Strikeouts are up across baseball, and the Twins know their role

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The taboo was mostly unspoken, Tom Brunansky remembers, but it was definitely real. During his 14 years as a major league outfielder, striking out more than 100 times was considered an embarrassment, a weakness. It was a sign that you were a lesser talent — after all, rookies were taught, Babe Ruth never struck out 100 times, Hank Aaron never did. Willie Mays only did it after he turned 40, Barry Bonds only as a rookie.

And so each September, Brunansky would begin to pay close attention to his whiff totals, and he would try to make adjustments that he hoped would keep him in double digits. "You battled like hell to avoid it. It was ingrained in us that that was a number you didn't want to deal with," Brunansky said. "I would go to the plate making a conscious effort not to cross that line."

Today, that line is as invisible as the back line of the batter's box in the ninth inning. Strikeouts permeate the sport as never before; the average major league game now includes 15.4 strikeouts, compared to 13.0, or a roughly 18 percent increase, from just a decade ago. Until 2004, nobody had ever struck out 190 times in a season; it's been done 20 times in the dozen seasons since.

Just as the game has changed, so has Brunansky's perspective. He's now the Twins hitting coach, and his position on strikeouts is dramatically different. Want proof? Just ask his star pupil, All-Star second baseman Brian Dozier, whether he ever worries about zooming past 100 K's.

"Heck no," Dozier says, incredulously. "And I hope no one does, if they want to be good."

Like Dozier, the Twins indeed believe they will be good this year. And there's an outside chance they may do it while striking out more than any team in history.

The Twins weren't always a high-strikeout team; in fact, the explosion of third strikes is a recent development. From 2003 to 2012, no team in the majors whiffed less frequently than Minnesota, and in the final season of that span, the Twins struck out fewer times than every team but the Royals.

But Minnesota's offense underwent a dramatic transformation three seasons ago, joining the swing-and-a-miss brigade with gusto. The Twins, with the game's second-fewest strikeouts in 2012, piled up the second-most (behind the record-setting Astros) in 2013 — a deluge of 361 extra whiffs that ranks as the greatest one-season increase in major league history.

And while the torrent of strikeouts at Target Field has ebbed a bit, Twins hitters have still struck out more than any teams but the Astros and Cubs over the past three years.

So what changed so abruptly? Simply put: personnel.

The Twins had three of the AL's 15 lowest strikeout-rate hitters in 2012, in Ben Revere (9.8 percent), Denard Span (10.9) and Jamey Carroll (12.1). By the next spring, Revere and Span had been traded, and Carroll's playing time was drastically reduced before he was dealt at the trade deadline. Alexi Casilla, another low-K regular, was claimed on waivers by Baltimore.

They were replaced by young, unproven talent with far more frequent whiffs: Aaron Hicks (26.8 percent), Oswaldo Arcia (31.0), Pedro Florimon (25.8) and Dozier (19.3). Strikeouts soared to franchise-record heights — much to the annoyance of their old-school general manager.

The Twins' philosophy had long been guided by a make-contact sensibility, a thread that ties Mauer to Kirby Puckett to Kent Hrbek to Rod Carew. The rationale occasionally backfired, too; David Ortiz, who last season reached 500 career home runs, held a grudge against Minnesota, his original franchise, for discouraging him from swinging for the fences.

"Something in my swing was not right in Minnesota. I could never hit for power," Ortiz said in 2012. "Whenever I took a big swing, they'd say to me, 'Hey, hey, what are you doing?' "

That wouldn't happen now, a fact that Ryan's other major personnel change over the winter of 2012-13 made clear. With so many rookies arriving from Class AAA Rochester, the general manager promoted the Red Wings' hitting coach — Brunansky — to help them develop into major league hitters.

Soon, strikeouts became as ubiquitous as sunflower seeds in the Twins dugout. About as insignificant, too.

Harmon Killebrew once led the AL in strikeouts, and early-'70s outfielder Bobby Darwin did it three times. Yet it's Dozier, who came up as a shortstop and blossomed into an All-Star second baseman, who holds the Twins' single-season strikeout record, having trudged back to the bench 148 times last season.

"Pitching is as good as it's ever been in the history of baseball right now. [Strikeouts are] unavoidable," Dozier said. "You're not happy to strike out, by any means. But you just can't let it get to you."

That's the doctrine that Brunansky has taught, one that's heartily endorsed by each of his protégés.

"Nobody wants to strike out, but Bruno has helped us better understand the risk/reward," said third baseman Trevor Plouffe, who struck out a career-high 124 times last season but also hit 22 home runs. "We want to make solid contact. Sometimes you don't, but you don't stop being aggressive. We don't talk about strikeouts much. We care more about getting on base more than striking out less."

It's been sabermetric orthodoxy for a couple of decades that strikeouts are scarcely more damaging than an out made on a ball in play, especially for players who get deep into counts. Brunansky understands and trusts the numbers.

"If strikeouts are a product of working the strike zone, working the count, getting deeper into counts, that's going to produce more walks and more offense," the 55-year-old coach said, using Miguel Sano (53 walks, 36 extra-base hits in 80 games) as the prototype. "We want to battle, we want to compete, we don't want it to be an easy at-bat for a pitcher."

"I won't say, 'Don't strike out.' Obviously there are times where it hurts, like with a runner on third base, but I hate negative thoughts. I want you to be positive," he said. "I want an aggressive mind-set. I don't want our hitter to be up there, afraid of striking out."

After just missing the 2015 playoffs, the 2016 season could be a landmark one for the Twins. It has the potential to be a historic year for strikeouts, too.

Sano struck out 119 times in the majors last season, and didn't even play half the games. Byung Ho Park hit 105 homers the past two seasons in South Korea but struck out 303 times, too. Arcia, hopeful of making the team after stumbling last year, averaged 100 games and 122 whiffs in his first two seasons. Eddie Rosario had 103 more whiffs than walks in his rookie season. Dozier is coming off a record-setting year, Plouffe a career high, and even Mauer, of all people, crossed the 100-strikeout barrier last season.

Add it up?

"It could be a lot," Brunansky said. "But you need to let these players be who they are. Do I want Eddie Rosario to swing at fastballs at his chin? No, I don't. But improvement comes with experience."

Yet the Twins recognize it's no coincidence that the other strikeout kingpins, the Cubs and Astros, are undergoing a similar transition to young, exciting, aggressive players. Both made the playoffs last season.

"Anyone can cut down on strikeouts. If you want to become a slap hitter, just trying to avoid strikeouts, you can do it," Dozier preached. "But do you really want to have a bunch of slap-hitting singles hitters?"