David Smith, the founder of Retrosheet (www.retrosheet.org), has posted a study at that site of the effect of the pitch count on the results of plate appearances. There's lots of information there, but here's one quick point to keep in mind as you watch any baseball game. In plate appearances where the batter never gets to strike two, the average OPS is about .900. That's Mike Schmidt-level performance. In plate appearances where the batter does get to strike two (icluding counts of 0-2,1-2, 2-2 or 3-2), the average OPS is about .550. That's Al Weis/Doug Flynn/Bobby Wine-level performance. Certainly, a large part of that difference is that at less than two strikes, a batter can never strike out, and there's nothing like having strikeouts off the table to turn a good-field/no- hit shortstop into a Hall of Fame slugger. But the point is interesting nonethless in keeping what you see during an at-bat in perspective: when the hitter gets to two strikes, it's a very different game.
To read Smith's article, go to the Retrosheet site, click on Research, and then look for Smith's article "How Valuable Is Strike One?"
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