Tom Brennan - STRIKEOUTS FOR HITTERS ARE HARDER TO AVOID THE HIGHER YOU GO, AND DERAIL BUDDING CAREERS

Pete Alonso wore a sombrero Friday night with a 4 strikeouts.

Good days, even some thrilling days, and bad days - such are the joys and agonies in the life of even a good major league hitter.

Polar Bear Pete in the majors so far (through Friday) has accumulated 278 Ks in 250 games.

Pete in the minors?  Virtually the same number of games, 255, but far fewer strikeouts, 221.  

OK, class.  Let's move on.

Travis Taijeron was a guy in the Mets' minors for several years who truly produced a ton of extra base hits (434 in 3,244 at bats) but fanned a lot (1,158 times in 3,877 plate appearances, or 1 every 3.36 PAs).   

In the majors, he produced just 3 extra base hits in 59 plate appearances and fanned 24 times (1 every 2.46 PAs).

Eric Campbell in the minors fanned just 591 times in 3,906 plate appearances (1 every 6.6 plate appearances).  In the majors, that jumped to 116 times in 505 PAs (1 every 4.35 PAs).

Champ Stuart was never able to cut down his high strikeout rate in the minors to allow his blazing speed to lift him to the big leagues.  His Ks increased as he climbed the minor league ladder.  He finally flamed out in AA ball.

Lest I forget, Keon Broxton fanned a stunning 396 times in 1,026 major league plate appearances (.209/.297/.388).  Despite that prodigious rate, some Mets genius actually acquired him for 2019.  It didn't go well at all.  Hmmm...I wonder why?    Keon was considerate, he brought his own K cards to the stadium with him for fans to hang up.

Anyway, in the minors (.255/.334/.418), Keon fanned 1,182 times in 4,036 plate appearances, a high rate indeed, but clearly lower than his 39% major league rate.  His K rate at the AAA level, it should be noted, was his highest in the minors.  

Also, Keon walked nearly 10% of his plate appearances in the minors.  Probably too much taking pitches and not enough swinging at them.

So it is clear, my attentive classroom students, that for almost every player, Ks in the majors (and the high minors) will get worse than at lower levels.  

Why?  

I could give you 100 (MPH) reasons.  

Let's move on.

Two Mets prospects guys from the land of Not Too Long Ago who flamed out early on due to K issues were former 3rd rounder Ivan Wilson and International signee Vicente Lupo.

Ivan's minors career numbers were .209/.298/.356.  He fanned 317 times in 843 plate appearances.  He quit baseball at the not-at-all-ripe age of 21, having made it to Low A ball as his last stop.  Ks were his downfall.

Vicente Lupo had one great year in the ultra-low level Developmental League, and he won a Silver Slugger for the Kingsport Mets in the now-defunct mid-level rookie league, too.   

In his last two years, though, in low A ball, he fanned 213 times in 617 PAs (1 every 2.9 PAs) and hit .215/.315/.370 in that span.  He couldn't fix Acute K-itis and was done at age 22. Ks also were his downfall.

Two current highly ranked Mets prospects are Jaylen Palmer and Shervyen Newton.  Both have to address the same issue. Too many Ks.

Sherveyn is now 22, and repeating low A ball.  He (like Ivan Wilson was) is young and athletic.  In low A, he has played 117 games, .206/.284/.321.  Strikeouts in low A?   157 in 466 PAs, or 1 every 2.97 PAs, including 23 in his first 51 PAs (.157) this season.  

Based on the above comparisons, his one challenge as I see it is to essentially figure out how to cut his K rate in half - no small task. To his great credit, Newton has walked 162 times in his 1,193 career plate appearances, a very high rate - but more on that below.

Jaylen Palmer is highly regarded for his athleticism.  He is just 20, turning 21 on the last day of July this year.  He fanned a lot in 2019 in Kingsport, but was just 18, a relatively high level for an 18 year old.  For Kingsport that year, he was .260/.344/.413, certainly decent enough, but fanned 108 times in 276 PAs, or 1 every 2.6 PAs.  Had he started out with the Gulf Coast league low level rookie team, more appropriate for his age, those K numbers likely would have been significantly better.

Like every other minor leaguer, he lost 2020 (and invaluable development time) to COVID.  This year, with no high rookie ball league, he was essentially bumped two levels to low A ball.  So far, in a small 2021 sample, he seems to have made some improvement in Ks.   13 in 42 PAs, or 1 every 3.2 PAs.

To get to the big leagues, the athletic duo of Newton and Palmer, especially Newton, need to cut their K rates substantially.  Palmer has more time, given he is 2 years younger, with far fewer pro plate appearances.  

For Newton, to me, the issue is very urgent.  If I were his coach, I would tell him to be very aggressive swinging at pitches in the strike zone.  Forget drawing many walks for a while.  Don't be the next Keon Broxton, in other words.  

The more you swing at strikes, the lower your K rate should be. Avoid called strikes wherever possible. Swing early, swing often.  In other words, if you fanned 100 times and swung 150 times in those ABs, if you boosted your swing rate 25%, you'd have to make more in-play contact.  Resulting in less walking back to the dugout after being rung up by the ump. 

As briefly outlined above, it gets a whole lot HARDER to avoid Ks in the upper minors and big leagues.  So Task # 1 is to address the strikeout problem.  You do that by swinging more and making contact.  

Don't let Ks be your downfall, like they were with Champ, Ivan, and Vicente.

Class dismissed.

WAIT, DON'T GO YET!!  THERE'S MORE!

That was a classic Mets game last night - injuries to two more key players, including the scary beaning of Pillar and (what else?) side injury to the red hot Walker, the hitting-challenged catchers get 4 hits and almost a fifth, two outfielders (Lee and Fargas, the latter getting his first hit and also (shocker) laying down a sac bunt) make their MLB debuts, the dominating Reid-Foley throws an outstanding 3 innings for the win, lowering his ERA to 0.96, the Braves offense goes into a coma, allowing the Mets to break a scoreless tie in the 7th, and Edwin Diaz throws a neat, tidy, sugar-free, strikeout-free 9th inning for the save.   

Mets now 3 up on the Braves as half the Mets' roster is down.  BUT - a day closer to getting all the regulars back.

With the highly unexpected situation of having 4 of the 5 regular outfielders (Nimmo, Conforto, Pillar, and Almora) down right now, I wonder if Tim Tebow has any regrets about retiring?   Also, if they did not have a player free agency clock, and if Pete Crow-Armstrong were not hurt, wouldn't he be one of the ones called up?  Heck, who else do they call up if Pillar needs to go to the IL and Nimmo isn't ready?  Quinn Brodey?  Drew Ferguson?