Strikeouts: The Most Important Pitching Stat

When I’m choosing a starting pitcher for my team, the first thing I look for is strikeouts. The flip side of this that doesn’t get talked about as often is also looking at strikeouts to find which pitchers to play against.

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The reason I look at strikeouts for my pitcher is that, besides being worth points, they are the most predictable and consistent stat. There are always going to be occasional single-game outliers, but over time, high-strikeout pitchers and low strikeout pitchers maintain their strikeout rates.

Because it so unpredictable what happens to a ball once it’s hit into the field of play, you want to get as many balls in play as possible, giving yourself more chance for success. Targeting high-contact hitters against low strikeout pitchers is one of my highest priority cash game strategies.

There are two common ways to quantify strikeout: either strikeout percentage or K/9, which is a measure of the strikeouts a pitcher averages per nine innings. I prefer to use strikeout percentage, as it is slightly more accurate than K/9. The reason is that if a pitcher suffers bad luck on BABIP and sees a few extra hitters per inning, they could have an inflated K/9 because they are facing more batters per inning. Strikeout percentage is simply calculated as strikeouts divided by total batters faced.

Pitcher Strikeout Rates

Let’s take a look at what qualifies as good, bad and average strikeout rates.

League average strikeout rate:

2010 – 18.5%
2011 – 18.6%
2012 – 19.8%
2013 – 19.9%
2014 – 20.4%

To get a feel for what an elite strikeout pitcher looks like, here are the top strikeout rates from 2014:

Clayton Kershaw – 31.9%
Chris Sale – 30.4%
Corey Kluber – 28.3%
Max Scherzer – 27.9%
Stephen Strasburg – 27.9%

Here are the lowest strikeout rates among starters with at least 170 innings pitched in 2014:

Mark Buehrle – 13.9%
Scott Feldman – 14.0%
Kyle Kendrick – 14.0%
Kyle Gibson – 14.1%
Jeremy Guthrie – 14.4%

So what do these strikeout rates mean in terms of raw numbers that we can use in DFS? What I am looking for in targeting hitters against low strikeout pitchers is the probability of getting a hit. Since we know that all pitchers allow roughly the same amount of hits on balls in play, all I am looking to do is increase the numbers of balls my lineup puts in play. I’m going to bring the pitcher’s walk rates into this data as it affects how many balls are hit into play; we’ll dig further into walk rate in the next section. This is how these rates shake out between the high- and low-strikeout groups, again using 2014 data.

Clayton Kershaw: 31.9% K, 4.1% BB with 749 batters faced;
749 x .319 = 239 Strikeouts
749 x .041 = 31 Walks
749 – 239 K – 31 BB = 479 balls hit
64 percent of batters against Kershaw put the ball in play, giving themselves a chance for a hit.

Chris Sale: 30.4% K, 5.7% BB with 685 batters faced;
685 x .304 = 208 Strikeouts
685 x .057 = 39 Walks
685 – 208 K – 39 BB = 438 balls hit
64 percent of batters against Sale put the ball in play, giving themselves a chance for a hit.

Now for the low strikeout arms;
Mark Buehrle: 13.9% K, 5.4% BB with 857 batters faced;
857 x .139 = 119 Strikeouts
857 x .054 = 46 Walks
857 – 119 K – 46 BB = 692 balls hit
81 percent of batters against Buehrle put the ball in play, giving themselves a chance for a hit.

Scott Feldman: 14.0% K, 6.5% BB with 765 batters faced;
765 x .140 = 104 Strikeouts
765 x .065 = 50 Walks
765 batters – 104 K – 50 BB = 611 balls hit
80 percent of batters against Feldman put the ball in play, giving themselves a chance for a hit.

The top five strikeout pitchers combined allowed 869 hits in 1042 innings in 2014 for a rate of 0.83 hits per inning. The bottom five strikeout pitchers combined allowed 1020 hits in 962 innings for a rate of 1.06 hits per inning.

What difference do these strikeout rates mean within a single game? Let’s assume two pitchers that each go seven innings with 27 batters faced. At a 30 percent strikeout rate, that would give that pitcher eight strikeouts, allowing 19 batters to put a ball in play. A 15 percent strikeout pitcher will strike out four batters, allowing 23 batters to put a ball in play. Since we know the average BABIP is .300, you can expect 19 balls in play to lead to 5.7 hits. The 23 balls in play from the lower strikeout pitcher leads to 6.9 hits. I don’t know if that sounds like a big difference to you, but remember, you are next going to factor in the strikeout rates of the hitters.

Batter Strikeout Rates

A batter with a 10 percent strikeout rate is going to put the ball in play 4.5 times per five at bats. A 30 percent strikeout rate hitter is only going to put the ball in play 3.5 times per five at bats.

Hopefully you can see how these seemingly small numbers begin to pile onto each other, leading to a higher percentage of success. If you consistently roster hitters who make solid contact facing pitchers with a low strikeout rate, you are giving yourself better chance of success.

Here is a look at the hitting side of strikeout rate, so you can know what to look for.

Batters with lowest (best) strikeout rates in 2014:

Victor Martinez – 6.6%
Jose Altuve – 7.5%
Ben Revere – 7.8%
Michael Brantley – 8.3%
Norichika Aoki – 8.9%

Batters with the highest (worst) strikeout rates in 2014:

Chris Davis – 33.0%
Chris Carter – 31.8%
Adam Dunn – 31.1%
Melvin Upton – 29.7%
Ryan Howard – 29.3%

Let’s compare a hitter from each group and look at some raw numbers. Victor Martinez and Ryan Howard were similar in every metric outside of strikeout rate in 2014. They had a similar walk rate, batted ball numbers, home run to fly ball ratio, and number of plate appearances, so they make for a great comparison. Howard had a 29.3 percent strikeout rate and 10.3 percent walk rate in 648 plate appearances. Victor Martinez had a 6.6 percent strikeout rate and 10.9 percent walk rate in 641 plate appearances. Here is a breakdown of each percentage so you can see what they mean in real numbers

Ryan Howard
648 Plate Appearances
29.3% K Rate = 648 x .293 = 190 strikeouts
10.3% BB Rate = 648 x .103 = 67 walks
648 PA – 190 K – 67 BB = 391 balls hit

Victor Martinez
641 Plate Appearances
6.6% K Rate = 641 x .066 = 42 strikeouts
10.9% BB Rate = 641 x .109 = 70 Walks
641 PA – 42K – 70 BB = 529 balls hit

Even with no other information at your disposal, you should be able to see why Victor Martinez would be a cash game target ahead of Ryan Howard. But now add to that what we saw in the pitcher’s strikeout percentages and you are in a position to increase your likelihood of success.

DFS Takeaways

For DFS, targeting low strikeout hitters against low strikeout pitchers is one of my key cash game strategies, where I am looking to piece together as high of a floor as possible. There are successful DFS players who play more for home-run upside in cash games as well as GPP’s, but I have always wanted to make sure that my cash game plays have a high likelihood of success, not just a big upside at a low probability. I will never use hitters against pitchers with a strikeout rate over 25 percent in cash games. I also avoid using hitters with a strikeout rate near 30 percent. Even if you develop a different style of lineup construction from what I’m describing, you can increase your odds of success by avoiding playing against the high-strikeout pitchers.

About the Author

CheeseIsGood
Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

One of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has won contests at the highest levels of both season-long and DFS. He is a 2x winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize in DFS; having won the 2014 FanDuel baseball Live Final and following that up by taking down a DraftKings Milly Maker Tournament in 2015. In addition, he’s won the Main Event championship in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship and the NFBC Platinum League, which is the highest buy-in entry league. His consistent success in the NFBC tournaments earned him a prestigious spot in their Hall of Fame. Dave can also strum a mean guitar while carrying a tune, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see him do so on one of his MLB Crunch Time appearances. Follow Dave on Twitter – @DavePotts2