Lack of strikeouts among starters.

[Gagnon39]

I'm nearing my season's end and I'm noticing that my strikeout numbers for my starters are WAY low compared to the rest of my team. In fact of all my pitchers my five starters rank at the bottom (bottom five) in K/9. Guys like Darvish and Lester who have career K/9 in the 10-11 range have around 7 for me. Meanwhile my relievers have pretty high strikeout totals.

It's extremely common for a starter of mine to have just 1-3 strikeouts through 6 IP, then my bullpen pick up 3-4 punchouts to close out the game.

Anyone else seeing this trend or is it just my staff?

[zippy2212]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I've seen the same thing in my franchise. I have a couple guys that will rack up strikeouts, then others that only get a couple. Every season, playing every game, I'm almost always bottom 5 in K's.

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[TheWarmWind]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

No problem for me. I'll admit I just started the 2020 season and my top two pitchers are having issues missing bats, but I can chalk that up to a bad start (it's only been two starts each so far). My #3 pitcher just threw a 7 inning 9 strikeout performance, and my #4 an 8 inning 8 strikeout one.

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[countryboy]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

Yeah I’m not seeing this issue. I led the league in strikeouts last season and I’m currently top 5 in strikeouts this season.

I just finished a game against the Phillies where Flaherty struck out 8. A few games before, lance Lynn had an 11 strikeout performance


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[Gagnon39]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

Even if you look at the K/9 stat toward the end of the year? I’m 120+ games in and my bottom five pitchers in K/9 are my starters. Not a huge deal for me really, just something I found slightly odd.


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[countryboy]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I’ll have to look but nothing when I looked at stats the other day seemed out of the ordinary


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[kinsmen7]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I kind of wish that I had a similar-ish problem.

Marcus Stroman leads the majors in K's, Sanchez is top 5, Hyun Jin Ryu has a 9.5k/9, Ryan Borucki is above 10k/9, and JA Happ has a high rate as well.

I don't really pitch to contact, play on quick counts, and have high walk rates with them as well, so that may be the difference?

[Gagnon39]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I kind of wish that I had a similar-ish problem.

Marcus Stroman leads the majors in K's, Sanchez is top 5, Hyun Jin Ryu has a 9.5k/9, Ryan Borucki is above 10k/9, and JA Happ has a high rate as well.

I don't really pitch to contact, play on quick counts, and have high walk rates with them as well, so that may be the difference?

What level, any sliders and what interface? Always important to know when looking at things like that.

[RogerDodger]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I have Kershaw throwing 10+ each game he starts. I'm getting him to work through 7 innings upwards sometimes so that's a help.

What's your average number of innings for your starters?

[kric9132]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I lead the league in K's every yr

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[Gagnon39]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I lead the league in K's every yr

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The question is not about total strikeouts, but about how many strikouts starters have compared to relievers (for user-controlled teams). Here's some actual data from my last 16 games...

Quintana 7.0 IP, 2 K
Lester 5.0 IP, 2 K
Hendricks 6.1 IP, 7 K
Hamels 6.0 IP, 6 K
Darvish 9.0 IP, 2 K
Quintana 6.0 IP, 4 K
Lester 6.2 IP, 3 K
Hendricks 6.0 IP, 4 K
Hamels 7.0 IP, 4 K
Darvish 6.0 IP, 7 K
Quintana 6.0 IP, 1 K
Lester 6.0 IP, 5 K
Hendricks 6.1 IP, 2 K
Hamels 5.0 IP, 3 K
Darvish 6.0 IP, 5 K
Quintana 7.2 IP, 3 K

And my K/9 for the season are as follows...
Strop 12.68
Edwards Jr. 11.63
Cishek 9.87
Wilson 9.78
Morrow 8.49
Duensing 8.39
Montgomery 7.84
Hendricks 7.61
Darvish 7.46
Lester 7.19
Hamels 6.72
Quintana 5.90

Darvish especially is a career strikeout guy averaging 10-11 per 9.
Here are his career real life numbers.
10.08
11.84
11.35
11.89
10.40

To drop from 10-11 per 9 to 7.46 makes me think it has something to do with starter pitcher/batter mechanics in the game. Because again, my relievers have no issue racking up punchouts.

[Gagnon39]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

Of course the game after I post this Jon Lester is working on a gem with nine strikeouts through seven innings. Haha.

[TheWarmWind]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

My bullpen does have a slightly higher k/9 then my rotation, but they also have a slightly higher k/9 attribute average, so it makes sense. Besides, it's always easier to strike someone out when this is the first time they've seen your stuff, as opposed to a starter who had to work multiple innings and batters have a chance to adjust to.

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[Bunselpower32]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

I seem to see it as well. I'm currently messing around to see if making a few more max effort pitches through the game affects it.

Edit: I can't even strike out the pitcher with high effort pitches. Almost no swings and misses whatsoever. This is a huge problem.

#2 in your program, #1 in our hearts. You will be missed, Red.

[countryboy]

Re: Lack of strikeouts among starters.

Here are my K/9 stats thru July 31st.

Again, to me nothing seems wrong with them.

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