Whiffing the Count
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 at 11:30AM
Bill Chuck - Managing Editor in Bill Chuck Files, Mike Napoli
Peter Abraham has an interesting article today, oddly placed on the front page (?!?) of the Boston Globe. The piece is somewhat of a validation of the Red Sox who set a franchise record with 1,308 strikeouts during the regular season and have added 106 more strikeouts in 10 postseason games.

The premise of his piece is that teams are willing to accept high strikeout totals if their hitters are disciplined and provide home run hitting power.

Abraham's focal point is Mike Napoli, who set a Sox franchise record with 187 strikeouts this season, but also hit 38 doubles and 23 home runs.

“You’d prefer somebody hit for power and not strike out often,” Sox assistant general manager Mike Hazen told Abraham. “But those guys are the superstars and they’re fairly rare. Sometimes you have to have an appreciation for what a good strikeout can do. You have to look at those long at-bats as contributing to the overall good of the lineup. Power is hard to find and you learn to live with the strikeouts.”


Let's take a deeper dive looking at teams

Is pitches per plate appearance a reflection of a team's success?

I felt this was a good place to start and I was immediately disavowed of the assumption. The Red Sox (97-65) did lead the majors in P/PA, but they were tied with the less-than-terrific Minnesota Twins (66-96). Granted the three teams with the lowest P/PA had horrible records, but I also noticed that both the Cardinals and Tigers were in the bottom five in the majors in P/PA.

2013 Regular Season Pitches Per Plate Appearance
P/PA
1. Minnesota Twins 4.02
2. Boston Red Sox 4.02
3. Cleveland Indians 3.95
4. Oakland Athletics 3.94
5. New York Mets 3.91
6. Seattle Mariners 3.91
7. Toronto Blue Jays 3.89
8. Tampa Bay Rays 3.87
9. Pittsburgh Pirates 3.86
10. Texas Rangers 3.85
11. Chicago Cubs 3.85
12. Atlanta Braves 3.83
13. Arizona Diamondbacks 3.83
14. Houston Astros 3.82
15. New York Yankees 3.81
16. San Diego Padres 3.81
17. Los Angeles Angels 3.81
18. Los Angeles Dodgers 3.81
19. Baltimore Orioles 3.80
20. Cincinnati Reds 3.80
21. Washington Nationals 3.80
22. Miami Marlins 3.79
23. Philadelphia Phillies 3.78
24. San Francisco Giants 3.77
25. Kansas City Royals 3.77
26. St. Louis Cardinals 3.76
27. Detroit Tigers 3.76
28. Chicago White Sox 3.76
29. Colorado Rockies 3.72
30. Milwaukee Brewers 3.72


Is there an ideal home run to strikeout ratio?

The majors leading home run hitting team, the Baltimore Orioles, hit one homer for every 5.30 strikeout. The Red Sox homered once every 7.34 strikeout. The Braves homered once every 7.64 strikeout. The Tigers homered once every 6.09 strikeout. The Rays homered once every 7.09 strikeout. The Cardinals homered once every 8.88 strikeout.

2013 Regular Season Home Runs and Strikeouts
HR K
1. Baltimore Orioles 212 1,125
2. Seattle Mariners 188 1,353
3. Oakland Athletics 186 1,178
4. Toronto Blue Jays 185 1,123
5. Atlanta Braves 181 1,384
6. Boston Red Sox 178 1,308
7. Texas Rangers 176 1,067
8. Detroit Tigers 176 1,073
9. Chicago Cubs 172 1,230
10. Cleveland Indians 171 1,283
11. Tampa Bay Rays 165 1,171
12. Los Angeles Angels 164 1,221
13. Washington Nationals 161 1,192
14. Pittsburgh Pirates 161 1,330
15. Colorado Rockies 159 1,204
16. Milwaukee Brewers 157 1,183
17. Cincinnati Reds 155 1,245
18. Minnesota Twins 151 1,430
19. Houston Astros 148 1,535
20. Chicago White Sox 148 1,207
21. San Diego Padres 146 1,309
22. New York Yankees 144 1,214
23. Philadelphia Phillies 140 1,205
24. Los Angeles Dodgers 138 1,146
25. New York Mets 130 1,384
26. Arizona Diamondbacks 130 1,142
27. St. Louis Cardinals 125 1,110
28. Kansas City Royals 112 1,048
29. San Francisco Giants 107 1,078
30. Miami Marlins 95 1,232

Let's look at some individual numbers

Here are the 23 players with at least 140 strikeouts in 2013 with their homer and strikeout totals. I've also included their homer and strikeout percentages as well as their P/PA. I threw batting average in there as measure of consistency.

As I look at this, I do see Napoli building up the pitch count, but I also see a batter who strikes out way too much and doesn't produce enough homers to compensate for it. In this group, Paul Goldschmidt really excels and Chris Davis is steller. Marlon Byrd looks like a better Napoli, but he takes one less pitch per at bat, which comes out to three additional pitches against starters, which to me is worth the sacrifice.

There are numerous others who I like on this list who whiff less than 30% of the time.

2013 Regular HR and Strikeouts
HR K P/PA HR% K% AVG
1. Chris Carter (HOU) 29 212 4.20 5.7% 36.2% .223
2. Chris Davis (BAL) 53 199 3.97 9.1% 29.6% .286
3. Adam Dunn (CWS) 34 189 4.29 6.5% 31.1% .219
4. Mike Napoli (BOS) 23 187 4.58 4.6% 32.4% .259
5. Pedro Alvarez (PIT) 36 186 3.92 6.5% 30.3% .233
6. Jay Bruce (CIN) 30 185 3.96 4.8% 26.5% .262
7. Mark Trumbo (LAA) 34 184 3.72 5.5% 27.1% .234
8. Dan Uggla (ATL) 22 171 4.14 4.9% 31.8% .179
9. Evan Longoria (TB) 32 162 4.00 5.2% 23.4% .269
10. Justin Upton (ATL) 27 161 4.08 4.8% 25.0% .263
11. Josh Hamilton (LAA) 21 158 3.73 3.6% 24.8% .250
12. Alfonso Soriano (NYY) 34 156 3.74 5.9% 24.9% .255
13. Mark Reynolds (NYY) 21 154 4.22 4.7% 30.6% .220
14. Alejandro De Aza (CWS) 17 147 4.06 2.8% 21.8% .264
15. Carlos Gomez (MIL) 24 146 3.67 4.5% 24.7% .284
16. Paul Goldschmidt (ARI) 36 145 4.12 6.0% 20.4% .302
17. Ian Desmond (WSH) 20 145 3.69 3.3% 22.1% .280
18. Marlon Byrd (PIT) 24 144 3.65 4.5% 24.9% .291
19. Jason Kipnis (CLE) 17 143 4.19 3.0% 21.7% .284
20. Chase Headley (SD) 13 142 3.96 2.5% 23.7% .250
21. Alex Gordon (KC) 20 141 4.00 3.2% 20.1% .265
22. Giancarlo Stanton (MIA) 24 140 4.14 5.6% 27.8% .249
23. Brandon Moss (OAK) 30 140 3.99 6.7% 27.7% .256

Four Top 10 Lists

In closing, I wanted to look at four variables, strikeouts, homers, hits, and walks and what the P/PA was for the leaders in each category.

This report shows you that amongst batters in the top ten in strikeouts, nobody worked the count more than Justin Upton.
2013 Top 10 Strikeout Leaders with P/PA
K P/PA
1. Chris Carter (HOU) 212 4.87
2. Chris Davis (BAL) 199 4.87
3. Adam Dunn (CWS) 189 5.08
4. Mike Napoli (BOS) 187 5.00
5. Pedro Alvarez (PIT) 186 4.60
6. Jay Bruce (CIN) 185 5.03
7. Mark Trumbo (LAA) 184 4.55
8. Dan Uggla (ATL) 171 5.02
9. Evan Longoria (TB) 162 4.85
10. Justin Upton (ATL) 161 5.10

This report shows you that amongst batters in the top ten in homers, nobody worked the count better than Paul Goldschmidt. Napoli when he homered saw 3.83 pitches.
2013 HR Leaders with P/PA
HR P/PA
1. Chris Davis (BAL) 53 3.40
2. Miguel Cabrera (DET) 44 3.18
3. Pedro Alvarez (PIT) 36 2.81
4. Paul Goldschmidt (ARI) 36 4.17
5. Edwin Encarnacion (TOR) 36 3.06
6. Mark Trumbo (LAA) 34 2.82
7. Alfonso Soriano (NYY) 34 2.74
8. Adam Dunn (CWS) 34 3.79
9. Adam Jones (BAL) 33 2.58
10. Evan Longoria (TB) 32 2.56

This report shows you that amongst batters in the top ten in hits, nobody worked the count more than Mike Trout. Matt Carpenter and Dustin Pedroia both had very productive at bats that led to a hit. Napoli had productive at bats that ended up in a hit seeing 4.11 pitches.
2013 Hits Leaders with P/PA
H P/PA
1. Matt Carpenter (STL) 199 4.12
2. Adrian Beltre (TEX) 199 3.67
3. Miguel Cabrera (DET) 193 3.71
4. Dustin Pedroia (BOS) 193 4.05
5. Robinson Cano (NYY) 190 3.63
6. Mike Trout (LAA) 190 4.21
7. Manny Machado (BAL) 189 3.53
8. Eric Hosmer (KC) 188 3.77
9. Daniel Murphy (NYM) 188 3.63
10. Adam Jones (BAL) 186 3.54

This report shows you that amongst batters in the top eleven in walks, nobody worked the count more than Dan Uggla and Andrew McCutcheon. Napoli averaged 5.84 pitches in his 73 walks.
Top 11 Leaders in Walks with P/PA
BB P/PA
1. Joey Votto (CIN) 135 5.41
2. Shin-Soo Choo (CIN) 112 5.63
3. Mike Trout (LAA) 110 5.50
4. Paul Goldschmidt (ARI) 99 5.43
5. Carlos Santana (CLE) 93 5.58
6. Miguel Cabrera (DET) 90 5.34
7. Edwin Encarnacion (TOR) 82 5.60
8. Billy Butler (KC) 79 5.06
9. Andrew McCutchen (PIT) 78 5.71
10. Nick Swisher (CLE) 77 5.64
11. Dan Uggla (ATL) 77 5.78
Article originally appeared on MLB Baseball Analytics (https://baseballanalytics.org/).
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