In today's Inquirer, Todd Zolecki attempts to bring some non-traditional thought to a traditional medium. It's a tall order, but he does a good job of explaining why the large number of strikeouts suffered by Phillies' batters doesn't really have that much of a negative effect on offensive production.
Zolecki points to several Baseball Prospectus articles that show no correlation whatsoever with strikeouts and run production. And really, who should know that better than a Phillies fan? After all, despite having several players strikeout at least 100 times each season, the team consistently has one of the best offenses in all of baseball.
The simple fact of the matter is, hitters that have power and take walks are also much more likely to strikeout. Strikeouts are a byproduct of the consistent offensive production.
But that's not to say there aren't certain instances where a strikeout can be just plain maddening to witness. For instance, in his article, Zolecki quotes Phils' hitting coach Milt Thompson. "It comes more into play when you have a guy on third with less than two outs. That's the most key time when you really want a guy to put the ball in play. That's where it really matters to me."
Along those same lines, a long-time reader of this space wrote in an email regarding Zolecki's article: "One thing I did want to check in relation to the impact of so many Ks on the Phillies is their ability to move the runner along. In each of the past 3 seasons, the Phillies had a losing record in 1-run games, even though their overall W-L record was very good. Last season they were 14-23 in 1-run games. I consider that significant, 9 games below .500. Now you can blame the bullpen if you like, and it certainly has an impact, but losing 23 games by 1-run also shows an inability to get a run when you really need it. I believe that is directly related to the high number of strikeouts in the lineup."
In other words, do the Phillies lack the ability to execute the old "get 'em over, get 'em in" strategy when they really need a run? If they do, then the example Thompson brought up might be a point of weakness.
Looking at the numbers, in 2007, the Phillies struck out 1,205 times in 6,537 plate appearances -- 18% of the time. However, when a runner was on third with less than two outs, the Phillies struck out more often. In the exact situation Thompson feels is important, the Phillies struck out 21% of the time (80 strikeouts in 381 plate appearances).
Now, this inability to get runners in with less than two outs is not by itself the reason the Phillies have had a poor record in one-run games the last few seasons despite playing well-over-.500 ball. Other reasons can be a weak bullpen, sometimes questionable managerial decisions, and possibly the largest of all, just plain bad luck.
So even though strikeouts aren't terribly harmful in the grand scheme of things, it does appear there are certainly instances where the Phillies are hampered by them.
