Whiffff! is in the air
The strikeout epidemic ailing MLB is showing no signs of slowing down
From his office high above 245 Park Avenue in Manhattan, the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, can feel and hear it: Whiffff! It is the sound of his players striking out in record numbers, sucking the action out of his game to the point where it too often feels like a funeral for all those runners left dying on base.
We are inexorably headed for the first season in baseball history in which there will be more strikeouts than hits. As of Wednesday, there had been 18,365 hits as opposed to 18,815 strikeouts and the gap widens by the day. The average 17.12 strikeouts per game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, is the highest in baseball history and has increased steadily since 2008. The present overall .245 batting average is the lowest in the major leagues since 1972. (I realize the analytics aficionados have determined that batting average is a worthless statistic but it does emphasize getting base hits — and which would you rather see, a single or a strikeout?)
We’re talking epidemic here. Whether Manfred realizes it or not, the game he’s presiding over is totally different from the one when he was elected commissioner in September 2013. Up until now, nobody in baseball has seemed to care much that batters are striking out. The analytics people say strikeouts are okay as long as they’re the end result of batters swinging hard and upward in an attempt to hit the ball in the air and hopefully over the wall.
Before hitting his first walk-off homer as a Yankee Wednesday night, Giancarlo Stanton had been the epitome of the all-or-nothing slugger and hard to justify his $25 million per year salary. According to Elias, his swing-and-miss count of 214 was second in the majors to only the Texas Rangers’ windmill Joey Gallo, and he’d been hitting .221 with 24 strikeouts and just one homer with runners in scoring position. Overall, Stanton has 70 hits (albeit 18 of them homers) and 100 strikeouts. For nights like Wednesday the Yankees are living with this, but how will they feel 3-4 years down the road when, inevitably, injuries start to set in, the homers decrease and Stanton’s strikeouts continue to rise?
Perhaps like the Orioles with Chris Davis? Two years ago, a season after he led the American League with 47 homers (and 208 strikeouts), Baltimore signed Davis to a sevenyear, $161 million contract. They did so with little regard for the fact he was a strikeout victim a third of the time. In 2016, he struck out a league-leading 219 times as opposed to just 125 hits. This alarming trend got worse last year (98 hits/195 K’s) and finally last week, with him hitting .150, with 86 strikeouts and 31 hits, the Orioles reluctantly benched Davis despite his team-leading $23 million salary.
Almost from the day he broke into the majors in 2012, there’s been story after story about where Bryce Harper was going to wind up (usually the Yankees) and how much money he was going to make as a free agent after the 2018 season. His agent, Scott Boras, talked about the possibility of him being the first halfbillion dollar player, and there is still recurring speculation of him getting at least $400 million from somebody next winter.
If so, it will be in spite of Harper’s ominous trending as another strikeout machine. As of Wednesday, his 197 swings and misses were third behind Gallo and Stanton. He is hitting .209 with a league-leading 19 homers but for the third straight year he has more strikeouts (72) than hits (53). But back in 2015, his MVP year, Harper hit .330 with 172 hits, a league-leading 42 homers and only 131 strikeouts.
Just to demonstrate how different hitters are today when it comes to strikeouts, Mickey Mantle led the American League in strikeouts five times from 1952-60 and never came close to having more K’s than hits. The closest was 1960 when the Mick whiffed 125 times to 145 hits. Even the all-time whiffmeister, Reggie Jackson, had only 13 more career strikeouts (2,597) than hits (2,584).
Besides the strikeouts going up and up, so, too are the pitching changes. When Manfred took over as a commissioner in 2013, they were averaging 7.9 pitchers per game. It’s gone steadily upward to the 8.5 it is today.
The pitching changes, of course, are another prime factor in the rise of strikeouts, with batters now facing a steady diet of 98-100 mph relievers from the sixth inning on. While a lot of it might be attributed to the horrible spring weather, Stats LLC reported last week that MLB attendance has dropped to its lowest average in 15 years, down 8.6% overall.
Manfred can only hope it’s not a matter of more and more fans finding baseball unwatchable because of all the action-killing strikeouts.