Everybody knows that Ichiro! is about to pass George Sisler for the all-time single-season hits record, but to me a more interesting record was broken yesterday: Adam Dunn struck out for the 190th and 191st times, passing Bobby Bonds and his 189 whiffs from 1970 for the single season mark.
Dunn wasn’t upset at all by setting the record, actually joking with reporters at first.
“It’s great. I’m the only person that actually has claim to that record. Now I’m just going to try to add on to it before the year is over,” he said.
He did admit the record is a rather dubious one.
“Actually it does matter. But, you know, I’m not going to sit and lose sleep over it,” he said.
Nor should he. Look at Dunn’s stats for the year: 264/387/564 AVG/OBP/SLG, for a 951 OPS, plus 45 HRs, 101 RBIs, and 103 runs. Who cares if he makes outs by swinging and missing instead of grounders or popups? The dude is a force at the plate.
I’ve never quite understood the stigma attached to strikeouts. Mickey Mantle was the all-time career leader in Ks for years before Reggie Jackson passed him. Last I checked, they were both good guys to have in the lineup. In 2002, when Jose Hernandez sat out the last three games of the season after reaching 188 whiffs, he was the best bat on the Brewers at 288/356/478, all while playing shortstop. Guys who fan a lot get the chance to do so because they hit the ball hard when they hit it. Maybe now that Dunn has reminded us all of that, we can get over it.
Of course, it is a bit odd that strikeouts by batters are not such a big deal, but strikeouts by pitchers are one of the best predictors of success. I’ve not seen a good sabermetric explanation of this – Rob Neyer was asked the question awhile ago and more or less waved his hands at it.
Getting back to Ichiro! – It’s almost a cliche to call a player unique, but there really are no other ballplayers today who are as well-suited to the task of hitting singles. Of his 256 hits so far, 219 of them are one-baggers. He’s got an isolated slugging percentage of .084, meaning that if he were a mere .300 hitter, he’d have a little less pop than Omar Vizquel. Go back and look at Sisler’s line for 1920. Ichiro! has 37 extra-base hits. Sisler had 37 in just triples and homers – he also had 49 doubles, and slugged .632 (isolated slugging .225) with 399 total bases. What Ichiro! has done is special, but what Sisler did was more impressive.