David Wright’s Strikeouts Way Down

Lost in all the hoopla over David Wright’s .392 batting average and his broken finger and such is the fact that his strikeouts are way down this season.

Wright is a perennial 100-strikeout-per-season guy. His strikeouts have steadily risen over his career — from 113 in his first full season to a peak of 161 in 2010 (he struck out 97 times in just 102 games in 2011).

Ralph Kiner has repeatedly lamented over Wright’s strikeouts, saying he is just too good a hitter to be striking out so much. As usual, Kiner is right. Power hitters will strike out, but they will also hit .260. Wright is a career .302 hitter.

Wright has spoken often about the off-season retooling of his swing, getting back to the basics of what he used to do. Obviously it is working, and it is also resulting in far fewer strikeouts. Over the first month of the the season Wright struck out just 14 times. Extrapolating that over a six month season, that’s 84 strikeouts.

If Wright can keep his strikeouts to fewer than 100 it would be a great accomplishment and show that his best days are in front of him, not behind him.