In Major League Baseball, records are sacred.
Moments like Barry Bonds’ 73rd home run and Mariano Rivera’s 652nd save will be forever etched into the fabric of baseball history. MLB’s next all-time record to be broken though, will likely not be cause for celebration.
Over the past 16 seasons, the number of strikeouts in MLB has increased exponentially. Jumping from an MLB-wide strikeout percentage of 16.4% in 2005, to a staggering 24% in 2021. In other words, almost a quarter of all MLB at-bats now end in a strikeout. As batting averages across the league continue to sink in favor of increased home run rates, the strikeout has become the most prevalent outcome for MLB at-bats.
Cameron Richardson is a senior sportswriter for The Lumberjack at Northern Arizona University. He isn’t a fan of the increase in strikeout numbers and thinks they’re detrimental to the game of baseball.
“It limits the game, because now it seems like there’s only two outcomes, you get a hit or you strike out,” Richardson said. “There aren’t that many players out there trying to play small ball. We’re not looking for bunt singles, we're not looking for walks, everyone wants to be flashy and hit home runs.”
Increased emphasis on home runs has been identified as a main factor for the increase in MLB strikeout rate. Players who try to hit home runs become more aggressive at the plate and they tend to swing at more pitches out of the strike zone, which in turn results in more strikeouts.
According to an article published by bleacherreport.com, hitters took to expanding the strike zone significantly more from 2005-2012, which was directly correlated to the increase in both strikeout and home run numbers. Since 2012, those numbers have continued to increase at an exponential rate, with team home runs per game jumping from 1.02 in 2012 to 1.22 in 2021, while team strikeouts per game jumped from 7.5 to 8.68 per game over the same span.
Hall of Fame outfielder Reggie Jackson currently sits atop all MLB batters with a career strikeout total of 2,597. Thanks to the explosion in strikeout numbers in the last decade, there are five current MLB players who could theoretically contend for Jackson’s strikeout crown — Giancarlo Stanton, Justin Upton, Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper and Joey Gallo.
When attempting to project a player’s strikeout potential, three stats are key: a player’s age, their career strikeout total and their strikeout percentage (also called strikeout rate).
Age is important because a player must play a generous number of seasons in order to contend for the strikeout title. It took Jackson 21 years to set the bar, ending his career at the age of 41 with a 22.7% career strikeout rate.
At 29 years old, Judge and Harper are the youngest players on the list.
Harper played his first MLB season at the tender age of 19, a season in which the eventual National League Rookie of the Year racked up 120 strikeouts. Since then, Harper has dipped below the century mark in strikeouts just three times in his 10-year career, striking out under 90 times just once in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. A decade into his career, Harper sits at 1,189 total strikeouts with a career rate of 21.7%.
While his strikeout numbers pale in comparison to players like Stanton and Upton, Harper’s age advantage is significant. Beginning his big league career as a teenager means that — barring injury — Harper stands a significantly better chance at playing another 10 seasons in The Show, which could make up for his comparatively pedestrian strikeout numbers.
Judge may still be in his 20s, but his age is actually the thing holding him back the most, having not played his first full season until the age of 25. Harper may have gotten a head start on him, but Judge’s colossal 29.7% strikeout rate significantly outpaces Harper’s. Judge sits at just 773 career strikeouts, but has eclipsed 140+ strikeouts in each full season he’s played in his six-year career. His best performance in that category came in 2017 to the tune of an MLB-leading 208 strikeouts. If Judge can keep racking up strikeouts at his current pace, he might be able to make up for his late start.
Rory Faust, a sports journalism professor at NAU, remembers when baseball was played very differently, and isn’t convinced that the new all-or-nothing approach to hitting is what’s best for the game.
“You go back to the mid-80s and you look at a team like the St. Louis Cardinals, they were built on speed, stealing bases, hit-and-run and those kinds of things,” Faust said. “You go back to some of those World Series teams and their leading home run hitter had like 22 home runs or something like that. There was a lot more small ball played and more bunting. I’m not saying we should revert to that kind of baseball, although I do think there’s a certain element [of that] that wins games.”
Justin Upton has not embraced the idea of “small ball” over the course of his career. The Angels outfielder currently sits at 1,948 career strikeouts, the most by any active player and good for 7th all-time. Based on the aforementioned criteria, Upton has put himself in excellent position to break the record. Upton played his first full MLB season at age 20, striking out 121 times. Since then, Upton has never failed to strike out at least 100 times in any full season over his 15-year career, good for a healthy 25.7% strikeout rate.
At 34 years old, Upton is also the oldest player on this list, which brings increased risk of significant injury. If Upton can stay healthy though, and keep himself in the starting lineup for the rest of his 30s, he may have the best chance at eclipsing Jackson’s record.
Faust started to notice a shift towards home runs and strikeouts in MLB in the 90s, specifically during the famous home run race between Cardinals first baseman Mark McGuire and Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa during the 1998 season.
“You start to see a shift I think in the mid 90s, and then certainly with the Maguire and Sosa home run race,” Faust said. “It got people excited, it put butts in seats for lack of a better term. Attendance went up and it helped baseball bounce back from the strike and I think you saw a transition there.”
McGwire eventually won the race by belting his 61st home run of the season, breaking the longtime record held by Yankee outfielder Roger Maris. McGwire hit nine more home runs that season, finishing with an MLB-record 70 homers on the season before Barry Bonds would again break the record three years later.
Stanton’s high-water mark for home runs came during a 2017 campaign that saw him hit 59 homers in addition to striking out 163 times, en route to winning the National League MVP award. While 59 homers is a far cry from 73, the slugger is still in contention for a very different MLB record.
His age 20 start, 28% career strikeout rate and 1,559 career strikeouts all put him squarely in the conversation for the eventual all-time strikeout leader. At age 32, Stanton also has the advantage of more potential playing time than his biggest competitor, Upton.
The main detriment to Stanton’s chances, however, are injuries. Stanton has missed significant time in three of his twelve seasons, including a 2019 season that saw the slugger play just 18 of 162 games. Stanton could very well make up for his missed time with a few monumental swing and miss seasons, but he would have to play full seasons for the rest of his career, something that becomes less likely for him with each birthday.
Faust sees the transformation of two young, speed-focused players into premiere power hitters as a catalyst for baseball’s transition to a more home-run focused game.
“Let’s look at Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, who when they broke into the major leagues, they had some pop but were speed guys, not necessarily known as home run hitters,” Faust said. “The transformation of their careers really paralleled the transformation in baseball, where you saw the home run hitters getting the big contracts and the attention and being on the highlights on SportsCenter or whatever it might be, people want to be that guy.”
Following closely behind Stanton is his teammate Joey Gallo. Despite playing just seven big league seasons since his debut at 21 years old, Gallo has already accumulated 885 strikeouts. This is thanks in large part to Gallo’s gargantuan 36.9% strikeout rate, which dwarfs all other active MLB players.
Looking at just strikeout rate alone, Gallo is the clear winner, and would likely go on to become the all-time leader in strikeouts if he could keep up his astronomical pace. Gallo’s best attribute in this contest, however, may also be his biggest detriment, since he can be borderline unplayable at times due to the exponential rate at which he swings and misses. Even with the staggering increase in strikeouts across MLB, a player with a near 40% strikeout rate will most likely find himself struggling for work into his mid-30s.
Faust predicts that continued high strikeout rates will force teams and players to reevaluate how the game is being played. He hopes to see a re-incorporation of older strategies, but understands that the game will never be played the way it used to be.
“I think at some point there has to be a market correction,” Faust said. “It’s not going to revert back to what old school baseball was, but I think we’re going to see more value placed in some of these guys who can play multiple positions. We’re seeing with analytics that on-base percentage is being valued more than it has been traditionally, so I think we’re going to see a bit of a correction there. Having said that, I think high strikeout numbers are here to stay, I just think it’s where the game is right now, for better or worse.”
While stats can help project player potential, it does not offer a window to the future. Any of the aforementioned players could fail to snatch the strikeout crown for any number of reasons. As players age, their home run numbers inevitably decrease, while their strikeout numbers will only continue to rise. Which may force them off the field before they can catch Mr. October on the all-time list.
Injuries are another likely culprit that may prematurely end a potential strikeout king’s career. It’s impossible to predict exactly who will unseat Jackson from his strikeout throne, but as strikeout numbers in baseball continue to multiply, it’s only a matter of time before someone does.
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