Over the past few years, there has been one constant on the Cleveland Indians offense, the strikeout.
The players come and go, but the problem remains. The Tribe hitters are prone to swinging and missing.
This year, the Indians currently lead the American League in fanning. Last year, they finished second, and the year prior (2009), they ranked third in the league.
It would be one thing if Cleveland was a big power hitting team, belting 180-200 home runs per year, but they aren’t.
They rank in the middle of the pack to the bottom in the AL in the power stats.
This year, they rank 10th in home runs and 8th in slugging percentage. In 2010, they were 11th in round trippers and 12th in slugging, and in 2009, the Tribe was 11th in circuit clouts, and 9th in slugging.
Strikeouts usually represent an all or nothing approach, but with the Indians, they are missing the “all” part.
Therefore, what you have is a team that needs to do little things like moving runners, hitting behind runners, and having the ability to score runs with outs (ground balls, sacrifice flies, etc.), but they can’t because they don’t make consistent contact.
There are many baseball people who don’t mind strikeouts, and obviously the Indians have some of them in their organization.
The thought process behind that is that it’s just another out, the same as a fly ball or pop up. That’s true, except in situations when there are runners on base.
That’s when you need hitters to make contact and put the ball in play. Like after a leadoff double, you need to hit a grounder to the right side to move him to third.
Understand, hitting a baseball is a difficult thing to do, so it’s not as easy as it looks. Also, pitchers are trying to prevent hitters from doing what they want to do.
Teams can also overlook players who accompany the strikeouts with an equal, or close to equal amount of walks (Carlos Santana and Travis Hafner). You can afford to whiff 100 times a season if you walk 80 times.
And of course, if you hit the long ball, your strikeouts are excused, such as Asdrubal Cabrera, who has fanned 81 times, but has 19 dingers.
With that in mind, here are the guys who should be cutting down on the whiffs based on the other parts of their offensive game:
Matt La Porta (.415 slugging percentage): 62 K’s in 292 at bats, Jack Hannahan (.333): 60 K’s in 277 at bats, Shin-Soo Choo (.353): 65 K’s in 266 at bats, Austin Kearns (.307): 43 K’s in 140 at bats, and Lou Marson (.331): 34 K’s in 133 at bats.
Also disturbing are the strikeout rates by the two hot prospects currently on the roster. Jason Kipnis has struck out 12 times in 31 at bats, and Lonnie Chisenhall has fanned 23 times in 76 times at the plate.
The strikeout frequency is the main reason the Cleveland offense struggles so much. Manny Acta cannot send runners as often as he would like because of the lack of contact from his hitters.
When Jon Nunnally was removed by the Indians as hitting coach, Acta said one of the reasons was the strikeouts were starting to pile up.
The situation hasn’t improved under Bruce Fields.
Also, when the Tribe was 30-15, and the offense was much more efficient, Cleveland ranked in the middle of the pack in striking out.
Certainly, if GM Chris Antonetti wants to improve the hitting for 2012, an eye should be kept on players who make contact.
Doing that alone might allow next season’s team to score more runs.
KM
Cleveland Sports Perspective 