Neyer: should MLB change rules to cut strikeouts?

thats a terrible idea. It would increase offense mainly because there would be so many walks, and that's not exciting.

I have always had the suspicion that the biggest reason for the offensive explosion in the late 90's was not steroids, but because they were juicing the ball to make the game more exciting, ie. winding it tighter, thus making it more rigid so it bounces farther off the bat. Then in the mid 2000's when they needed to convince the world that the drug testing program was making a difference, they just stopped winding it so tight.

Whether or not that is actually what happened before, it would be a better way of increasing offense now.

Deford's idea would increase walks. Neyer is specifically trying to find a solution that doesn't increase walks.

Personally, while strikeouts are going up and up and it isn't something I necessarily enjoy, I don't think it's reached a point where there is an imbalance in the game. I think the biggest difference in the game now as opposed to 20 years ago is that teams understand that a strikeout isn't necessarily worse than any other out, so they are more willing to employ the Mike Napoli's and (in his prime) Mark Reynolds' of the world. Napoli strikes out a ton, but he pretty clearly made the Red Sox better in 2013. So here we are.

I think all of us are drawn to this game of baseball because of its intricacies. Creating a problem to fix a problem that doesn't exist is pretty stupid. I'd agree that some players have taken the "swing for the fences" philosophy too far. Adam Dunn and Mark Reynolds to name just two players are so one dimensional and I would never want that type of player on one of my teams, but every player has a unique place in the game and gives fodder for discussion. I love seeing an over-powering type pitching performance (like Matt Harvey) as much as seeing Big Papi hit two bombs. The game is beautiful just the way it is. Leave it alone Rob Neyer.

This is silly. A few years back when ERAs were around 5 and homers felt cheap the idea was to raise the mound or do something to deflate the inflated offense. Now offensive levels are near a normal level of roughly 4.5 runs per game and ERAs hover around 4 and suddenly there's talk about decreasing strikeouts?

I honestly think the reason why there are so many strikeouts is because the stigma of striking out isn't so damning anymore. Napoli fanned 187 times but it didn't matter because we're in an age where we know that a player can be whifftastic but still be a good offensive player. Back then I think it was majorly frowned on if a player struck out 100 times in a season. I guess the idea of giving yourself up to hit a routine ground ball to 2b was considered the honorable thing. I think there's been a shift in focus to the three true outcomes because two of them are positive and one is simply just an out with the only difference being that it can't advance a baserunner but it won't result in a GIDP either.

I think Ks can be exciting, especially from a pitching standpoint - don't remember anybody complaining when Pedro whiffed 17 Yankees or Clemens struck out 20 batters twice without any walks in either game. With fewer outs advancing baserunners it puts more of the onus on stolen bases to advance runners and that isn't a bad thing either.

I think baseball is fine as it is.

Not sure how it would be done, but I probably would like not seeing Joe Maddon use 11 pitchers in one game. Talk about making games longer...

I've been begging to expand roster size to 26 for awhile, but that's not the answer because every team would simply go with 14 pitchers. Maybe they should reduce roster size to 24.

No it wouldn't be. From 1967-1981 baseball saw a steady decline in k rate. It actually took until 1994 for k rates to reach the same level as 1967. Today's rate is at historic highs though, so it wouldn't be surprising to see some sort of decrease as offenses adjust to the "new" playing environments. Perhaps not to 12%, but 15% wouldn't be surprising. The "take and rake" approach you mention could have some merit as the time period from '93-'06 the ISOp and K rate essentially mirror each other. Since that time however, the K rate has dramatically increase while ISOp has dramatically decreased; both without any apparent change in BB%.

Edits: cleaned some things up, including my poor spelling.

Agreed. Cutting 5% off the league average k rate would be years in the undertaking.

Interesting side-note: I looked into k% by age range hoping to find that older players struck out more often than younger. It turns out my hypothesis is wrong. During the last 4 seasons, players 25 and under strike out >20% of the time while players 34 and older strike out about 17% of the time.

Mr. Napoli, while conceding that it's tough for him to successfully avoid hitting into double plays, mostly agrees with you:

P/PA      K%
2008 4.14  25.5%
2009 4.16  23.8%
2010 4.09  26.9%
2011   4.37  19.7%
2012 4.43      30.0%
2013 4.59  32.4%

Strike outs and walks are boring to watch, especially when you know they're coming. At some point, baseball is about more than just the TTO or else you'd probably be fine watching baseball simulations and determining who wins every championship by which team wins the most after replaying the season 1000 times.

I've actually had the argument with some people that they'd enjoy baseball having a lineup of guys who never hit but walked 4 out of 10 times and struck out 6 out of 10 times. Yay, we win. Exciting.

Yeah, but:

I guess, and it's fair to say that the ball being in play is the lynchpin for many of highlights that have somewhat universal appeal (think spectacular defensive plays, runner getting nailed at the plate, etc). It might be a real issue if the strikeout rate doubled or something, but we're taking about a few percentage points on the margin here, and the vast majority of balls put in play are relatively bland groundouts and lazy flies anyways. If the K rate doesn't stabilize at some point in the next few years and guys start regularly striking out 20+% of the time, maybe we can talk, but I don't think we're at a rules-altering crisis yet.

PS: one idea that might increase the value of BIP might be to eliminate ground-ball double plays. That would substantially alter the risk/reward of putting the ball in play with runners on base, with the added benefit of reducing the takeout slides/collisions that occur regularly at second base.