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Outs are things to be avoided. Unfortunately, if everyone avoided outs, people would probably complain that the baseball season was only one long game, and only one team got to bat.
I think people complain too much.
Anyways, outs must happen. However, all outs are not created equal. There are (relatively) guaranteed outs, and there are less certain outs. A short investigation of the former is what follows.
Since baseball players must make outs, we can at least prefer outs that aren't free, but we can't always have what we want. There are two types of what I call "free outs": the strikeout and the popup. Since we track these things, we can look at who are the leaders and laggards of the free out. What follows are the top 10 and bottom 10 hitters in free out percentage, which is the sum of K% and IFFB%*FB% from FanGraphs. IFFB%*FB% isn't a perfect measure of popups, but it'll do. Only those who have qualified for the batting title are included in this analysis. PU% is popup percentage, and FO% is free out percentage.
Lowest Free Out Percentage
| Name | Team | PA | K% | PU% | FO% | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrelton Simmons | Braves | 84 | 3.6% | 2.5% | 6.1% | 117 |
| Victor Martinez | Tigers | 85 | 2.4% | 3.9% | 6.3% | 110 |
| Dioner Navarro | Blue Jays | 87 | 5.7% | 1.3% | 7.0% | 98 |
| James Loney | Rays | 93 | 6.5% | 1.3% | 7.8% | 141 |
| Miguel Montero | Diamondbacks | 101 | 8.9% | 0.0% | 8.9% | 114 |
| Jose Altuve | Astros | 112 | 8.0% | 2.1% | 10.1% | 94 |
| Michael Brantley | Indians | 99 | 8.1% | 2.5% | 10.6% | 129 |
| Dustin Pedroia | Red Sox | 111 | 9.0% | 2.2% | 11.2% | 91 |
| Aramis Ramirez | Brewers | 98 | 11.2% | 0.0% | 11.2% | 108 |
| Charlie Blackmon | Rockies | 92 | 6.5% | 5.2% | 11.7% | 198 |
Highest Free Out Percentage
| Name | Team | PA | K% | PU% | FO% | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colby Rasmus | Blue Jays | 91 | 33.0% | 7.3% | 40.3% | 69 |
| Abraham Almonte | Mariners | 104 | 34.6% | 3.4% | 38.0% | 52 |
| Chris Carter | Astros | 88 | 37.5% | 0.0% | 37.5% | 89 |
| Jarrod Saltalamacchia | Marlins | 81 | 32.1% | 4.7% | 36.8% | 143 |
| Will Venable | Padres | 88 | 29.5% | 7.3% | 36.8% | 40 |
| Curtis Granderson | Mets | 95 | 28.4% | 7.3% | 35.7% | 38 |
| Starling Marte | Pirates | 113 | 31.9% | 3.3% | 35.2% | 86 |
| Brandon Phillips | Reds | 103 | 24.3% | 10.8% | 35.1% | 77 |
| Garrett Jones | Marlins | 99 | 31.3% | 3.4% | 34.7% | 88 |
| Jackie Bradley Jr | Red Sox | 83 | 30.1% | 4.6% | 34.7% | 89 |
One reason for Charlie Blackmon's early season dominance could be his lack of free outs. Andrelton Simmons and Dioner Navarro were once members of the zero K club this season, so their inclusion on this list is not surprising.
When it comes to free out "leaders" on the other end, Jarrod Saltalamacchia is the only player with a good offensive performance among the free out leaders due to a high BABIP and walk rate. Colby Rasmus has taken the high strikeout / high popup thing for power hitters to a new level. Chris Carter's strikeout rate is ... ugly ... but he somehow hasn't popped up yet. Joey Votto would be moderately proud.
Since strikeouts are generally much more common than popups, especially in today's version of baseball, the free out percentage is skewed by the heavy strikeout guys. Since it is still early in the season, the extremes can reasonably be expected to regress. What is probably more interesting are those low strikeout guys who make up free out ground by popping up a bunch. Here are some of those guys in tabular format.
| Name | Team | PA | K% | PU% | FO% | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ben Zobrist | Rays | 110 | 9.1% | 7.3% | 16.4% | 142 |
| Alexei Ramirez | White Sox | 105 | 10.5% | 7.9% | 18.4% | 144 |
| Brian McCann | Yankees | 82 | 11.0% | 8.7% | 19.7% | 77 |
| Omar Infante | Royals | 92 | 9.8% | 12.2% | 22.0% | 89 |
| Salvador Perez | Royals | 92 | 14.1% | 9.8% | 23.9% | 76 |
| Jose Bautista | Blue Jays | 108 | 16.7% | 9.6% | 26.3% | 194 |
| Alcides Escobar | Royals | 84 | 17.9% | 8.5% | 26.4% | 115 |
There weren't really any stringent criteria to be included in this table. I simply looked for guys whose strikeout rates were outliers compared to the other guys around them in free out percentage. There are three Royals players in this table, and Omar Infante actually leads all "qualified" players in popup percentage. Despite the Royals' low strikeout rate, the constant gift of free outs by means of the popup to the opposition is probably a significant reason for their offensive woes early in the season.
A conclusion from this little analysis, if there is one, is that it is difficult to contribute positively with a high percentage of free outs. Another thought is that we mostly think of strikeouts as the worst offensive outcome; popups should enter into the conversation as well.
. . .
All statistics courtesy of FanGraphs.
Kevin Ruprecht is a Featured Writer of Beyond the Box Score. He also writes at Royal Stats for Everyone. You can follow him on Twitter at @KevinRuprecht.