Mark Reynolds Strikeout Record Watch...

Grounding into a double play with 0 outs and the bases loaded or a man on third can still score a run. Plus sometimes errors happen on routine grounders that should be DPs. Strikeouts are ALWAYS worse.

I'm just gonna post this preemptively, in preparation for Kelsdad reading/responding to your comment:

You can't get a RBI on a strikeout! You CAN get an RBI on a GIDP. No shit.

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No one gets into the Hall of Fame because they struck out a lot. It's what they did when they DIDN'T strike out that gets them in.

Making contact does not diminish your ability to hit for power. Hitting the ball instead of missing it INCREASES your possibility to hit for power.

More contact would lead to MORE home runs, and more fly outs and more ground outs and more pop outs and more singles, doubles and triples not less. It's a simple concept. If you're not striking out, you're putting the ball in play.

Power guys hit HRs even when they "miss" the pitch, even when they break their bats. A guy with strength will not suddenly get weaker because he's trying to hit the ball!

Oh, and I just found out that the sky is green with magenta polka dots. I wouldn't have written that unless I knew I was right. The proof is in the writing. If you disagree, it's on you to disprove it. Good luck!

Whatever... as long as you think you've won, kudos to you.

Like I said - talk to a batting coach about this. Read Charlie Lau's book. Read The Physics of Baseball by Dr. James Adair.

Watch 'baseball tonight last night when Fernando Vina said about Reynolds "He needs to shorten that swing and he'll cut the strikeouts and be a great hitter."

Whatever this "proof" you're looking for is - try actually LOOKING. It's ALL around you.

You're theory is that if they tried striking out less, they'd hit less HR, yet you proved MOST HRs are hit with less than two strikes. ALL Ks come after two strikes. Where's the proof?

If you are a MLB hitter you should be able to get a hit with a two stike count 2-3 times out of ten.

Go to a batting cage sometime and there's your proof. I've submitted TONS of "proof" all throughout this post. It's a ridiculous argument that you think these guys would get weaker by having a more compact swing. For the fifth time, COMPACT SWING does not mean LESS POWERFUL swing. It's physics. A whipped bat moves faster than a dragged one. Bat speed is what turns a ball around - Force = Mass x Acceleration, right? Well, the longer, loopier swing is not going to create more acceleration, thus force when it hits the ball than a swing delivered directly to the point of contact.

Wow Kels, if only Mickey Mantle had you around to tell him cut down on his stike outs. He would have been a sure fire hall of famer.

Was there a point in there somewhere, ST?

The point was mainly to be a smart ass. But, also a little of "what the fack where you expecting". I understand what you and Manny are saying, "more balls in play is a good thing". As you also know, it is generally accepted that in order to cut down on strike outs most hitters will have their HR numbers drop. You are going against the grain and for some reason you expect everyone to just accept what you are saying. You are going to have to say more than "you fail" to prove your point. How about you show us an example of someone who consciously changed their approach and lowered their strike outs while maintaining or improving their HR totals. Frankly, I tend to agree with you, that a batter can maintain HR numbers and decrease strike outs by changing their approach instead of their swing. But, that is not generally accepted.

"generally accepted" by whom, exactly?

"it is generally accepted that in order to cut down on strike outs most hitters will have their HR numbers drop." - NO it is not!

You only strike out on a THIRD strike - most HRs are hit on Hitter's counts (more balls than strikes)

Home Runs are a result of contact, not the result of less contact.

If you cut your K's down, it isn't because you're swinging with less force. You can swing with enough force to go yard AND still increase your ability to make contact... especially these big boys like Howard, Dunn and Reynolds.

As I've said before - how many bad pitches are guys striking out on? How many times are they caught looking? How does swinging at BAD pitches maintain your power numbers?

"Making contact" by "shortening your swing" is not "lessening the force of your swing". Actually, it's quite the opposite - to hit a ball hard, you must make BETTER contact with it - as the pitch supplies more force than the bat does - not more force in the swing.

Now your just playing dumb. The general baseball watching public. I don't ever recall anyone ever saying "That Mickey Mantle really should have cut down on his strike outs".

Ok fine. Manny, Kels, BACK IT UP. Find support with more credentials than your "I claim to be an expert" creds that will support your theory. Journalists and experts back up their opinions, they don't just say them.

Um, "the general baseball watching public" isn't all that smart when it comes to baseball to begin with, and yes, it was suggested Mantle should cut down on his strikeouts. One of the more famous baseball quotes is from Mantle himself,

"If you combine all my strikeouts and walks, it means I played seven years and never hit the ball."

He was aware of his strikeout totals. And Mantle was (almost) a career .300 hitter, and in comparison to guys of today, he didn't strike out alot.

I wouldn't have written the article or made the comments unless I knew I was right. The proof is in the writing. If you disagree, it's on you to disprove it. Good luck

Google yourself some Walt Hriniak or Charlie Lau...

They are "generally considered" THE hitting experts of the last century.

They only taught thousands of major leaguers - and DOZENS of Hall of Famers - how to be better hitters and they both base their principles on a short compact swing that makes more contact and hits the ball harder than a long, loopy, harder swing that drags through the zone.

Swinging hard and hitting the ball hard is NOT the same thing!

Gee, what would I know? I've only stood next to the batting cages while real major league players and plenty of rising stars of the AFL take BP and listen to their batting coaches...

I've only sat and talked with Rays special assistant Don Zimmer as Mark Reynolds took batting practice at Chase field... and we talked about how much power he had and how he'd have more if he compacted his loopy swing... what would I know?

And I'm gonna call on my personal experiences once again...

See, I played a shit load of baseball on many levels until I was 22. I played at a D1 NCAA school and with guys that were quality MLB players.

I was not a great hitter because I have vision issues, but my mechanics were sound and ay 6'6" I was a powerful enough hitter when I could see the pitch. EVERY home run I ever hit came on a swing that was in control, compact, balanced and got my hands through the hitting zone. Every time I swung as hard as I could I hitched my hands, pulled my head and missed wildly.

KD's analysis of Tiger Woods' swing is a perfect analogy.

But because I could throw better than I could hit, my dream of being the Angels' 1B died and I was made into a pitcher. It was those ten years on the bump that taught me more about hitting than anything.

As Warren Spahn said "Hitting is timing and pitching is disrupting timing".

Guys that swing as hard as they can might kill a fastball - that's where MOST HRs come from, sure... but what happens when a big bopper has two strikes on him? He ain't getting anything he thinks is good to hit - and THAT is why strike three happens.

You think of strikeouts as an entity - they are a process. Every count has a different approach for hitter AND pitcher. Strikeouts are NOT the result of swinging for power, they are a result of swinging at bad pitches or taking good ones.

Very well said, Manny.

Yep. 201 K's for the year, but at least he didn't make another error last night!

I looked up the MLB splits this year at baseball-reference.com and found that more homers are hit on the first pitch than any other count, about 17%. Then about 12% on 1-0 and 11.5% on 1-1. Everything else is under 10%, but overall, about 2/3 of home runs are hit on even counts or pitcher's counts, which would seem to disprove Manny's assertion above.

The correlation between strikeouts and homers is very high, overall, and most players do not appreciably change their approach to get rid of strikeouts if they're having success when they do make contact, and if they make contact enough that they can hit better than .220 or so. Cust and Reynolds and Howard will probably be encouraged to work on making contact more, but Cust is in his 30's already and Howard in his late 20's, so the chances of them becoming appreciably different types of hitters at this point in their careers is pretty low. Reynolds is younger, but not that much younger.

Guys like this, the so-called Three True Outcomes hitters, seem to approach the plate being selective about what they swing at, but swinging hard when they do. They draw a lot of walks, strike out a lot and hit a lot of homers. Other types of hitters who take different sorts of approaches make more contact, strikeout less often, but don't hit for much power. This is so plainly obvious to me that I can't even believe I have to type it out. Adam Dunn is not going to change his approach to become Juan Pierre, nor should he.

If they were talented enough, like Barry Bonds, they could choke up to make more contact, strike out less, and still hit 40+ homers, but how many guys can do that? When you're 6-6, 275 like Dunn, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're going to strike out a lot. You've got a 3-foot strikezone. It's inevitable. So you just pick your battles and do as much as you can whenever you do swing to make up for it.

I maintain, as Steel Town said, that the onus is on KD to come up with examples of guys who cut their strikeouts without sacrificing power.

T,T,T... Nice try... Now use your theory to explain Ted Kluszewski.

And Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize, Hal Trosky, Chuck Klein, Chuck Klein, Lou Gehrig (some seasons were iffy, but overall, he didn't have that many bad seasons strikeout wise)...

And I maintain, Mutch, as I mentioned in this thread and in a more detailed, private conversation with Steel Town, is my research was done BEFORE the article was written. Otherwise, I wouldn't have written it.

I specifically mentioned, in a previous article, a link between Ruth, Williams, Aaron and Albert Pujols to the other, more prone, strikeout guys. If the previous three can put up big power numbers and high batting averages, with few strikeouts, in a PITCHING DOMINATED GAME, and if Pujols can do the same in an ERA DOMINATED BY INFERIOR PITCHING, then why can't everyone else?

So, my answer is, as it was above and re-iterated privately, the burden of proof, or dis-proof, is on you.

Baseball Reference, or whatever your favorite stat site is, can give you the numbers. The knowledge piece, as Manny so eloquently explained above, is a different animal altogether. I encourage you to use either Manny's or my message boards for a more detailed explanation to the point he is making.

Good luck.

Proof should never be a burden.

care to attempt to correlate the end of the steroids era with the increase in Ks? Sure, a lower average (if you follow common belief) is caused by a lessening power in home run swings (balls that were HRs on steroids are fly outs now), but why more Ks now?

The increase in K's started before steriods. I'm sure the advent of steriod use increased strikeouts, but they were on their way up long before Jose Canseco used his first needle.

Yeah, even if he would cut down on his swing, he'd still hit it just as hard.

Mark Reynolds isn't winning any awards this year.

Here's something that might be worth looking into -

Ryan Howard has 18 errors at 1B!!!

Adam Dunn has 11 errors in LF, RF and 1B combined (yikes)

And Jack Cust - they don't like him to wear a glove (4 errors with only 129 PO in LF and RF - .971 fielding pct??? EEEEK!)

Perhaps there's a concentration (or vision or hand eye coordination) issue with these guys who strike out a lot because they swing and miss with their gloves and awful lot, too!

It's fine to compare Williams and Klu and Joe D and Ruth to each other, but it's a different game now. You've got much deeper talent pools, more advanced scouting, better medicine and physical conditioning practices, pitchers who throw harder, relief specialists, etc. Most hitters these days use much lighter bats with thinner handles than anybody used back then, in an effort to increase bat speed.

And your example of Ruth is not the best, since he actually led the leaguein K's 5 times. Jimmy Foxx did it 7 times, Hack Wilson 5 times (including 4 straight). Lots of great power hitters struck out more than anyone else in their time. It's all relative.

The problem with Howard this year, compared to his MVP season for example, isn't the 200 K's. It's the extra 65 OUTS he's made this year. I'm not sure what you were getting at with the comparisons to Ruth et. al., but if you want me to concede that Howd and Dunn are not as good as Babe Ruth, well, you got me. Congrats.

But what's your point?

Wouldn't better trainig, lighter bats, thinner handles and increased bat speed make it EASIER to make contact?

Again, I HIGHLY recommend you read The Physics of Baseball by Dr. James Adair. He was a physics professor at Princeton and dedicated a whole book to the - get this - the physics of the game of baseball.

For instance - A bat with more mass swung at a slowerr bat speed (such as Ruth's 42 oz ash bat) WILL hit a ball farther than a lighter bat with more bat speed (such as today's batters). Just because players today are doing something doesn't mean it's "Right"... Maple bats are harder than Ash and therefore DON'T "bounce" the ball upon the inelastic collision of hitting a ball... softer bats actually hit balls farther while harder bats like maple give the "feel" of a harder hit ball...

The Physics of Baseball - It would open your eyes to reality instead of the assumptions you're attempting to base your argument on...

Ruth used a 44 oz - 48oz. bat and Bonds used a 32 oz - 33oz... (and choked up!) bat. The "argument" I made is F = M x a... If you think Ruth's and Bonds' bat speeds (the 'a' in the equation) were the same, then give me some of what you're on...