Joe D and the Strikeout.  Never a Match.

 

By:  Mike Lindsley

 

You can watch and marvel at the baseball stars of today.  Mike Trout or Bryce Harper. Veterans like Derek Jeter or David Wright.  Perhaps you lean towards a Triple Crown guy in Miguel Cabrera.  Or, maybe your favorite is in Boston or St. Louis or Seattle or Los Angeles with the names Papi-Yadi-Robbie-Puig.

 

Love them all you want, and you should.  Baseball should be celebrated by generations.  But one thing that over the years gets dismissed is how much baseball players today strike out.  It doesn't matter how much you cheer them.  They whiff.  All.  The.  Time.  

 

Mike Trout last year?  A year in which he easily could have been the MVP AGAIN?  136 strikeouts.  In 2012, the five-tool master had 139 K.  Miguel Cabrera has struck out 1,200 times during his Hall of Fame career.  Robinson Cano, about a decade deep into his MLB career, is already over the 700 K mark.

 

How about some legends?  Mickey Mantle, the greatest combination of speed and power the game has ever seen, struck out 1,710 times.  Babe Ruth, considered by many to be the greatest of them all and the guy who invented the uppercut swing and home run game, struck out over 1,100 times.  Hank Aaron?  1,383 strikeouts.  Frank Robinson struck out over 1,500 times.

 

This all leads us to another baseball God, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio.  We all hear about his 56-game hitting streak and that run-like-a-giraffe-speed in center field.  We also hear about his amazing arm and insane power from the right side and the incredible numbers he put up despite being pulled over seas to fight for the red, white and blue during World War II.

 

But beyond that, a stat that is lost among baseball's elite, is that of Joe D's strikeout number.  DiMaggio struck out ONLY 369 times in 13 years over 6,821 at-bats.  This is simply astounding to process.  Baseball nuts are so obsessed about 2,131 or 4,256 or 61 or 755 (yes, the real home run numbers) or even the 56 number owned by the Yankee Clipper.  But what about this strikeout number by DiMaggio?  

 

This number is so ridiculous that it simply states the following:  Joe DiMaggio only struck out once every 18.4 at-bats.  That means that compared to many legends of yesterday and today, and simply baseball's best today, the guy really NEVER struck out.

 

Dimaggio and the K were not a match.

 

Maybe this is actually the greatest stat or number of them all.

 

369.