Strikeouts are being ignored and it’s a problem

Swingin’ With My Eyes Closed is the title of US country music superstar Shania Twain’s latest hit. It’s a cute little love ditty but it could also easily be used as “walkup” music for a large number of current hitters in MLB.

For the uninitiated, this refers to the various songs played as batters stride to home plate.

There is often a clever connection between music and player.

For instance, Tommy La Stella of the Chicago Cubs hails from northern New Jersey. Hence, Walk like a Man by the Four Seasons — the original “Jersey Boys” — is played for his batter’s box approach.

My point is this: in this age of long ball hitters who strike out with alarming frequency, it’s almost like they’re swinging with their eyes closed.

Get it?

Prime example: the New York Yankees’ sensational rookie slugger Aaron Judge has walloped 37 home runs thus far this season.

But Judge has also struck out 172 times. He recently set what used to be a dubious MLB record — he went down on strikes in 37 straight contests.

200 K’s in one season was formerly a dreaded and embarrassing figure to be avoided at all costs.

Some years ago, Dave Kingman, who clouted over 500 career homers, was ridiculed and derided for striking out over 200 times yearly.

For much of this decade, however, shame over striking out has been virtually non-existent.

There are a bushel of guys now in the 200 K club annually.

But they hit 30-40 home runs every season. So this somehow now makes whiffing nearly half the time OK.

You can thank the sabermetrics geeks and their new-age analytical gobbledy-gook for that.

In fact, their nerdy type has even gone so far as to say, striking out is actually good because it prevents players from hitting into double plays.

Cue the Twilight Zone theme music. Call me old school, if you must, but it feels the new analyticals are running amok and ruining the game.

Studying opponent tendencies, yes. Hocus pocus guesstimations which the analytic crowd specialise in, no.

Most sabermetric practitioners, be they civilian pencil pushers who rarely see the light of day or team front office execs with Ivy League degrees that espouse a concurrent view, have one thing in common: most never played the game.

“If you can’t play it, then ruin it” seems to be their mantra.

Result: many key facets of baseball have become infected by analytics.

Classic case: For years and years, batters were taught to have a level, line drive-producing swing. Uppercutting only led to pop-outs, they were told.

Nowadays, however, hitters are encouraged to have an upward swing — so as to produce a better “launch angle”, which creates long fly balls that clear the fence.

But I’m is not alone in my distaste for this recent i nsidious thinking. None other than Don Mattingly, the former New York Yankees star, wholeheartedly agrees with me.

Chicks may dig the long ball but Donnie Baseball and I ain’t havin’ it.

Mattingly, a six-time all-star, was a lifetime .305 hitter over 14 seasons. He also clouted 22 homers while collecting 1,099 RBI.

Mattingly struck out just 5.7% of the time (in contrast to nearly 40% for many of today’s sluggers.)

He thinks teams should draft and develop more contact hitters, then pay them high salaries.

“Analytically,” says Mattingly, “it’s now OK to strike out 170 times and that guy is still valued in a big way.”

“As soon as we start causing the strikeouts to be a bad value,” countered the current Miami Marlins skipper, “guys will put the ball in play more.”

Amen. You da man, Donnie B. When that happens, other key lyrics from that Shania Twain hit song will no longer be walk-up suitable: “How far it goes, only God knows”.