Wow that's a very impressive statistic! Nellie is 5th all time in AB/SO ratio at 47.24 AB per SO. 1st is Willie Keeler at 63.17 AB/SO.
Today's best is Andrelton Simmons at 10.43 AB/SO. Michael Brantley is 5th on the active players list (8.46 AB/SO) so, he's essentially the "Nellie Fox" of 2019! [emoji23]
As far as would Nellie maintain such an incredible prowess today? Absolutely not IMO. Today's hitters obviously place far less importance on not striking out and today's pitchers SEEM to strike out batters at a significant rate (I have no stats to support this, just a generalized guess). Today's hitters place far more emphasis on making hard contact (more home runs even if it costs increase strike outs) and more walks to get on base IMO. It's no longer about the "art of hitting" like the Tony Gwynns and Ty Cobbs of old, I think they're simply concerned with producing runs.. via walk, home run, score. Rinse and repeat. Hell, they barely steal bases anymore. I'd be willing to bet base stealing is at an all time low in the history of the game.
Fox's .288/.348/.363 career slash line with 355 doubles and 2663 HITS leans toward the fact he hit A LOT of singles with a few doubles and triples here and there, with 35 career homers, and very good defense. He almost never struck out, which simply means he grounded out/lined out/flied out a lot instead of striking out. He got voted to the hall in 1997 by the veteran's committee after he fell off the writer's ballot in 1985.
Ichiro seems to me the most comparable type of hitter to Nellie in recent memory. 0.311/.355/.402 slash line, 117 HR, 362 doubles, 3089 Hits and struck out very few times compared to today's standards (9.88 AB/SO).
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