Today’s baseball is so different than the baseball I grew up watching over the years. In the old days you had better be a big time slugger if you were strikeout prone or you would find yourself looking for work in the real world. Today’s baseball seems to have no issue with players with high strikeout rates.
In the short 60-game season in 2020 the Minnesota Twins were tenth in runs scored in the American League but thanks to their good pitching (ranked second in the league) they were able to win the division title on the last day when the Chicago White Sox choked coughing up a three game lead with just eight to play by losing seven out of their last eight games.
In spite of the Twins reputation as a good hitting team the numbers show that they really are not, they are a “power” and “base-to-base” team that waits on a home run to score runs. Last season the Twins hit 91 home runs, 62 of them were with the bases empty, that means that 68% of the home runs were solo’s. The Twins finished last season tenth in runs, tenth in hits, thirteenth in doubles, and dead last in triples and stolen bases. They struck out in 24.35% of their plate appearances. Only the Tigers (27.31%), Rays (26.89%), Rangers (25.52%) and White Sox (25.19%) were worse. Houston had the lowest strikeout rate 19.74%.
To score runs you need base runners and hitters that can put their bat on the ball and the Twins come up short. Last season the Twins scored just 14 runs on sac fly’s and Marwin Gonzalez had four of them, no one else had more than two.
I decided to do a bit of digging over Twins history and see which Twins players had the highest strikeout rate per plate appearances. The qualifiers I used were that they had to have 500 or more career plate appearances and be a position player. When I was growing up and following the Twins it seemed like everyone complained about how often Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew struck out and that is true, he did strike out frequently, matter of fact he is the all-time Senators/Twins franchise leader with 1,629 but we are only going to look at Twins history since 1961.
During his time in Minnesota wearing a Twins uniform Killebrew struck out 1,314 times in 8,018 plate appearances meaning that he struck out 16.39% of the times when stepped up to the plate. Believe it or not, 64 Twins batters with 500 or more career PA’s had a higher strikeout percentage than Harmon. Throw in the amazing fact that Killebrew also had 1,321 bases on balls and hit 475 home runs and you have to say WOW! No wonder he was a Hall of Fame player.
But who is the all-time Twins leader in this category? It is non other than Miguel Sano who has struck out in 36.97% of his plate appearances. Followed by of all people, our fourth outfielder Jake Cave with 32.88%. Would you believe it if I told you that five current Twins players are in the top ten in this category? And yet so many Twins fans believe we have a great hitting team, I am not so sure.
Hey, have some fun and check out the PDF below to see where your favorite players from over the years rank on this list. Don’t forget to look at the bottom of the list to see who seldom made an out by striking out.