Rob Neyer uses Ernesto Frieri as an example of why he believes MLB will eventually try to limit strikeouts:
I’ve written about this before, and I’m sure I will write about it again. The two biggest problems in baseball right now are pitching-related: too many strikeouts, and too many pitching changes.
Apologies if you’ve heard this before, but strikeouts are boring and ground balls are democratic and all I need to know about baseball I learned in Bull Durham.
Prediction: At some point in Major League Baseball’s future, something to limit strikeouts will be done, and at some other point, something to limit pitching changes will be done. Why? Because the sport’s not run for the benefit of the pitchers. It’s run for the benefit of the owners and the players, and ultimately everyone will make more money if the fans are happy. And the fans will be happier with fewer strikeouts and fewer pitching changes. If not fewer than now, fewer than we’ll see in five or 10 years if these trends continue. Which they probably will, if Commissioner Emeritus Selig doesn’t step in, someday.
The problem, however, is the only way to limit strikeouts is to also limit power. Bill James wrote about this a few weeks ago (subscription required):
Do you know why strikeouts, over time, only go up?
Strikeouts, over time, always increase, for this reason. Strikeout pitchers are more effective than pitchers who don’t get strikeouts, therefore teams are always looking for pitchers who can get more strikeouts, and also looking to deploy those pitchers they have in such a way that they will get the most strikeouts. This effect would be offset by the tendency of teams to look for hitters who don’t strike out, if hitters who did not strike out were also better hitters. However, hitters who strike out are generally not less effective than hitters who do not strike out; hitters who strike out are generally just as effective as or more effective than hitters who don’t strike out. Thus, there is no pressure to find hitters who don’t strike out. This asymmetry pushes strikeout totals higher over time.
The only way to make high strikeout batters less effective is to take away the home run. Then, all those fly balls turn into outs, and the Brett Gardners of the world take over. Major League Baseball tried this for the first 40 years of its existence. Babe Ruth taught them there was a better way.
Think about the changes in existing stadiums. How many pushed the fences back? The Rockies did add a humidor, but that was due to the balls not meeting MLB specifications as it was to reduce home runs. When Yankee Stadium was remodeled, the death valley fence came in from about 460 feet to 420 feet. By the time the Stadium was torn down, it was around 400 feet. The Mets just moved the fences in at Citi Field. The Padres talk about moving the fences in. I’ve heard nothing from the Rangers about moving fences back.
In other words, the fans like the home runs and the strikeouts, at least at this level. My feeling is that if fans reach a point where they don’t like this type of baseball, teams will adjust on their own. Fences will move back. Maybe they’ll vote to change the ball. There doesn’t need to be an edict.
While it might be fun to watch a league where Brett Butler, Juan Pierre, and Coco Crisp are extremely valuable players, I think I prefer to see the ball crushed, and batters get crushed by the likes of Justin Verlander along the way.
If we’re really concerned about too many strikeouts, we could do things like go from three strikes to four and stop counting fouls as strikes. Those changes would have a lot of other effects, too, and not necessarily good ones, but they would reduce the number of strikeouts.
How do you limit strikeouts? Are we going to go all T-ball and say, after 10 strikeouts by a side, that everyone else who strikes out gets to stay at the plate until he hits a fair ball hit or out (or foul pop up?)
Right now we seem to be in an era of the pitching being better than the hitting. But that will cycle back in the other direction just as it always has.
Limiting the number of pitchers is easy: only allow one pitching change per game during an inning. Other pitching changes could only take place at the start of an inning. Another possible solution is make pitchers face three batters rather than one as now required.
To cut down strikeouts, change the shape of the bat: make it longer, heavier and thicker like they were in the 20s to 60s.
I love K’s… especially when you’ve got 2 runners in scoring position & just 1 out, with the pitcher trying to get out of the jam.
HR’s are ok. I’m more of a small ball fan , ’cause I grew up on Ricky, The Rock, & Coleman. I’d be in favor of counting HR’s as fouls (not outs!), but I think I’d miss the HR’s if they weren’t possible. They add to strategy + they encourage outfielders to climb the walls! 😀
I love home runs & I love k’s!
When I first started watching baseball, MLB teams routinely got by with nine pitchers on the roster, even on teams with five-man rotations. If MLB actually made that a limit (until Sept 1, at least) it would make the game playing that managers do with late inning pitching changes difficult if not impossible, and would force pitchers not to go all out lest they be exhausted too quickly even on low pitch counts. That would cut down on strikeouts without giving up home runs. As partial compensation, and to keep the gritty little infielders of the world from running up pitch counts with slap fouls, I’d change the foul strike rule to make the third two strike foul strike three–which would lower pitch counts without increasing strikeouts all that much.
There, annoying pitching changes and strikeouts reduced significantly with two easy fixes.
They should NEVER try to limit strike outs! I love watching high K relievers because they almost never waste a pitch on an 0-2 count. They go ahead and drop a strike into the zone-hit it meat! because I’m better than you. At least for the moment.
Long live the strike out!