Hunter Greene still leading team in strikeouts

[CJD]

(07-31-2023, 08:29 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The Velocity/Strikeout era has been a disaster for MLB pitching. Hunter Greene is averaging 5.1 innings per start and has a 1.350 WHIP. He averages 18.5 pitches per 3 outs.

All the focus on velocity in strikeouts in today's game has ignored things like simply getting guys out quickly and easily so you can keep your pitch count low, throw more innings, and not blow out your arm. 

It's why guys like DeGrom is having his 3rd TJ surgery and probably ended his career, Strasburg is put together with elmer's glue, and Syndergaard burned out before he could ever really get started.

Greene's fastball averages 98.4mph this year, but has a weighted value of -3.4 with only his slider out of his trio of fastball/slider/changeup being a plus pitch this year. Throwing less hard while aiming for better location and movement would produce better results and possibly be less likely to have him keep going on the IL, too.

A soft ground ball is almost as good, or even better if you have someone on first, than a strikeout. It can only take 1 pitch, and you don't need to blow out your arm/shoulder/etc to get it. Cueto was a master of that. 6 year span where he had only 7.6 K/9, but a 2.73 ERA, 1.084 WHIP, and 16 complete games/7 shutouts plus 2 more complete games in the postseason including one in the World Series... and it wasn't so long ago that it isn't still basically the same game played today.



/angry old man yelling at the clouds

The obsession with strikeouts is not a new phenomenon in baseball. It's not a coincidence that the most storied pitchers in the game's history are also among the strikeout leaders. Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens (before the steroids accusations), Tom Seaver, Greg Maddux, Phil Niekro, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Pedro Martinez, Clayton Kershaw etc. Strikeouts are basically synonymous with hall of famers. The top 25 career strikeout leaders are either in the hall of fame, currently active (and surefire hall of famers) or held out because they are not yet eligible (with one player who isn't in the hall of fame but his numbers indicate he should in Mickey Lolich. I wonder what the deal is there...). And then Curt Shilling and Roger Clemens are in there too, who are held out for non-baseball reasons. 

The big difference is that players nowadays are being strictly held to 100 pitches per outing in most cases, especially young players like Hunter Greene. I don't think they take him out because he couldn't go longer. I think they just want to ensure these guys don't blow out their arms. 

Plus, David Bell just seems to be a very safe manager when it comes to stuff like that anyway.

Hunter Greene's average innings per start is sitting at ~5 1/3 per start (5.23 IP/GS), which is below average for a starter across the majors, but not to an absurd degree (depending on how many non-start appearances the players catalogued have, somewhere around 108th out of 157). But, notably, Graham Ashcraft (5.25), Ben Lively (5.6), Brandon Williamson (4.94), Nick Lodolo (4.91), Andrew Abbott (5.9) and Luke Weaver (4.78) are all under 6 IP per game started. I think this is just the way Bell manages his staff more so than an indication that the league is going strikeout crazy.