced more whiffs. If we only use the whiff percentage from back in 2013 and the increased usage over that time, we would see a rise of .24 percentage points, an even bigger rise than the one from more 95-plus mph fastballs. Those two factors together account for one-third of the rise in whiff rate over the last five years without even accounting for the rising whiff rates on fastballs and non-fastballs.
Without factoring in pitcher command, harder breaking balls, chase rates, or increased emphasis on power, we find that a large amount of the rise in whiff rates — and ultimately in strikeout rates — is due to two factors:
- More pitches 95+ mph; and
- More offspeed and breaking pitches
There are certainly a lot of other variables in play, but before blaming the hitters for changing their approach, keep in mind that much of the rise in strikeouts is due to factors out of their control. While hitters have been forced to adapt/take advantage of the juiced ball and potentially avoid shifts by hitting over them, a good portion of this rise in strikeouts was inevitable due to increasingly more talented pitching.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Every time I hear a former player and current announcer berating the modern hitter for the proliferation of strike-outs, I would love to see how he would have fared in the current MLB climate. 90+ mph is almost a base level requirement to pitch in the majors these days and hitters rarely get to see the same pitcher more than 3 times in a single game. More often than not, its two plate appearances against the starter, then an assortment of specialists. Better bullpen management and better pitching. Eventually changes will have to be made to balance the game again.
“Eventually changes will have to be made to balance the game again.”
Why?
Why not just accept that contact rates aren’t going to be a part of the game in the same ways? We get more homers (MOST EXCITING PART OF BASEBALL!) but with the “downside” of more K’s (which plenty of people also find exciting when it’s their team’s pitcher striking the guys out).
Nobody likes when their players do poorly. Striking out feels like the worst thing a hitter can do, and therefor they don’t like it when their players do it. This is understandable, but this also doesn’t feel like something that needs a fix. Do we just want a bunch of David Eckstein’s gritting and hustling their ways around the basepaths? Would that really make baseball better than having Stanton/Judge/Trout type players? Does everyone just hate good pitching?
It’s not like we don’t still get Javier Baez type players flashing leather all over the diamond anymore. It’s not like there’s not plenty of scoring. Why are more pop flies and ground outs objectively better for the game?
I’m genuinely confused by why people, specifically the FanGraphs community, would want this. Is it just the nebulous idea of “health of the game” and the idea that pundits/casual fans are bemoaning the current state of things? Because I find this to be really enjoyable baseball to watch.
Strikeouts are boring. Besides they’re fascist – Crash Davis.
Chris Davis would probably love a rule change to stop strikeouts.
I think the key word here is eventually. I don’t prefer this many strikeouts, but I can live with it currently. But what if these pitching trends don’t reverse and the strikeout rate starts to approach 30%? Eventually, it may happen, and changes will probably have to be made.
What if martians invade the planet tomorrow and insist we start playing with the balls they bring from their home planet (which…I guess would just be Mars)?
Get off that slippery slope, you might get hurt!
People aren’t talking about making changes when the league-wide K-rate is 30%, they’re in the comments, right now, talking about fixes for the current situation. Which even you admit, you can deal with.
“Striking out feels like the worst thing a hitter can do”
I think a GIDP or GITP is worse 🙂 Tweaking a hammy while running out a pop-fly is probably worse too
The actual worst thing a hitter can do is injure his ACL playing basketball during the off-season thus allowing the Yankees to acquire A-Rod. But that didn’t stop Boone from getting hired back years later to manage the team
You and many others here might find this be really enjoyable baseball to watch. At the same time a large amount of people might feel the exact opposite. Just because one group likes when baseball is played one way doesn’t make the other group wrong for thinking it’s boring. I grew up watching the Rockies play at Coors Field in the middle of the steroid era and before the humidor got installed. I LOVE high scoring high offense baseball games that feels like your team isn’t out of it until the last out is done. Because I grew up watching that type of baseball 2-1 games with 5 combined hits are a bit dull to me, doesn’t make me wrong just a different opinion.
Limit pitching staffs to 11 players, force each new pitcher to face at least two (maybe even three?) batters.
This. Relief pitchers are the most one-dimensional and least interesting players in the game. Why devote almost on-third of the roster to them as some teams are doing with these ridiculous 8-man bullpens? I’d rather have the bench players who can platoon, pinch-hit, etc. Yes, starters will have to get over this pampered 5-and-fly approach and start actually pitching instead of trying to blow 95+ mph fastballs by every hitter. And the remaining relievers will have to work more often so they will have to dial it back too. The breaking stuff will be less effective without all the heat so that should bring things back into balance.
Perhaps one of the reasons why there are so many more pitchers throwing so many fewer pitches is the proliferation of the home run.
In the olden days, only a few players in any given batting order was a threat to go deep at any time. Now, literally every big league regular is a threat to go deep. Ben Revere was the last qualified hitter to hit no home runs in a season, and that was in 2012. Before the Chicks Dig The Long Ball era, there was at least one and usually more of these guys every season. Even pitchers, whose overall wOBA is at an all-time low, have experienced a slight uptick in HR per AB during the DH era.
When everyone a pitcher faces can go deep, he has to work harder to keep the ball in the park. With few exceptions, he can’t challenge anyone by saying, “here you go, hit it” and be confident it won’t go out.
So to keep the ball in the park, the pitcher has to work harder, stressing his shoulder, arm and elbow and going max effort on every pitch. He gets worn down more quickly, which might help explain why starters average a little over five innings per outing, instead of 6-1/2 or seven or more.
The proliferation of the home run may also have led to the proliferation of the relief pitcher, since every matchup is seemingly about preventing the home run by keeping the batter from hitting the ball, and striking him out instead.
So, maybe to address the issue of too many pitchers and starters not going enough innings, maybe it would pay to address the composition of the ball? If that ball could be changed in a way that cuts down strikeouts and reduces home run rate, pitchers could be encouraged to pitch to contact more even as more balls are hit into play?
I definitely agree. I’ve been arguing for years in favor of a 10/10 rule, where teams can have only 10 players on the roster eligible to pitch — with an exception made if the score gets lopsided (10 runs up or 10 runs down), in which case they can send someone else to the mound.
This simple rule change would force all pitchers, starters and relievers, to face more batters — which means conserving their energy, managing their arm strength, potentially leading to more balls in play and more action for the fans.
So what are the potential solutions to getting the ball in play more? I’ve heard lowering and or moving the mount back. How about this one: making the ball a little bigger. Theory being that is would increase drag a little bit and decrease velocity = more bats on balls. I know that might be a drastic suggestion and there would be resistance, but I think it would tend to fix what most agree is a unwanted trend in the game right now. What unintended consequences am I not thinking of?
Reverse the counts, 4 strikes for an out, 3 balls for a walk!
Eliminate the shortstop!
All fouls are out of play by rule (cant catch for an out)!
Shrink the strike zone!
On a flyball the batter can tag and run for first base, just like an existing base runner can from any other base
No more force plays, all outs have to happen by physically tagging the baserunner
Downvotes? Geez guys … these are the jokes…
Hey– I think I’d even like the foul ball rule. Are there listings anywhere of the rates of outs from balls caught in foul territory to ballpark the impact?
I’m guessing a bigger ball would have a higher probability of hurting pitchers’ elbows and shoulders. Perhaps even their hands?
Yea I’d say hands more likely than elbows or shoulders…if it’s the same mass, the size shouldn’t matter, it’s just the air resistance is higher as it travels.
Meh, I would tweak with rules regarding bat size before I messed with the ball.
What a great time to be a pitcher. If you can avoid like 2 lineups in the NL and like 3 in the AL you have a chance at really putting together a great stat line this season. There are some truly gruesome hitting teams out there.
This statement represents the best reason why I don’t feel this needs to be “fixed”. We live in an era of baseball where both hitting and pitching seem to be done at extremely high levels.
Alternatively (as this article is essentially saying) what a bad time to be a hitter. Fastballs are faster, offspeed stuff out of the zone is harder than ever to make contact with. Batters face a murder’s row of wipeout pitchers and unless they can put it over the fence with some frequency, successful at-bats are hard to come by.
Fact: Players are turning a higher % of their hits into homers than any other period in baseball. Fans enjoy home runs
Fact: BA had a huge uptick during the steroid era and has since cooled back to the same levels as when the mound was first lowered. BA also fluctuates pretty heavily year over year, so this could be a trend but it could also “correct” itself. Too soon to tell what’s going on here.
Fact: The league ERA is sitting in the low to mid 4.00s (4.15, 4.31, 4.07 in 16, 17, 18 respectively) which is HIGHER than it was during the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s (from 1960-1992 there was exactly 1 season with a league ERA over 4). ERA is not a perfect measure of “pitching performance”, but just a thing to point to.
Fact: Hits/9 has returned to historically average numbers since the end of the steroid era.
Opinion: Robot umpires calling balls/strikes will do more for the quality of the MLB product than trying to inject more offense. That said, they could have the unintended consequence of injecting more offense.
Conclusion: It’s a great time to be a hitter, and paradoxically a great time to be a pitcher.
(Receipts: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/pitch.shtml)
Baseball should lower the mound and raise the seams on the ball. Pitchers won’t be able to throw nearly as hard, and hitters won’t be able to hit the ball as far. Pitchers will get more movement, but that advantage will most likely be offset by the large drop in velocity. Hitters not being able to hit the ball as far, maybe that would move their focus from power to more contact.
Are you correcting for the change in measurement technology for pitch velocity?
The new techniques measure the speed of the ball right out of the hand. A few years back it was about 40 feet from home plate. In the 1970’s it was right before homeplate.
Since a pitch decelerates at about 1 MPH/7 feet traveled, that’s a huge difference.
Experts still believe Nolan Ryan’s 100.9 MPH pitch was the fastest ever. It would likely be clocked at close to 110 MPH today.
Feller was “measured” at 98.6 over the plate, leading to estimates in the 101-103, possibly 107, by today’s “out of hand” standard.
Walter Johnson is another pre-radar pitcher that probably cracked 100 with some regularity.
The speed difference between ages isn’t so much in peak speeds as in the number of high speed pitches a player sees, the mix of pitches, and the average spread between the fastballs and the off-speed. The timing can get very complicated.
True. More guys can throw really hard. But it’s still true that a guy throwing “95” today would have been said to throw in the high 80s in the 1970s.
Average velocity has not increased nearly as much as the raw numbers indicate.
Don’t change anything about the game. It’s fine. Leave it alone.
The actual game on the field is much worse, from an aesthetic point of view.
The pace is interminable; ~25 seconds between pitches vs the rule book 12. There are waaaaay too many strikeouts, and too few balls in play, which reduces the amount of action, and devalues athleticism. The parade of anonymous middle relievers is boring beyond belief.
Pace of Play isn’t something that I think gets so easily associated with a K. IDK that you can say that if there were fewer K’s that would correlate with fewer pitches thrown. Could be that pitchers throw just as many pitches but there’s more walks, or fly/ground outs? That doesn’t speed up the game in any real way.
I think the time between pitches being enforced is the better way to go. Give a ball if they take too long to deliver, give a K if the hitter leaves the box to rub his bat/adjust his gloves/pray to the hitting gods/whatever.
About your last point: Players are still getting more hits than during the steroid era (not just homers either!). There’s still lots of running and fielding and all that. I think we’re just still adjusting to some of the changes (Chicks Dig the Long Ball, difference in rotation usage, removal of the Juice).
tl;dr- the game may be “worse” but it mostly just seems games are taking longer and people have other shit to do with their day than spend 4 hours watching baseball. There’s rules on the books that could deal with that, the umps just need to enforce them.
“All things being equal, the game is better with more and not less action … concentrating much of the action to the first 60 feet has some drawbacks when it comes to demanding and retaining the attention of fans.”
I agree with this, and this all makes sense on its face. But is there any actual evidence that fans find the game more boring (or less exciting, if you prefer) because of the increase in strikeouts and walks? For example, are there any poll or survey results that point to that? I’ve looked around and I’m coming up empty on those. All I’m finding are pieces stating this opinion (again, one I agree with). I’d love to see some data on this question if any are available.
Personal opinion: the high K / low balls in play style of play doesn’t take away from my TV viewing pleasure all that much but it makes the in-person experience at a game much, much worse.
This is a valid point, especially since the camera is trained on the pitcher and batter for most of the game. But in own opinion, an increase in balls in play would be a better TV viewing experience as well. Even on TV I’d like to see more batters running from the plate and fewer batters walking or jogging from the plate.
Forget what *I* might think needs to be done.
There WILL be significant changes (as per other posts) implemented within 20, maybe 10 years. This would include moving the rubber back (6″/year, to say 62-63 feet), lowering the mound, or even the idea of making the ball bigger. TPTB will have to, because the game is in danger of becoming significantly out of balance if these trends don’t slow down or reverse on their own.
for less Ks you need to do 2 things:
1. Smaller zone
2. More dead ball
Smaller zone forces pitchers over the middle and the dead ball incentives throwing strikes and throwing fastballs because the difference between a walk and a hit gets smaller. If you don’t deaden the ball it would cause endless nibbling and more walks with the smaller zone which makes the game even slower.
But I would leave it as it is.
Smaller zone might mean more contact, but will probably mean more walks as well, especially on great hitters. Not every pitcher, even in the big leagues, can hit a postage stamp from 60 feet 6 inches.
I’ve wondered whether automated strike zones (aka “robot umpires”) might help. Strike zone would remain the same on the books, but a consistently called zone based on strict plate width plus hitter height would force pitchers to come in the same way you suggest, and give them a better chance of not walking the guy.
Deadening the ball would probably do the most to get more balls into play. A lower home run rate, meaning less chance the ball goes out, would make the pitcher more comfortable coming in to get strikes, at least on lesser hitters, and not having to pay for it with a bomb. I could see dead ball end up yielding fewer strikeouts, definitely fewer homers, more balls in play, fewer pitches per plate appearance, longer starting pitcher outings, and shorter game times, at least until they stretch out the break between innings to stuff in more commercials to fill up the newly recovered time. Maybe it would even lead to fewer relief pitchers on staff and allow them to put another hitter or two on the bench.
Btw how do hitters develope their K rate during their prime? Say we only look at hitters are 24-31 who played in the last 20 years. When looking at 5 year windows do their K rates raise with the league? Of course over 5 years the league only changes a small amount but you still might see so something
It’s interesting to see how MLB hitting has evolved over the years. The batting average for the entire MLB this year is .248. That’s the lowest since the .244 recorded in the 1972 season. Peak BA in the ’72-’18 timeframe was .271 in 1999.
Runs (4.38) and home runs (1.14) are currently up significantly over 1972 levels (3.69/0.68), while hrs are equivalent to, but runs much lower than in 1999 (5.08/1.14).
This, and much more, here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/bat.shtml
What about fouls? Could it be that there are more Ks because hitters are fouling off heaters instead of putting them in play? That way, their whiff% would not change even if they’d still whiff on the breaking ball. Has there been a correlation with fouls as well?
Craig,
The problem you face when comparing 2013 to 2018 is that the way speeds are measured changed between the two endpoints which added about 2 mph. Therefore in the second to last table, the 2013 92-94 mph (which had a 7.4 swing strike percentage and a .342 wOBA compares to the 2018 line of 95-97 with an 11.1 swinging strike percentage and a .311 wOBA. Couple with the last graph that showed non-fastballs went from a 14.3 to 15.1 whiff percentage, the desire to swing upwards, aka “ground balls suck” aka “grip it and rip it” approach may not be working as intended.
Mike Trout: MIKE TROUT!