Cybermetrics: Morong: Should Ryan Howard Try To Strikeout Less?

Dave Nicholson, seen here charging Chumley Cummings (great-grandson of Candy Cummings), merely laughs. 

You might think so. In both 2006 and 2007 he led the major leagues in “contact average.” I define that as hits divided by (AB - K + SF). His contact average in 2006 was .448 and in 2007 it was .421 (although it fell to .372 in 2008). And he strikes out about 190 times a year. So more contact would mean more hits, right? Maybe, maybe not.

...This got me to thinking what happens to batter’s contact average when their strikeout rate changes (something I had not looked at in this earlier study). I found all the hitters in baseball who had 300+ ABs in both 2006 and 2007 (190 plyaers). Then I calculated their strikeout rates (K/AB), their contact rates and how each one changed from 2006 to 2007. The correlation between the change in strikeout rate and the change in contact rate was .142. So if a batter’s strikeout rate increased, his batting average while making contact also increased. Looking at the changes from 2005 to 2006 gave a .18 correlation.

Maybe this makes sense. If you swing harder, you strike out more. But a harder swing means the ball is hit harder, which should mean more hits. So combined with the earlier study, a player should be careful if he thinks he should make a big effort to strikeout less.