Strikeout Problems

There have been many players past and present who have had a difficult time avoiding the strikeout. Bobby Bonds was the first great strikeout artists having seasons of 187 and 189 K's. Sammy Sosa had eclipsed 170 3 times in his career. The record has been broken several times in the past 5 years by Adam Dunn and Ryan Howard who has topped out at 199 twice(so close). Last year Justin Upton found that it is difficult to make contact with major league pitching at the age of 20. In a single month, he managed to strike out 40 times in only 88 at-bats. Personally, i thought it would be very hard to eclipse that K rate over that many at-bats. However, every year brings new players who get into a massive funk and accumulate strikeouts in bunches.

First, Braves rookie Jordan Schafer came close by fanning 37 times in his first 87 at-bats. However, he has slightly improved his contact rate. However, the king of the strikeout this year has been Chris David. After striking out 88 times in 295 at-bats in his partial season last year, he has already strikeout 71 times the first 158 at-bats for a sweat 44% K rate. I'm pretty sure that would be a record. Assuming that he reaches 600 at-bats which is a fair estimation, he would accumulate approximately 250 strikeouts. WOW! Zips projections are being very modest projecting Davis to finish with 195 K's on the season. My experience has shown that players tendto get worse instead of better when it comes to making contact and I'll predict that David does break the record of 199 assuming he reaches 550 at-bats. Adding his low walk rate of 6% makes Davis a scary player to have, not in a good way.