Over the past few years Mets fans have become accustomed to seeing perfectly good pitches not being swung at. It’s infuriating – but is it a real problem, or just impatient fans wanting more offensive production? Let’s take a look at Baseball-Reference’s advanced batting stats to get a better perspective.
In this short season the Mets are looking at strikes (L/Str) 28.2% of the time, which is above the MLB average of 27%. Not great, but not as bad as the Oakland Athletics, who are watching 31.8% go by. They are swinging and not making contact on strikes (S/Str) at 17.7%, again above the MLB average of 16.2%. So far Mets hitters are down in the count. When they do put the ball into play on strikes (I/Str), they are doing so 25.8% of the time, versus the MLB average of 28.4%. That seems like three strikes for Mets hitters. You can’t watch more called strikes, swing without contact more often, and put the ball into play less than the average team and expect to win 90 games.
To compare, in 2013 the Mets had a 27.8% L/Str versus the 27.6% MLB average, a 16.9% S/Str versus the 16.1% average, and a 27.6% I/Str versus the 29.2% average. So over the course of that entire year the Mets also saw more called strikes, swung without making contact, and put the ball into play less than the average MLB team. Neither last year nor so far this year are the Mets dead last in any of these categories. But combine these consistently below average statistics, and it’s a recipe for continued frustration if the Mets don’t start swinging at better pitches.
A quick caveat, this article was written before Thursday night’s win over the Braves. That game, while a great win, came after a stretch run of some meager offensive outputs. That game also featured five stolen bases. This team can make stealing bags a legitimate offensive weapon on a daily basis, but the likelihood of five stolen bases on a given night is very low. The Mets also hit in clutch moments last night, another great sign for the offense, but not something we saw much of before last night. But back to the stats.
Contrary to expectation, the Mets are actually swinging at first pitch strikes (1stS) a healthy 27.8% of the time in 2014, compared to the MLB average 26.1%. Aggressiveness is good, but aggressiveness without results is what’s piling up those strikeouts. Too often a Mets batter will step up to the plate and take a pitch, as they’ve been told time and time again by OBP calculators. If you look at that pitch for a strike with more frequency than the league average, you’re more often seeing a 0-1 count. That puts you immediately on the defensive. If you are swinging more aggressively on the first pitch, as the Mets appear to be doing so far in 2014, you better be putting that ball into play more than average. Again though, so far that’s not happening for the Mets. So it seems like they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. OBP is great, but you have to take advantage with good contact, or you’re just collecting walks but leaving men on the bags. Again, that didn’t happen during Thursday’s game, which is great.
That’s the problem with the “strikeouts don’t matter approach.” Strikeouts do matter because putting the ball into play is a better option over going back to the bench and hoping the next guy can hit a homerun. Putting the ball into play creates chances for errors, or tough plays. It creates opportunities for a hit, rather than the guaranteed out that results from a strikeout. Look no further than the all-time hits leader Pete Rose to understand that if you make contact and hustle to first, you stand a better chance of making a hit out of a bad situation, than if you just jog to first, or watch pitches go by you.
By no means is this article claiming a solution. Rather from the top down a change in strategy needs to take place with how the Mets hitters approach an at-bat. Swinging at more first pitches may be the cure, but mostly this season it hasn’t worked great. Last night the Mets did not record a hit on a first pitch, but they were successful anyway, and hopefully that can continue. Dave Hudgens has to continue to try something though, or this record-pace whiffing is going to result in him watching as someone else takes his job. For now though, let’s just enjoy two series wins in a row.
Good stuff as usual Patrick, but a few nitpickey things.
There’s great evidence that strikeouts really don’t matter or hurt the team any more than any other kind of out. Sure by putting the ball in play you run the chance of a ball being booted for an error or moving a runner over, but you also run the risk of hitting into a double play. Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin did the math in “The Book” and while I don’t have it on me right now, but the general conclusion is that the strikeout is a slightly more negative play, but you would have to strike out a lot for it to have any meaningful impact, and in some scenarios, it is actually the preferred way to make an out.
Also (and this is just an unrelated side note) the myth of the productive out is greatly overstated. Going from a man on 1st with no outs to a man on 2nd with one out is worth -0.220 runs.
How many runs is going from a man on 1st with no outs to a man on 1st with 1 out worth?
-0.379 runs, which is -0.159 runs worse. Striking out in that situation 62.9 times instead of sacrifice bunting (successfully) would cost the team 1 win the course of the season. That of course assumes that the sacrifice bunt is always successful, which I’ll grant.
The issue arises when the data is contextualized for the hitter at the plate. If EY Jr or whoever is hitting leadoff gets on base, I want the number 2 hitter swinging away. For our purposes, let’s say Daniel Murphy is hitting 2nd. He’s shown in his career to be a .291/.334/.423 hitter with a 12.9 K%. With Murphy at the plate, there’s a 29% chance of a hit, and a 66% chance of an out. If you sac bunt, you make an out 100% (well 99.99999%) of the time, and you lower the run expectancy by 0.220 runs. There’s also the chance that he gets a hit and you plausibly have any one of the following scenarios: 1st and 2nd, 0 out (1.559 RE); 1st and 3rd, 0 out (1.853 RE); 2nd and 3rd, 0 out (2.050 RE); or 2nd, 0 out (1.170 RE, with 1 run in). I should also mention that the beginning RE is 0.941 for a runner on 1st and 0 out.
If Murphy grounds out to second and EY ends up moving over to second, sure it was productive in the sense that it ends up hurting the team less than other modes of outs, but there’s no reason thinking it’s okay to just surrender an out, unless the pitcher is hitting. Go for the hit and a productive out may be a less-happy consequence of that.
Like I said, though, the productive out thing was slightly unrelated to the strikeout point.
Actually i just found it. Going from a man on 1st with no outs to a man on 1st with 1 out is worth -.38 runs. Therefore, moving the runner over from 1st to 2nd is productive (it has to be if you think about it logically) and is worth (-.22 – (-.38) = .16 runs.
Players have moved away from “fearing” strikeouts…probably a good thing. However, they’ve also abandoned many of the situational hitting approaches that benefit a team. These are both In-at-Bat and In-Game situations in which a hitter would alter swing, pitch selection etc—whether it’s “shortening up” with 2 strikes or “hitting to the right side” to move a runner or score a guy from third, there is seldom an acknowledgement or adjustment made by hitters these days.
All considered…a strikeout with the bases empty is pretty much an out. A strike out with runners on first and third with none out???—there’s not a stat that captures and correlates the “misery” of that outcome.
Stats versus Eyes—nothing can be taken as a Bulk Absolute, but we need to watch and study and develop sharper knowledge on the game.
The NL average for strikeouts is 22.1%. The Mets are currently at 27%. However, if you take out the first two games in which the Mets struck out 44.9% of the time, and the Mets are averaging 22.2% strikeouts in the 7 games since. The Mets are always going to be on the higher side of strikeouts with guys, but i expect their strikeouts to average out with more games played. Right now, their average is still skewed by the first 2 games of the season (and the fact that we still have a bunch of players struggling offensively right now)
Here’s a stat… runner on First and Third with none out and a 2-2 count. Striking out is 0 Runs…hitting to the right side is 1 run.
On a different note. Just noticed that Abreu on the White Sox is hitting 300 with 4 homers and 12 RBIs. I guess we must have gold in Duda and Davis as the Mets scouts thought Abreu was not as worthy as them. Just kidding about Duda and Davis………..
Real simple here… hire a hitting coach that has more than 7 MLB AB’s to his credit. Nothing he teaches is based on experience. He has no credibility.
Ike spends ~3 weeks with Backman in Vegas and posts .293/.424/1.091 .. 7HR/14 RBIs …and 17BB/18SO’s. Much like Wally said when Ike went down … “we’ll fix him”. He obviously did a great job and Ike played better when he came back. What does Wally get – zero consideration for a position with the big club. He was actually chastised for the comments he made, but consider that Backman didn’t have to make those comments (take that risk). Pretty ballsy to say that he could fix Ike at that time when no one wanted anything to do with Ike… hitch and all.
Yet we keep Hudgens for what reason? Because we are the Mets. Collins, Hudgens and Warthen need to go along with most if not all of the team doctor’s. This is all under Wilpon management so nothing will change.