Today’s Sports Stat: February 23, 2018
Last season in Major League Baseball 41 different players hit 30 or more home runs. Pretty impressive, right?
Look, however, at some of the other numbers in each player’s stat line from last season; specifically, look at how many strikeouts each of these 41 players had in 2017.
Of the 41 players with 30 or more home runs last season, 36 of them struck out 100 or more times, and 14 of them had 150 or more strikeouts for the season. It seems that we are seeing more and more of the “all-or-nothing” power hitter in today’s game, especially over the past 10 years or so.
Here are the five players last season who hit 30 or more home runs and had less than 100 strikeouts.
Joey Votto, 36 HRs, 83 strikeouts
Anthony Rizzo, 32 HRs, 90 strikeouts
Mike Trout, 33 HRs, 90 strikeouts
Francisco Lindor, 33 HRs, 93 strikeouts
Mike Moustakas, 38 HRs, 94 strikeouts
The fewest strikeouts of any player in MLB history who had 30 or more home runs in a season is 13… yes, only 13. In 1941, Joe DiMaggio hit 30 home runs and had only 13 strikeouts that season.
Since 1901, there have been only 76 times that a batter had 30 or more home runs and less than 50 strikeouts in the same season. It’s interesting to note, however, that only five of those times have come since 2000, and only once has it happened in the last decade. Those five:
Moises Alou, 2000, 30 HRs, 45 strikeouts
Barry Bonds, 2002, 46 HRs, 47 strikeouts
Barry Bonds, 2004, 45 HRs, 41 strikeouts
Vladimir Guerrero, 2005, 32 HRs, 48 strikeouts
Victor Martinez, 2014, 32 HRs, 42 strikeouts
One final note: Only once in MLB history has a player hit 50 or more home runs with less than 50 strikeouts that season. It happened in 1947 when Johnny Mize had 51 home runs and only 42 strikeouts.
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