The defining characteristic of that period in baseball now known as the PED Era isn’t particularly hard to identify: it was power. Home-run totals increased across the game. The long-standing single-season home-run record was broken multiple times in a few years. And, of course, drug testing ultimately revealed that many players were using steroids and other PEDs specifically to aid their physical strength.

Attempting to find a similarly distinctive trend for the decade-plus since testing began isn’t as easy. For a while, the rise of the strikeout seemed to be a candidate. A combination of increased velocity, better relievers, and a bigger strike zone has caused strikeout rates to increase dramatically in recent seasons.

Over the last couple years, though, we’ve also seen another big rise in homers — a product, it seems, both of a fly-ball revolution and potentially juiced ball. We’ve also witnessed the aforementioned growth of the strike zone begin to stagnate, perhaps even to reverse.

The combination of the strikeouts with the homers over the last few years has led to its own sort of trend: an emergence of hitters who record a lot of strikeouts, walks, and homers — each of the three true outcomes, in other words — without actually hitting the ball in play all that often.

The players responsible for this development are the sort who swing and miss frequently while refusing to offer at pitches on which they’re unable to do damage. To get a sense of who I mean, here’s a list of the top-10 players this season by percentage of plays ending in one of the three true outcomes.

That’s a pretty representative collection of the sort of hitter I’m talking about. Not only are these guys refusing to hit balls in play, they’re being rewarded for it: all but two have recorded distinctly above-average batting lines.

And this group of 10 is representative of a larger trend across the league. Consider how TTO% has changed in the 20-plus years since the strike.

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For patient sluggers, strikeouts are a necessary byproduct of an approach designed to draw walks and hit home runs. We are well past the point of ridiculing strikeouts as bad when there are tangible trade-offs in on-base percentage and slugging. Those trade-offs are generally good for the player, but for players like Chris Carter this season, the three-true-outcome approach can go very wrong if the power drops or if the (relatively few) balls in play are not falling. For Chris Carter, a drop in both power and BABIP has resulted in a below replacement-level season despite leading the the league in Three True Outcomes.

Trying to get walks and home runs is generally a good strategy for hitters. Adding strikeouts to the mix is fine as evidenced by the leaders in Three True Outcome percentage (HR+K+BB/PA) below: Read the rest of this entry »

Joc Pederson does not fit the traditional “three true outcomes” profile visually. Listed at 6-foot-one and 185 pounds, Pederson plays center field and is a far cry from the lumbering slugger personified most in Adam Dunn over the past decade. However, Pederson has been a high walk, high strikeout player with decent power throughout his minor league career with some very good comps and that has carried over so far in Major League Baseball in the early part of the season.

Over the past three seasons, Pederson has moved quickly and steadily to the three true outcomes looking at the level where he received the most plate appearances in each season.
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Most readers understand that the phrase Three True Outcomes (TTO) refers to walks, strike outs and home runs. In an August 2000 article at Baseball Prospectus, Rany Jazayerli noted that these outcomes are “true” in the sense that they are largely independent of all things — outside that mano-a-mano moment between the batter and the pitcher:

Together, the Three True Outcomes distill the game to its essence, the battle of pitcher against hitter, free from the distractions of the defense, the distortion of foot speed or the corruption of managerial tactics like the bunt and his wicked brother, the hit-and-run.

None of the three true outcomes are significantly impacted by what happens outside the batters box*. Therefore, players with a higher percentage of plate appearances that end in TTOs have their fate largely decided at the plate. The poster child for the TTO? Rob Deer. His career TTO percentage ((HR+SO+BB)/(PA)) was 49.7%.

I thought it’d be interesting to look at how TTO players have evolved over time and what accounts for their successes and failures.

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When Adam Dunn signed with the White Sox earlier this offseason for four years and $56 million dollars, I generally agreed with those like Dave Cameron who saw it as perhaps a slight overpayment, but reasonable given that Dunn will be moving to a park that favors his prodigious power and to a team and league that will finally allow him to spend most of his time at his natural position — designated hitter. I generally still agree with the assessment. However, there are some things worth watching as Dunn begins his in Chicago in relation to his shift in league, position, park, and his recent plate approach. What better to write about on Hall of Fame Announcement Day than a player who signed more than a month ago?

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[Authors Note Added, 7:42 p.m. EST: Thanks to the commentators below who spotted the obvious error… You all are great. Fortunately (for me) the revised standings for the top five remain almost the same. It was a simple Excel mistake on my part, silly and embarrassing. Some good came out of it: there is now a bidding war between San Francisco, Houston, Kansas City, and New York (NYN) to hire me as Head of Research and Analysis.]

The so-called Three True Outcomes are the walk, the strikeout, and the home run. They are called “true” outcomes because they reflect the pitcher-hitter relationship without the mediation of defense, luck on balls in play, etc. The celebration of three true outcome (TTO) hitters is a classic staple of sabermetric writing on the internet. In that tradition, let’s take a look at the leaders in TTO rate from 2007-2009. The pool of players are those defined as qualified over the past three calendar years by the FanGraphs leaderboards. The definition of Three True Outcome rate I’ll use is (HR+K+BB-iBB)/(PA-iBB). I’ve excluded intentional walks since they are out of the hitter’s control.

In reverse order, your top five members of the Rob Deer Fan Club from 2007-2009:

5. Jim Thome
TTO%: 47.0
TTO: 728
PA-iBB: 1549
HR: 92
uBB: 232
SO: 404

Although Thome is a sure DH-only at this point, I’m surprised his name hasn’t popped up more frequently this offseason in hot stove rumors. Thome still has something to offer, but teams seem to be more circumspect regarding the relative value of designated hitters than in the past. Moreover, it’s one thing to have old player skills, and another to simply be old.

4. Carlos Pena
TTO%: 48.0
TTO: 845
PA-iBB: 1761
HR: 116
uBB: 258
SO: 471

It bears repeating: for all the (uninformed) talk of Tampa Bay’s rapid ascent being due to years of high draft picks, smart acquisitions like that of Pena have had as much or more to do with their recent success. I’ve heard that during the 2006-2007 offseason, one of his suitors was the Kansas City Royals, and that part of the reason he didn’t sign with the Royals was that they wanted him to complete with Ryan Shealy for a starting spot.

3. Adam Dunn
TTO%: 48.4
TTO: 926
PA-iBB: 1914
HR: 118
uBB: 302
SO: 506

For all the (justified) talk of Dunn’s dreadful performance in the field, there is no doubting his offensive value. Dunn is arguably the most miscast player in baseball — he’s one of the few guys who could actually carry the DH spot, yet he’s stuck in the NL… Remember way back in 2008, when then-Blue Jays GM J. P. Ricciardi put down Dunn’s abilities, leading to general mockery and vilification of Ricciardi all over the internet? A fired up Adam Dunn responded by finishing 2008 with monstrous 1.2 WAR and following it up with an equally impressive 1.2 WAR in 2009. Interesting.

2. Mark Reynolds
TTO%: 48.5
TTO: 815
PA-iBB: 1682
HR: 89
uBB: 170
SO: 556

Reynolds may not be much of a defender on the hot corner, but he’s Adrian Beltre compared to the rest of this group. Particularly interesting in this context is that Reynolds is the only member of this group not in his 30s, and as the youngest of the five, he reflects much what we generally known about player aging: he has the most defensive skill, the lowest walk rate, the highest three-year batting average (.257), the most steals, and the highest speed score.

1. Jack Cust
TTO%: 54.4
TTO: 929
PA-iBB: 1707
HR: 84
uBB: 299
SO: 39.3

What, you were expecting Howie Kendrick? As has been said before, perhaps they should rename this category the “Three True OutCusts.” Cust outstrips even Dunn in his extremity. Cust is known for his old player skills, and his down year in 2009 did nothing to change that perception. However, CHONE projects Cust’s 2010 context-neutral runs above average per 150 games at +23, second-highest in this group to Pena’s +30. Oakland recently resigned Cust for $2.65 million guaranteed as part of their goal of fielding one Adam Dunn and eight Endy Chavezes, and if he’s anywhere close to +23 as a hitter, that will be a bargain.

Later this week: The 2007-2009 trailers