The Angels lead MLB in (batting) strikeouts

[Tank]

12 hours ago, m0nkey said:

Why is caliangel just another poster on AW when he should be a coach? Is Perry asleep at the wheel again?

he was too busy telling kate beckinsale to take a hike.

[T.G.]

Today’s 20 K’s was the Angels version of “hold my beer” in response to this thread.

[AngelsFaninGA]

On 7/3/2022 at 4:16 PM, tdawg87 said:

See this is an explanation I can actually get behind. 

We need a nerd to look this up.

Took a look at some numbers here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-pitches-batting.shtml

Needless to say the Angels lead the league in strikeouts looking (208), and the only halfway decent team even remotely close to them is SD at 178. They're second to last in foul ball % and 3rd to last in ball in play % and contact %. 

On the player side, Trout is 8th and Walsh/Ohtani are 14th/15th in strikeouts looking. So 3 of your 4 best hitters are your biggest culprits. Then on top of that you have Marsh, Stassi, and Velazquez all in the top 30. That's awful. The next closest team is Seattle with 3 in the top 30. 

Then if I look here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-advanced-batting.shtml, there's nothing unusual in terms of batted ball profile, but if you sort in the Win Probability section the Angels are right down there with notably bad offenses like the Pirates, O's, Reds, etc. 

I'm sure there are other stats that I'm missing that are more useful but this is already telling, and aligns with what I see when I watch the games. Lots of elongated, hard swings even on pitches down and away and with two strikes (so as Doc said, you don't see guys shortening their swings to try to hit singles). The low contact % corroborates their willingness to stare at pitches in the zone, even with two strikes. When I watch opposing teams or other games, I see players routinely intentionally fouling off pitches with two strikes when it's not a pitch they can put in play; then I see our players staring blankly, flailing wildly, or trying to pull a pitch down and away and ending up hitting a weak popup or grounder.

The organizational hitting approach just stinks and doesn't pass the eye test, and then you have galaxy brain Nevin quoted as saying stuff like K's are better than GIDP's (even though 90% of these at-bats are already happening with no one on base because the last doofus also struck out), which shows that these guys just don't get it.