2012-05-09 Reds (Cueto) at Brewers (Greinke), 12:10 PM CDT [Brewers lose, 2-1]

[The stache]

Really hate wasting this gem by Zack.

[FullMetalCardigan]

Good hitters should hit in that situation, instead of trying to ground out to 2B.

 

His first choice shouldn't be a ground out but good hitters find a way to move the runner over in that situation, especially in a 0-0 game where one run could win the game. Hart is been in the league six years now. He has to be able to make plays like this to help the team. He's also failing to protect the plate on 3-2 counts and looking for a walk instead of a hit. Pitchers know this and are constantly ringing him up. Look at the two NL leaders in total strikeouts and strikeout percentage. Hart and Weeks. At the very least Weeks is trying to swing his way out of it.

[Baldkin]

If he ropes a single to left in that situation or hits a monster HR up into Fridays? Are you going to come and complain he should've gone the other way with it?

 

No, you're calling it a huge clutch hit, and how it's great Corey is breaking out of his slump.

 

The guy has been a top 30 hitter in MLB over the last two years, and you want him to change his approach, so that he can hopefully advance the slowest runner on the team over to 3B? Which is no guarantee even on a ground ball to second, or a flyball to RF.

[GormanHarvey]

If he ropes a single to left in that situation or hits a monster HR up into Fridays? Are you going to come and complain he should've gone the other way with it?

 

In a spot where he has 2 strikes on him with a guy at 2nd and no outs in a game where its pretty likely to be a very low scoring affair. Yes. Its called situational hitting. Instead he tried to pull a ball that was outside and a perfect pitch to push the other way to advance the runner to 3rd and he ended breaking his bat and weakly grounding out to 3rd. That is what is called an unproductive at bat. As far as I'm concerned, on strike 1 and strike 2 if he gets a pitch he likes, he should definitely try to drive it somewhere. Those are his strikes. Strike 3 is a team strike and he needs to do what the situation calls for there, for the TEAM.

[FullMetalCardigan]

Asking him to go opposite field on an outside pitch is not calling for a fundamental approach change. As GormanHarvey pointed out, this is a classic case of situational hitting where a team mentality is needed.

[Baldkin]

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-truth-about-productive-outs/

 

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/yet-another-productive-outs-article/

 

A summation:

 

Total Productive Outs to Wins: -.276

Double Plays to Wins: .255

Strikeouts to Wins: .258

Productive Out Percentage to Winning Percentage: -.476

Total Productive Outs to Runs Scored: .121

Total Productive Outs to Runs Scored above Runs Created: .287

Productive Out Percentage to Percentage Exceeding Pythagorean Percentage: -.366

 

Nothing comes even close to correlating, and while that doesn't prove there's no relationship, the fact that as Productive Outs go up, wins tend to go down, may indicate that not only are Productive Outs not important, they may in fact be counterproductive. The positive correlations for double plays hit into and strikeouts are a fun counterpoint, too.

[logan82]

Have to have people on base to hit into a DP so a good hitting team would have more chances to hit into DP and thus more likely to have more DP. I believe strikeouts generally go up as SLG does. I would think that a team that hits more linedrives would overall hit better because the BABIP on line drives is much higher than GB and would have to make more outs by K. I would think K's and OBP would somewhat go hand in hand. I doubt any of them correlate much though.