Taking Different Swings

The trade of Jeromy Burnitz intensified an increasingly relevant baseball debate: How damaging are strikeouts to a team’s offensive performance?

Not that damaging, according to the New York Mets’ Steve Phillips, the general manager who acquired Burnitz.

Very damaging, according to Milwaukee’s Dean Taylor, the general manager who traded the slugger.

“I don’t look at strikeouts in a vacuum,” Phillips said before landing Burnitz in a three-team, 11-player deal. “I tend to look at on-base percentage and slugging percentage rather than strikeouts.”

Responded Taylor: “I don’t disagree with Steve if you’re looking at one player in an isolated observation. But when you look at the totality of strikeouts on our club, that’s why the Brewers’ offense was dysfunctional last season.”

And why the 2002 Mets, with two strikeout-prone sluggers--Burnitz and Mo Vaughn--and Mike Piazza coming off his highest strikeout total since 1996, are entering dangerous territory.

Their offense should be balanced enough to succeed with Roger Cedeno and Roberto Alomar hitting at the top of the lineup and Edgardo Alfonzo possibly settling between Vaughn and Burnitz. But high-strikeout teams struggle to manufacture runs. They also are susceptible to better pitching, particularly in the postseason.

The Brewers exemplified the perils of an all-or-nothing offense last season, setting a major-league record with 1,399 strikeouts and finishing a major-league worst 13-25 in one-run games.

The Cardinals, a postseason team, didn’t click offensively until they traded Ray Lankford, who struck out 34 times in 65 at-bats with runners in scoring position before getting sent to the Padres on Aug. 2.

“If you get someone in scoring position and strike out, it does you no good,” Cardinal General Manager Walt Jocketty said. A guy hits a fly ball or a ground ball, it may give you a chance to move the runner over or the other team a chance to make a mistake.”

Sabermetricians, citing research by baseball historian Bill James, contend the effect of the strikeout is minimal. James found that a team with a high strikeout rate scores only one fewer run for every 100 extra strikeouts compared with an otherwise similar offensive team with a low strikeout rate.

Such analysis is critical, for players are striking out like never before. The NL rate last season--one strikeout every 4.92 at-bats--was the highest in major league history. The AL rate--one every 5.39 at-bats--was the league’s second-highest, after 1997’s.

Before 1963, no player had struck out more than 150 times in a season. Between ’63 and ‘86, there were 34 such seasons. Since ‘86, there have been 70, with five of the 12 highest single-season figures occurring in the past two campaigns.

Strikeouts often are part of the package with top sluggers. Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and Sammy Sosa each finished in their league’s top 10 last season in both strikeouts and combined on-base/slugging percentage (OPS).

“It’s ultimately about production,” A’s General Manager Billy Beane says. “How [players] get to that production is inconsequential.”

The Brewers were unproductive, ranking third in the NL in home runs but 11th in runs. Taylor likens himself to an offensive coordinator, implementing a new scheme. His theory is right, his execution dubious. Of his three additions on offense, neither Eric Young nor Alex Ochoa is an on-base machine, and the Ochoa-Matt Stairs platoon in right probably won’t make anyone forget Burnitz.

Phillips took the opposite tack, seeking to add power to an outfield that last season produced a major league-low 40 home runs. His overhaul of the league’s worst offense is impressive. Still, there are concerns. Burnitz’s on-base percentage has dropped the past two seasons. Vaughn is changing leagues after missing an entire season due to a ruptured biceps tendon. And Cedeno strikes out too much for a leadoff man--once every 5.4 at-bats the past three seasons.

Will the Mets’ entire season amount to a swing-and-miss? Probably not. But don’t be surprised if this supposed juggernaut sputters.