baseball question-- strikeouts

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Posted By: Marc S.

<<Prepare for thread hijacking!

He threw 7 no nos...>>

And also managed to be rewarded with 292 career losses, third only to Cy Young himself and Pud Galvin...basically no pitchers in the modern era of the game.

Strikeouts are a glamour stat...their one bid advantage is that it puts the onus of the out completely on the pitcher, without any context on fielding ability (other than the catcher's ability to not drop the third strike if first base is unoccupied). Although we hear a lot about ground ball pitchers, etc. -- if a batter isn't able to make contact or put the ball in play, it is highly irrelevant.

I don't think strikeouts are necessarily indicative of anything, as control is a huge, huge component. One only needs to consider Steve Dalkowski to end that argument right there. The best strikeout pitcher of all time...but absolutely could not hack it due to control issues. In my mind, strikeouts are probably more important for relievers and closers -- and the K/9IP is a good stat to look at their relative dominance, as there are not too many closers, by definition, who are put on the mound regularly if they cannot consistently get people out.

~m