Prospect Report:
K Rations

David Cameron

One of the few things that both scouts and analysts alike will agree on is the importance of strikeout totals for a pitcher. You'll find very few people who don't believe that a major-league-quality pitcher should be racking up strikeouts by the dozen against inferior hitters. This makes logical sense and is backed up by empirical evidence. Pitchers who strike out a lot of batters have a much better chance at success than those who do not.

With that in mind, who leads the minor leagues in strikeouts? Clint Nageotte, and by quite a good margin. The right-hander, a fifth-round pick by the Mariners in 1999, has 25 more strikeouts than Jesse Foppert, who has dominated his way onto the Prospect Ten. Right behind Foppert are Angels right-handerPedro Liriano and Athletics lefty Neal Cotts.

Nageotte, Liriano, and Cotts share more in common than belonging to teams currently in first place in the American League West, however. All three have spent the entire season in the California League, the high-A affiliate for their respective organizations. The Cal League is generally known as hitter-friendly, thanks in large part to the launching pads in Lancaster and High Desert.

So, following the common wisdom that the Cal League is tough on pitchers, we could deduce that the performances of these three young arms is even more impressive than normal. Of course, we'd be flat out wrong.

The California League has been a prolific strikeout league this season. The Carolina and Florida State Leagues (the other two high-A leagues) are averaging about five percent fewer strikeouts than their western counterparts. Five percent may not seem like much, but over 5000 at-bats, it shows up.

How great is the disparity? Dunedin has struck out the fewest times (770) of any FSL team. Its taken them 4385 at-bats to amass that amount. In other words, they are striking out in 17.5% of their at-bats. Lynchburg has struck out the fewest times (771) in the Carolina League, taking 4337 at-bats to get that total. They are striking out in 17.8% of their at-bats.

The two leagues on the east coast are pretty consistent with each other. A high-A team who doesn't strike out much should be between 17-18%. The San Bernardino Stampede strike out less than any other team in the California League. They've chalked up 944 strikeouts in 4367 at-bats. That comes out to 21.6% of their at-bats.

The top end is even more ludicrous. Visalia, who leads the world in strikeouts, is whiffing in 26.5% of their at-bats. As a friend of mine put it, its a league of Randy Johnsons pitching to a league of Russ Branyans.

Now comes the weird part. It isn't. This isn't a talent fluctuation where a lot of good pitchers and bad hitters just happened to get together. Of the pitchers amassing large strikeout totals, most of them are fringe prospects who have never come near this level of performance before.

In order to find out who has accounted for most of the pitcher strikeouts in the league, I developed a list of every pitcher who has thrown at least 50 innings in the Cal League this year. That came out to 94 pitchers, 31 of whom are averaging at least one strikeout every inning they pitch. Thirty-one!

There isn't one pitcher in the Carolina League averaging 10 strikeouts per nine innings. Adam Wainwright, who leads that circuit in punchouts, is just over 9 K/9 IP. There are fourteen pitchers in the Cal League averaging 10+ K/9 IP. Ten of those are averaging 11+K/9 IP. Mike Nicolas leads the world in strikeout ratio with an absurd 13.69 strikeouts every nine innings.

I'm not sure what the cause for it is. I'd suspect it's probably something to do with lighting at the ballparks, larger strike zones, bad hitting backgrounds, or a combination of all three. I can say, with pretty good certainty, that it is not the players themselves. Mike Nicolas is not the most prolific strikeout pitcher in the game, and I don't expect Ron Flores to strike out more batters than Adam Wainwright at higher levels.

So next time you see mention of gaudy strikeout ratios in the California League, keep this in mind. Don't expect the pitchers who are currently causing a shortage of "K" signs in California to keep racking up numbers like this at higher levels. We need to remember to adjust for context, and this time the adjustment is pretty extreme.

about the author

David Cameron leads the league in adverbs per verb. Encourage him to work on his use of "affably" at dac@strikethree.com.