Joe Panik Keeps Putting It in Play as Strikeouts Continue to Rise

Strikeouts Continue to rise all around baseball, but Joe Panik continues to buck that trend by simply putting the bat on the ball.

For the 12th consecutive season, strikeouts around baseball rose. League-wide, players struck out 40,105 times and in 21.63 percent of their plate appearances, breaking records in both categories that were set in 2016. San Francisco Giants’ second baseman Joe Panik didn’t do a whole lot to contribute to those records.

Making contact seems like such a simple concept. The pitcher throws the ball, then the batter hits it. That’s the way baseball has been for well over a century, and there really is no way to change that in the future. Pitchers pitch, hitters hit. That’s the way it is.

But making contact isn’t as simple as “see ball, hit ball”, no matter what any hitting coach says. Pitchers throw harder fastballs and sharper sliders and more leg-buckling curveballs then ever before. Even as hitters are slugging more home runs than at any point in the long-standing history of this game, they are also swinging and missing at a rate that hasn’t been seen.

When those pitchers get to two strikes, they had over a 40 perfect chance of putting away those hitters. They could make them chase that filthy slider below the zone, or freeze them with a fastball over the outside corner. Pitchers had the advantage, but not against Panik.

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Panik has turned contact into something of an art form. The way he fouls off pitch after pitch with two strikes, fighting through the best his opposition has to offer, is becoming more and more rare with every passing year. When Panik reached two strikes in a plate appearance, he struck out 21.3 percent of the time, almost 20 percent below the league average.

Making contact is no longer the norm in baseball, but Panik still does it.

For the second year in a row, Panik had the lowest strikeout rate in the major leagues, going to three strikes in just 9.42 percent of his plate appearances. This year, he struck out only 54 times in 573 trips to the plate. He was the only qualified player in the major leagues this season to strike out in less than 10 percent of his plate appearances.

Last season, he struck out 47 times in 526 plate appearances (8.9 percent) to pace the field, becoming the first Giant since Bengie Molina (38 strikeouts in 569 plate appearances, 6.7 percent) to have the lowest strikeout rate in baseball.

In leading the league two years running, Panik becomes the first major leaguer to lead baseball in strikeout rate in two straight seasons since Juan Pierre, who did so in 2003 (35 K/747 PA, 4.69%) and 2004 (35K/748 PA, 4.68%). Pierre also led the MLB in plate appearances both seasons.

Omar Vizquel was the last Giant to have strikeout rates under 10 percent in consecutive seasons, doing so in three straight years from 2005 to 2007. Vizquel had an 8.91 percent rate in 2005, a 7.74 percent rate in 2006, and an 8.35 percent rate in 2007. Panik also was under 10 percent in 2015, but didn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify. That year, he struck out 42 times in 432 chances.

Only seven pitchers can lay claim to striking Panik out multiple times this season. Kenley Jansen (3 PA), Jone Lester (4 PA), Andrew Chafin (5 PA), Bronson Arroyo (6 PA), Alex Wood (7 PA), and Brad Hand (7 PA) all struck out Panik twice. Jacob deGrom was able to one-up all of them. He punched Panik out three times in seven tries.

Panik struck out twice in eight games this season, and didn’t have a hat trick (he only has one of those in 438 career games, coming May 7th of 2016). His last two-strikeout game of the year came on September 1st against the St. Louis Cardinals, when Jack Flaherty got him in the first and Sam Tuivailala got him in the ninth.

The Giants’ second baseman saved his best work for the second half of the season. He struck out in 39 out of 340 first-half plate appearances , good for an overall solid 11.47 rate, but cut that down drastically after the All-Star break. From July 14th on, he struck out 15 times in 233 chances, an outstanding 6.44 percent rate. After August start, that rate dropped even more to 4.02 percent (7 K/174 PA).

While Panik’s strikeout rate was low again, many of his other numbers dramatically improved from the year before. After going through the worst season of his young career in 2016, hitting just .239/.315/.379 over the course of the year, those numbers were much closer to the Panik of 2014 and 2015. He hit .287/.346/.419 in 2017 while setting a career-high with 28 doubles and tying his best with 10 home runs.

His batted ball statistics also were much improved. He hit line drives 21.7 percent of the time he put the ball in play, up from 17.5 percent in 2016. He also hit the ball hard 26.3 percent of the time, a small upgrade from his 25.6 percent mark in 2016.

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Baseball continues this upward trend of strikeouts, going down on strikes a record number of times year after years. Panik isn’t part of that trend, and he’s turned into an excellent big league hitter doing his own thing. He just keeps putting it in play.

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