NEW YORK — The great American philosopher Crash Davis was right about a lot of things, such as the indispensible advice that “when you get in a fight with a drunk, you don’t hit him with your pitching hand.” The cautionary tale of Brien Taylor bore out that particular piece of baseball wisdom.
One thing that Davis may have missed on, though, is his take on strikeouts, that not only are they boring, “but besides that, they’re fascist.”
On Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Kevin Correia took the mound for the Twins in the bottom of the first inning and quickly looked like he might not be long for the game. A single by Brett Gardner, a double by Derek Jeter, and a walk to Jacoby Ellsbury loaded the bases for the Yankees with nobody out.
On average, this situation yields an inning of 2.25 runs. Correia had entered the game with a 6.34 ERA, allowing opponents an OPS of .817, so New York, with the meat of its order coming to the plate, could not be blamed for dreaming even bigger. This was a game that could be broken open early, and maybe turn into a laugher with Masahiro Tanaka on the mound.
Instead, Correia struck out Mark Teixeira, then got Brian McCann to ground into a double play to end the inning. A home run by Yangervis Solarte in the fourth inning accounted for the Yankees’ only run against Correia in six frames — his best start since holding the Orioles to one run over seven innings on May 3.
“That’s a tough situation to be in, in the first inning, but I felt good,” Correia said. “So, I knew I could get out of it with a strikeout and a ground ball, and that’s something I was able to do a lot last year. That’s been the difference between last year and this year, is those situations — I was able to get that ground ball and get the double play, and I did it today.”
Correia’s situational memory is a little bit flawed. Last year, he loaded the bases with nobody out twice all season — on May 27, he got Yuniesky Betancourt to line into a double play in Milwaukee, and on Aug. 5, he got Jarrod Dyson to hit into a fielder’s choice for an out at the plate. In bases loaded situations with one out, Correia allowed a walk and a pair of two-run singles. Saturday was Correia’s first time this year loading the bases with nobody out, while his previous times facing three baserunners with one out, he had issued a walk and given up a sacrifice fly.
There is a greater point within what Correia said, though, and the effects of that point are being felt throughout baseball.
Kevin Correia (AP Photo)
By this point, it is common knowledge that the strikeout rate around baseball has been on an upward trajectory. There are a lot of factors that have contributed to this rise, including hitters making fewer adjustments to their approach based on game situations. This is commonly seen in the way that hardly anyone tries to shoot ground balls through the vacated areas of a exaggerated infield shift. It also applies to what we see with the strikeout rate.
Over the past 40 years, there have been strikeouts on 15.77 percent of plate appearances. With the bases loaded and nobody out — a situation where almost any ball in play generates a run — that figure has dropped to 14.96 percent. This year, both rates are at 20.36 percent. When there is a strikeout with the bases loaded and nobody out, the new situation, bases loaded with one out, yields on average 1.48 runs per inning, a decrease of 0.77 runs per inning from the expectancy of the previous state of play.
With strikeouts more prevalent as a rule, but even more so in the scenario where they are most costly to scoring, you have one of the factors for why scoring on the whole continues to decline. There have been 8.32 runs per game scored this season, right in line with last year’s rate of 8.33, and well on the way to a fifth straight season of under nine runs per major league game — that after 17 consecutive years with over nine runs per game.
With fewer runs being scored on a per-game basis, you would expect to see more close games. If you are seeing around eight runs per game instead of around 10 runs per game, a random average game can be 8-0, 7-1, 6-2, or 5-3, as opposed to 10-0, 9-1, 8-2, 7-3, or 6-4.
Sure enough, in the 50 seasons in which there have been more than nine runs per major league game, there have been only 11 in which 30% or more of games were decided by one run. In the 64 seasons where the major league scoring average has been below nine runs per game, there have been 54 in which 30% or more of games were decided by one run. Last year, 31 percent of games were decided by one run, while this year the figure is 30.8 percent.
There is a side effect to the late-inning drama created by having more close games. Games decided by one run are games where luck plays more of a factor, because the margin between two teams on that given day is slimmer, and more susceptible to one bounce, one call, one moment in a game of inches becoming the difference. There has not been a 100-win team in the majors since the 2011 Phillies won 102 games, including a 29-18 record in one-run games that represented a .590 winning percentage in comparison to their .635 winning percentage in all other contests.
The teams with the five best records in baseball this year — the Giants, A’s, Brewers, Blue Jays, and Tigers — are a combined 171-111. In one-run games, their combined record of 45-34 is good for a .570 winning percentage, compared to .621 (126-77) in all other games. It’s the same at the bottom of the standings. The Cubs, Diamondbacks, Rays, Astros, and Phillies are a combined 114-168. In one-run games, they are 38-44, a .463 winning percentage, compared to 76-124 (.380) in wider-margined affairs.
There are two reasons for these differentials in winning percentage in one-run games between good and bad teams. One is that a good team is more likely to lose a close game than to be blown out, simply because of talent. The other is that odd bounce that differentiates winners from losers in tight games. Three of the five worst teams in baseball this year have winning records in one-run games, which should tell you all you need to know about that.
More strikeouts in run-scoring situations, fewer runs. Fewer runs, closer games. Closer games, more teams brought toward the league average. Ground balls might be more democratic than strikeouts, but Crash Davis had it wrong — strikeouts are not fascist, they’re socialist.
IS MIKE TROUT GOOD AT BASEBALL?
Yes.
If you are better at baseball than Mike Trout, please send your resume to Billy Beane, Vice President/General Manager, Oakland Athletics, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland, CA 94621. But don’t bother, because you are not better at baseball than Mike Trout.