If you read about players from many different baseball teams you usually see that they include what can be considered baseball statistics, to describe the player. In many ways these baseball statistics give a good description of the player’s playing performance.
For example, in a recent article about home run hitters, there was some interesting data regarding not only the number of home runs, but also the number of strikeouts that the players had. This is an often ignored statistic since hitting a home run commands much more attention than a strikeout.
But when you compare the two, it is possible to see how swinging for a home run most often leads to more strikeouts and a lower batting average. This is especially true today with the different batting technique that is used by most players.
For example, Joe DiMaggio hit 361 career homers (old-style hitting) and he struck out just 369 times. In the last 2 to 3 decades most home run hitters had many more strikeouts as exemplified by Mark Reynolds, who holds the major league baseball single-season record for strikeouts with 223 in 2009.
He has hit 223 career homers and struck out 1385 times. Most notable is that home run hitters typically accumulate well over 1,000 strikeouts. Thus the question arise; Does swinging for the fences lead to more run production, or is a higher batting average more effective? (Keep in mind that batting averages of most players has gone down appreciably in the last few decades)
To my knowledge there are no statistics that cover this aspect of the game. But yet, it may be more crucial than many of the other statistics. In fact, it can be said that most of the statistics merely describe certain features of the player. They do not analyze how effective the player is in his hitting or fielding.
Even more importantly, present-day statistics in regard to pitchers are doing a poor job in the prevention of pitching injuries. This may be due to the fact that limiting the number of pitches thrown or innings pitched has only been shown to be effective with Little League players, not professional players.
But MLB seems to be heading in the direction of more statistics to describe a player rather than statistics that will help the player become even more effective in his overall playing. More informative can be the information presented in Build a Better Athlete.