Tuesday Trivia: 40 HRs with fewer strikeouts

[cgjackson222]

Ted Williams only reached 40 HRs once, when he hit 43 HRs and struck out 48 times. Excellent guess though.

Originally Posted by commishbob

Barry Bonds?

Originally Posted by packs

I don't know if he hit 40 but Mel Ott?

Correct! Barry Bonds hit 45 HRs and struck out 41 times as a 39 year old in 2004.

And 75 years earlier, Mel Ott hit 42 HRs and struck out 38 times as a 20 year old for the same franchise.

Well done everyone!

[Peter_Spaeth]

So what do we make of it? That today's players are only hitting this many HRs because they're going for broke?

[bk400]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So what do we make of it? That today's players are only hitting this many HRs because they're going for broke?

Or the pitchers are throwing a lot faster and funkier over the past 10 years. And the hitters as a class haven't been able to keep pace on a relative basis.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by bk400

Or the pitchers are throwing a lot faster and funkier over the past 10 years. And the hitters as a class haven't been able to keep pace on a relative basis.

Yeah, I think it probably says more about pitching than anything else.

Back in the day, many pitchers only had two pitches--fastball and a curve or some other off-speed pitch.

Now there are so many more options to think about from most pitchers, and fastballs tend to be faster. Pitchers are no longer pitching complete games on a regular basis. Instead, you have 4 pitchers or more per game, coming in fresh and exploiting hitters weaknesses (lefties vs. lefty hitters, etc).

[commishbob]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So what do we make of it? That today's players are only hitting this many HRs because they're going for broke?

Not sure what it means but I looked at the top 20 MLB home run leaders for 2024 and not one of them has led than twice as many K's as homers.

[Beercan collector]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So what do we make of it? That today's players are only hitting this many HRs because they're going for broke?

I think so , Somethings changed - Check out the top 50 most strikeouts in a season , they’re all from this century - EXCEPT for Bobby Bonds- who is on there twice .
https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...O_season.shtml
I must be getting old when I think of lots of strikeouts I think Rob Deer

[jayshum]

I think according to analytics, strikeouts are no worse than any other out and are sometimes preferred because it's better to strikeout than to hit into a double play.

[clydepepper]

Well, just for fun, let's figure out the opposite:


Who had the highest strikeout to home run ratio?


Enjoy researching this one...the answer will have a very negative WAR!!


.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Well, just for fun, let's figure out the opposite:


Who had the highest strikeout to home run ratio?


Enjoy researching this one...the answer will have a very negative WAR!!


.

OK, Austin Jackson had 4 HR's and 170 Strikeouts in 2010 and I'm gonna stop right there.

Don't know if he's the guy you're looking for, as he still somehow had a 5.1 WAR, batted .293 and came in 2nd in Rookie of the Year voting that year.

I'm sure there's a bunch of slap hitters who had 0 or 1 HR's and however many strikeouts to have a much higher ratio than Jackson, but 170 K's to only 4 HR's is pretty impressive to me.

[D. Bergin]

Mel Ott has some crazy stat lines for a guy whose name rarely comes up among the All-Time Greats.

I used to think Jimmie Foxx's cards and memorabilia were crazy under-rated compared to other peers of his, but Mel Ott may be even more so.

Ott's not quite in Foxx's league, but he's not that far off.