So many hits
Hitting a baseball is arguably the hardest thing to do in professional sports, which is why a hit itself is perhaps the most iconic part about baseball. There’s just some inherent aesthetic beauty to a line drive that falls into the outfield grass or a ground ball that scoots past a diving infielder.
But getting a hit is harder and harder to do. Pitchers are throwing the ball harder than ever and uncorking the nastiest breaking balls we’ve ever seen. And teams and batters alike have made the conscious decision that strikeouts are an acceptable price for hitting the ball hard.
The result is that batters are striking out more and more and more. When the Royals won the World Series in 1985, the median team struck out 13.8% of the time, the team with the lowest strikeout rate (the Milwaukee Brewers) struck out 12.1% of the time, and the team with the highest strikeout rate (the Philadelphia Phillies) struck out 17.9% of the time. Over the past 40 years, the entire distribution has sharply shifted upwards. Now, the lowest strikeout teams run figures at 18% (like last year’s San Diego Padres at 17.9%) with the most strikeout-prone teams in the league running at 25% or more.
Going back to 2010, only 28 times has a player managed to get 200 or more hits in the course of a full regular season. And only three players—Dee Strange-Gordon, Jose Altuve, and Luis Arraez—has done so more than once.
Well, you may recall that Bobby Witt Jr. just did so last year. And you may also recall with some shorter-term memory that Witt notched himself four (4!) hits in yesterday’s game against the visiting Triple-A Chicago White Sox team.
A casual four-hit day for Bobby Baseball.
With those four hits, Witt is back on track to get another 200-hit season should he maintain his current season pace and get to 700 plate appearances.
This doesn’t sound too crazy if you’ve watched Witt play baseball. And after all, getting to 200 hits is just something good hitters do. Whit Merrifield did it. Altuve did so four seasons in a row. George Brett has multiple 200-hit seasons.
Except…getting to 200 hits is really, really hard, and it’s exemplified by the fact that no Royals player in the last 45 years has had two 200-hit seasons, let alone two consecutive 200-hit seasons. The full list of Royals hitters who have accomplished the feat since 1980 are as follows:
- Willie Wilson, 1980: 230 hits
- Kevin Seitzer, 1987: 207 hits
- Mike Sweeney, 2000: 206 hits
- Johnny Damon, 2000: 214 hits
- Melky Cabrera, 2011: 201 hits
- Whit Merrifield, 2019: 206 hits
Brett was the last Royals player to get two 200-hit seasons, and he did so in 1976 and in 1979. But even then, as you can see, he never did so in back-to-back seasons. Should Witt get to 200 hits again this year, he’ll be the first since Brett to have more than one 200-hit season, and will be the only Royals player in franchise history to have back-to-back 200-hit seasons.
Witt, I should remind you, is 24 years old.
Every single day I marvel at Witt’s talent, and I hope that Royals fans are equally wowed. Kansas City sports fans have watched one of the world’s premier sports talents in Patrick Mahomes for years, and I wonder if some around town might be too used to superstardom to see what Witt is. And when it’s all said and done, Witt might be the best Royals player to ever put on a uniform. That’s what we’re watching right now, and I am so thankful to see it.