Quote:
Originally Posted by pilight
Baseball has run in alternating cycles of scoring more/less. Those 2010-14 batting numbers were perfectly in line with the glory days of the 1980's the OP was pining for, which were an increase over the 1970's and 1960's.
A strikeout is no better than any other kind of out.
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First, uhh...what? Are the goal posts over here now, or are we done with them all together?
Second, the line about strikeouts. It's not really true. First, a sac fly or ground out can advance a runner where a strike out doesn't. Second, it's looking at it entirely the wrong way. A strike out is not better than a ball in play. A ball in play may be turned into an out. But, it may not. A strike out almost always turns into an out.
Strikeouts are ideal for pitchers
Strikeouts are terrible for hitters. With a caveat. Making meaningless contact isn't much better than a strikeout. Endless weak groundballs to second aren't much better than endless strikeouts. Batters have to find a balance between hitting with authority and striking out. If the tradeoff is, say, striking out 20% of the time and hitting 20% of balls well, vs striking out 10% of the time and hitting 10% of balls well, take more strikeouts.