Strikeout To Walk Ratio For Hitters
We’ve moved up now to Rich Lederer’s Review of the 1978 Bill James Baseball Abstract.
The first James quote on the teams of 1977 that Lederer cites has me wondering about the statistics that we consider important:
I was curious about this, so I went in search of historic batting strikeout to walk ratios. And… I couldn’t find them.
Baseball Reference has the raw stats that make up this ratio, but not the ratio itself:
In fact, we can look at the strikeout ratio and the walk ratio - but we have to do the math ourselves to figure out how they relate to each other:
This is actually pretty significant, by the way. The Phillies had a 12.8% strikeout ratio in 1977, which was almost the best in the National League (the Cubs had 12.7%). They had a 9.1% walk ratio, which was among the league leaders, but not quite at the top.
But that’s not James’ point, of course. His point is that they struck out less for every walk they took than any other team in the National League.
When you think about it, actually, the strike out to walk ratio for hitters is quite significant. It shows how good your players are at taking the pitches that they ought to take, after all.
Now, you can find the strikeout to walk ratio on Baseball Reference — but only from a pitching perspective:
Is there a reason why we consider this ratio a pitching statistic, but not a hitting statistic?
I’m interested to know your thoughts. I’d also love to dive deeper into this, though that might take a little while.
My theory is that the pitcher is in control of everything...if he walks a guy, that's a potential run. It affects future events of hits he gives up and the walk turning into a run. A ball not in play (a strikeout) is significant because no runners can move, so the BB and SO are more important in Pitcher discussions than batters because batter's stats are more individual on what he did for himself. Reaching a bit, but that's how I see it.