The future of Shohei Ohtani

[Peter_Spaeth]

Baseball has never loved guys like Dunn, Kingman, Rob Deer, Gorman Thomas, and so on and so on with high HRs, high Ks and low BA. Jeff you say it's more accepted now but is it? The overall impact should still be the same, whether you measure it by WAR or something else.

[G1911]

What gets me is that strikeouts are treated as if they are meaningless for a batter, a not very significant measure and it's okay to rack up 150-200 of them.

Yet, they are treated as very important, one of the most important measures, for a pitcher.

As this is a direct adversarial relationship, this doesn't make sense. If a particular outcome of a plate appearance is really important positively for a pitcher, it is really bad for a batter and vice versa.

I don't so much care that we either go back to not liking batter strikeouts or not, but this should be consistent.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by G1911

What gets me is that strikeouts are treated as if they are meaningless for a batter, a not very significant measure and it's okay to rack up 150-200 of them.

Yet, they are treated as very important, one of the most important measures, for a pitcher.

As this is a direct adversarial relationship, this doesn't make sense. If a particular outcome of a plate appearance is really important positively for a pitcher, it is really bad for a batter and vice versa.

I don't so much care that we either go back to not liking batter strikeouts or not, but this should be consistent.

I think analytics has a lot to do with this thinking. For hitters, the thinking, if I remember correctly, is that a strikeout is better then hitting into a double play so a high strikeout total is no big deal. For pitchers, strikeouts are good because you don't have to worry about fielders making a play. That’s why they're important for pitchers but not a concern for hitters. Not sure I agree with the thinking for hitters since a lot of good things can happen when you just put the ball in play.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Baseball has never loved guys like Dunn, Kingman, Rob Deer, Gorman Thomas, and so on and so on with high HRs, high Ks and low BA. Jeff you say it's more accepted now but is it? The overall impact should still be the same, whether you measure it by WAR or something else.

I don't know that we can lump Pete Alonso into the group of high strikeout/low average folks you mentioned, just yet.

His career WAR of 17.6 in 4.5 seasons is already almost as high as the career totals for Dunn (17.9), Thomas (19.8), and is higher than Kingman (17.3), Deer (13.8).

This got me thinking though, so I put together the below table to compare and added a few other sluggers (Howard, Kiner, Ortiz, and Thome).

A few things jumped out: Alonso's Strikeout to At-bat rate of 26% is lower than most others. But his walk rate is per Plate Appearance is lower than all of them except Kingman.

His HR/AB is the highest, and is actually even higher this year at 8.9%.

What I fear is that because he is a very large man, he may not age well. And he started his career relatively late, getting to the majors at age 24. Thome is a large man who aged well, but many think he did Roids. Same for Ortiz.

[BobbyStrawberry]

A big difference with now vs. earlier eras is that sacrificing contact for power is not only acceptable now, but for many players, the best way toward a big payday. Guys like Schwarber (with his .199 BA and 43 HRs) are super valuable and highly sought after in the current game.

Of course, the Acunas and Corbin Carrolls with speed and power are the gems, but there are only so many of those guys

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

A big difference with now vs. earlier eras is that sacrificing contact for power is not only acceptable now, but for many players, the best way toward a big payday. Guys like Schwarber (with his .199 BA and 43 HRs) are super valuable and highly sought after in the current game.

Of course, the Acunas and Corbin Carrolls with speed and power are the gems, but there are only so many of those guys

Kingman was ahead of his time.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Kingman was ahead of his time.

Not a good on base guy, though. Harmon Killebrew might be a good comp for a guy like Alonso, although Pete is not as good at getting on base

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Not a good on base guy, though. Harmon Killebrew might be a good comp for a guy like Alonso, although Pete is not as good at getting on base

Good point re: Killebrew. I added him to the table. He definitely had much better plate discipline than Alonso. Alonso strikes out 2.2 times for every walk. Killebrew walked almost as much as he struck out. Killebrew lead the League in walks a bunch of times.

Nothing better to do while watching the Mets tonight. Alonso just drove in Lindor by the way.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Not a good on base guy, though. Harmon Killebrew might be a good comp for a guy like Alonso, although Pete is not as good at getting on base

I guess I am skewed a bit on Alonso by this year. Still, I am holding off on his RC lol.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

I don't know that we can lump Pete Alonso into the group of high strikeout/low average folks you mentioned, just yet.

His career WAR of 17.6 in 4.5 seasons is already almost as high as the career totals for Dunn (17.9), Thomas (19.8), and is higher than Kingman (17.3), Deer (13.8).

This got me thinking though, so I put together the below table to compare and added a few other sluggers (Howard, Kiner, Ortiz, and Thome).

A few things jumped out: Alonso's Strikeout to At-bat rate of 26% is lower than most others. But his walk rate is per Plate Appearance is lower than all of them except Kingman.

His HR/AB is the highest, and is actually even higher this year at 8.9%.

What I fear is that because he is a very large man, he may not age well. And he started his career relatively late, getting to the majors at age 24. Thome is a large man who aged well, but many think he did Roids. Same for Ortiz.

I don't recall hearing speculation about Thome and steroids. Where have you seen that? Any sources you can provide? Ortiz, yes, because of the survey test that he supposedly failed, but nothing I remember being said about Thome.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by jayshum

I don't recall hearing speculation about Thome and steroids. Where have you seen that? Any sources you can provide? Ortiz, yes, because of the survey test that he supposedly failed, but nothing I remember being said about Thome.

Its just a lot of speculation like there is about Piazza because he was a big guy who hit a lot of home runs during the steroid era. There is no hard evidence at all that I am aware of. I hope Thome didn't use steroids, as that gives me hope that Alonso can age well too.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Its just a lot of speculation like there is about Piazza because he was a big guy who hit a lot of home runs during the steroid era. There is no hard evidence at all that I am aware of. I hope Thome didn't use steroids, as that gives me hope that Alonso can age well too.

The article you linked to says Thome had never been known to or thought to use steroids. The only speculation in it is about whether writers will hold him being big against him when he appears on the HoF ballot 5 years from when the article was written. To me that's a lot different than speculating that Thome used steroids because the players that the article seems to be putting in the same group as Thome are Piazza, Bagwell and Biggio. It says none of them are suspected of steroid use, but I think Piazza and Bagwell are by a fair amount of people. Biggio isn't thought to be a user as far as I remember, but I think he didn't get in first ballot for other reasons. Some people think he played a long time which git him to 3000 hits and not because he wasca truly great player.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by jayshum

The article you linked to says Thome had never been known to or thought to use steroids. The only speculation in it is about whether writers will hold him being big against him when he appears on the HoF ballot 5 years from when the article was written. To me that's a lot different than speculating that Thome used steroids because the players that the article seems to be putting in the same group as Thome are Piazza, Bagwell and Biggio. It says none of them are suspected of steroid use, but I think Piazza and Bagwell are by a fair amount of people. Biggio isn't thought to be a user as far as I remember, but I think he didn't get in first ballot for other reasons. Some people think he played a long time which git him to 3000 hits and not because he wasca truly great player.

Yeah, I am just talking about how everyone from that era who hit a lot of home runs get lumped together for potentially using steroids, with our without evidence. https://larrybrownsports.com/basebal...im-thome/82686
I wasn't trying to single out Thome, per se.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Don't look now, but Julio making a serious run at MVP.