So let's talk shop about this year's strikeout race.

Eugenio Suarez, my second-favorite non-Astro is almost to 100 strikeouts and it's June 22. The mighty Mariners, clear threats to Houston's reign as AL West champions at 30-39, have wisely played him in 68 of 69 games and he's responded with 93 strikeouts, putting him on pace for 218 for the year.
He was on a similar pace last year when the Reds selfishly shut him down in early September. Apparently, finishing third and missing the playoffs didn't require Genio in a Bottle's contributions.
218 strikeouts would be the fourth-most ever. That's big time. That's watch worthy. Starting now. He's doing it while hitting .227, which might seem ****ty until you realize that he hit .198 last year and .202 the year before. His average is up 14% from a year ago. That's like Tony Gwynn hitting .335 one year and then hitting .384 the next year. In other words, Suarez is locked in.

Right behind him, and leading the NL is Patrick Wisdom, with 88 strikeouts despite only playing 64 of the Cubs' 68 games. That puts him on pace for 209 whiffs, and there shouldn't be any slowing him down because the Cubs are laughably bad - 25 and 43 so far, pushing Cincinnati and Washington for crappiest team in the NL.

Right behind him is my fantasy baseball star Kyle Schwarber, who is trying to out-Joey Joey, hitting .213 with 18 HR and 85 strikeouts. if the Philies trade for Joey, as rumored, it will be the second coming of Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski in Philly, except, one guy is in the Hall of Fame, and the other three are schlubs who loved to swing at everything.

It infuriates me to see Joey only tied for 12th in strikeouts with 75 through 57 games. That's a pace for 213, exactly what he gave us last year, but the high and mighty Yankees with their fancy 50-18 record, are suddenly too good for King Donkey. it's pretty much a hate crime, what Aaron Boone is doing to King Donkey. Everybody above Joey has needed at least 209 at-bats to reach where they are at. He's done it in 170. I'll actively admit to the fact that I'm rooting for Judge, Undead Matt Carpenter, Aaron Hicks, or Giancarlo Esposito to get hurt. Joey is the future of this franchise. He's the straw that stirs the drink.

In other news, Miguel Cabrera is 12 whiffs away from 2,000 for his career. Only 6 other guys have done that. he needs 15 to catch Andres Galarraga.

Nelson Cruz is almost moving up the charts. He's up to 23rd all-time at 1,809 and should pass Man Ram and Dave Kingman in a matter of days. Kingman was the Joey Gallo of the 70s. Only had one year over 100 RBi but 9 years striking out 100+ times.

This discrimination by Boone is also slowing Joey's inevitable conquest of the all-time strikeout record. He's tied for 383rd right now with Vince Coleman and JJ Hardy and Michael Tucker. It's a cool thing to compare Joey's career to Vincent Van Go's. They were both innovators, finding new ways to dazzle crowds. They've also combined to steal 779 bases in their careers - with The Rooster chipping in 27 of those.

He's also breached the top 40 in active strikeouts. Old Man Jason Castro is next in 39th. If Boone gets his head out of his ass and Joey can get another 100 whiffs this year or so, he can get up into the top 30. Something to look forward to.

I am starting to hate Aaron Boone more than Red Sox fans

SEE, BOONE??

DO YOU SEE?

Let Joey bat, achieve True Outcomes, strike out twice a night, and win base ball games!

You have the easiest high pressure job in America, and you keep effing it up anyway.

Let. Joey. Play.

Just like a manager can now just hold up four fingers and give a guy an intentional walk, I think they should also be allowed to hold up three fingers and give an intentional strikeout. It would get these games moving faster.

helloimustbegoing said:

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Eugenio Suarez became the first man to reach 100 strikeouts for the year on Sunday, whiffing twice. The Mariners have played 73 games in 2022, putting him on pace for 222 strikeouts, one off Mark Reynolds' all-time record. Suarez has never been a 200-strikeout guy before

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Whenever I see a jump like that from a guy who has never put up big strike out numbers before, I immediately suspect performance deteriorating drugs. Or perhaps, he's just masterbating too much and he's starting to lose his eyesight.

Just did an update - Gallo, Judge, and Stanton are currently on pace for 501 strikeouts this year. Gallo has 82, Judge 72, Stanton 69. Boone screwing this up yet again, keeping Joey out of 13 games this year.

Only three trios in ML history have broken 500 strikeouts together. The all time-record is 535.

I also just uncovered an incredible Joey Gallo treasure trove - his minor league stats.

In 2012 at age 18 he hit an incredible .272 in rookie ball with 22 home runs in 59 games and only struck out 78 times.

In 2013 at the higher level of rookie ball, he played in 111 games, hit 40 home runs, hit .251, and struck out 172 times. That's a pace of 251 in a 162-game season.

In 2014, playing at A and AA, he hit 42 home runs in 126 games and struck out 179 times. That's a 230-whiff pace.

In 2015, at AA and AAA, he still hit a blistering .240, with 23 HR in 87 games, and an other-worldly 139 strikeouts. That's a 258-whiff pace. As usual, the Rangers' management ruined things by calling him up to them majors for 36 games.

In 2016, his last year in the minors, tragically, he played 102 games at triple A and struck out 150 times in 102 games, a pace for 238 strikeouts.

CMON BOONE! Get this guy's stick in the lineup consistently and the Yankees will have another record in their pantheon of legends.

His name is Joey, son of Tony.
DESTINY IS ALL.

And how about Joey vs. other teams? Not surprisingly, he's racking up numbers left and right.

I'm breaking this down into strata to really paint a picture.

Joey has a sub-.200 batting average vs. 15 of the 30 teams in MLB. HIs best effort is a scintillating .068 career average (3 for 44) vs. the Diamondbacks.

He has struck out more than 100 times in his career vs. the Astros (126 K in 302 AB), the Mariners (105 K in 231 AB), and the Angels (104 K in 269 AB). That's 335 strikeouts in 802 at-bats.

His 2 career sacrifice flys are against the Astros and the Mets. He has 1 career sacrifice bunt, that vs. Tampa.

He needs to get traded to the Diamondbacks post-haste, as he is 0f-or-22 all-time at Chase Field. Other scintillating numbers include hitting .083 at Marlins Park, and quite hilariously, .105 at Coors Field.

In 130 career at-bats at Minute Maid Park, he has struck out 70 times. (54%)

He needs to play for a team that plays a lot of day games. He struggles to a .198 average at night while he's a white-hot .215 in the daytime.

He has struck out 343 times to end an inning.

helloimustbegoing said:

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His 2 career sacrifice flys are against the Astros and the Mets.

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Even though I know that, objectively, this is true, there are some stats that seem so preposterous that one's immediate reaction is "haha, you made that up".

It should be acknowledged that sac flies are obviously not a True Outcome that is within the batter's control. That is why a modern base ball Svengali like Joseph Gallo does not care about them. Joey cannot conjure a batter on third with less than two outs whenever he likes.

Nonetheless, I seemed to recall that a solid Yankees outfielder of yore, for example, Paul O'Neill, used to hit quite a few sac flies. Obviously we are not talking about a Hall of Famer here, just a solid contributor on a good team like Our Joseph.

So I went to the data to cross check my memory against reality, and indeed, Paul O'Neill hit 90 sac flies in his career in about three times as many at bats as Joey. That indicates that Joey is FIFTEEN TIMES less likely to hit a sac fly versus Paul O'Neil, which again sounds so ludicrous that it beggars belief.

Lastly, although there is obviously no TexAgs MLB sac fly thread and never will be, I took it another step farther and decided to look into the shortest period of time that it took Paul O'Neill to hit two sac flies.

The answer was: One game, twice (7-13-95 off Kyle Tapani & Eddie Guardado of the Minnesota Twins, and 5-10-98 off of Eric Milton and Eddie Guardado of, natch, the Minnesota Twins). Twice in his career, Paul O'Neill matched the career sacrifice fly numbers of Joey Gallo in one game.

Examining Joey's greatness is like the blind men trying to describe an elephant. Every time you think you have a handle on it, another piece of amazing information comes in and shocks you all over again.

He has 9 HR and 18 RBI for the season. Hes obviously driven himself in 9 times so he has created 9 total other runs. But in his 9 HRs, he has a guy on base 4 times, so he drove in 9+4=13 runs on his homers. That leaves 5 other RBIs. 5 in 205 PAs. He's has 97 PAs with a runner on and driven 5 of them in.

Woof.

In form tonight watching strike three go by…