[Luis_Rivera]

Article on BP today... Someone responded to the strikeout article with a similar question FJ posed. Figured it could be of interest to some of you:

First one is from reader J.E. regarding the price of strikeouts:

I found it interesting that while you adjusted higher-contact guys downward for GIDPs, you don't seem to have taken into account the fact that a certain percentage of balls put in play also become basehits. Then again, everyone treats the numbers that way, which is why it drives me so crazy that I can't stop focusing on one thing.

If Adam Dunn strikes out 50 fewer times, and gets a single 10 of those ABs, he's at 283/402/586. Why do we always assume that 100% of the ABs that would be converted to non-SO outs would still be outs? As you say, reaching base a couple handfuls more per season is small potatoes, but not meaningless.
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This point was raised by quite a few readers. The main problem is that we can't say what Adam Dunn would have done if he hadn't struck out all those times because we have to assume that a change in outcome is a result of change in approach. Because power and strikeouts are positively correlated, we would have to assume that Dunn's change in approach would decrease his power numbers while decreasing his strikeouts, but we cannot say with any accuracy how much his power numbers would decrease. Thus, we can't reliably estimate the cost of reducing strikeouts and then compare it with the expected gains.

Hitters aren't as susceptible to the severe regression to the mean that pitchers experience with regards to balls in play. (If they were, Ichiro Suzuki wouldn't be, well, Ichiro!) Instead, successful players tend to follow either a power + strikeouts approach or a slap + run approach; there are obvious pros and cons with each approach.

Are higher power players costing themselves singles by striking out more often? Sure, but we’re forced to focus on the results rather than the process to accurately value the cost of those strikeouts. If Dunn did everything else the same, but struck out 50 fewer times and had 10 more singles he would certainly be more valuable than his current approach. But we don't have that data; we can't say what he would have done. So we're left with evaluating the results of the process.

It’s a tough situation because we can mentally say Dunn would be more valuable if he put the ball in play more often, but we don’t have that data. Instead, we’re left to analyze the numbers we do have and while speculation about what Dunn would have done is nice, it is speculation and not analysis.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=3885