Twins Make Dubious History with Strikeout Record

Unless your TV only plays reruns of the 1980s Cardinals, you've noticed that whiffing in today's game is at a rate never before seen in MLB. The average hitter in 2023 strikes out in 22.7% of their plate appearances, almost three points higher than a decade ago. You need not dig far to see why; hitters primarily focus on dispensing baseballs to the outfield bleachers, swinging recklessly in the hopes that something good may happen if they make contact. There are exceptions—such as a certain Miami Marlins infielder—but the art of the base hit is dying, which doesn't appear to be changing soon.

The thing is, this strategy works. Minnesota's offense isn't bad. They're 11th in runs scored, 10th in slugging, and 8th in wRC+. Sure, their numbers aren't making anyone forget about the 1927 Yankees. Still, that perfectly cromulent offense—when combined with their excellent starting rotation—has won them plenty of games, enough to reserve them a playoff spot in 2023.

And this isn't a uniquely Twins problem: because strikeout rates have risen so much, their K%+—a stat that adjusts strikeout rate with league norms—is just 117, meaning they're only 17% higher than your average squad in 2023. Plenty of teams have been worse than that: over 80 in the AL since WW2, to be exact. Shoot, the 1972 and 2013 Twins put up the same rate, and I doubt anyone who watched that 2013 team grumbled about how often they came up empty (although you probably weren't a fan of Pedro Florimón's 446 plate appearances that year.)

Let me be clear, though: this isn't great. Strikeouts are both an aesthetic and strategic mess. Not putting the ball in play robs us of watching the greatest athletes walk the Earth, run, and be athletic. We want to see something amazing; a guy missing a slider in the dirt doesn't cut the mustard. You can't hit and run anymore because who knows if the man at the plate can make contact, and moving a guy over with a productive out hasn't been a viable strategy since the Obama administration. These issues, while minor, have built to create an often dull, stagnant, station-to-station brand of baseball that causes in-stadium fans to become restless while at-home fans fall into a good nap.

Honestly, I don't know what the solution is. Pitchers are ridiculous these days; the best teams can build these guys in labs, upping their velocity and sharpening their stuff to the point where 98 and a wipeout slider barely registers in our brain. It's more notable if a guy doesn't throw 95. That cat's out of the bag: the training works, and MLB can't step in and tell teams not to be good at their jobs. Pushing the mound back could be a solution, but doing so would also allow more time for pitches to break, potentially negating the bonus reaction time for hitters. 

I've heard suggestions for baseball to follow a similar path as when golf had to reconcile with their new, young bombers. Players like Tiger Woods were eviscerating courses designed when woods were... made of wood. Now that they all can crush like crazy, courses are now designed to be longer and more challenging to offset the improved athlete. Pushing back the dimensions would be a similar feat—although doing so would likely cause many unwanted secondary effects—and, in the end, you wouldn't want to erase homers from the game completely; it's still the outcome that most excites a crowd.

A change will come somehow, though. These things wax and wane as strategy evolves; eventually, it'll become more rewarding to focus on base hits and contact, and stacking the lineup with hulking sluggers will be as funny as Babe Ruth's 114 career sacrifice bunts. I don't think that time is now—ask Cleveland how awesome a holistic contact approach is—but it will come eventually. For now, congratulations to the Minnesota Twins and whatever team inevitably beats their record next year.