"Uncle Teddy's" Dubious Claim

Media personalities say dumb things all the time. Joe Morgan-perhaps the king of dumb baseball statements-is notorious for arguing that: “A good manager with a good team over 162 games…can make the difference in 10-15 games. A bad manager can make the difference in 20-30 games” (firejoemorgan.com). The implication of Joe’s argument is that the difference between a good manager and a bad manager can be as large as 45 games. I don’t think I need to explain why there is no possible way that managers can contribute to a 45 game swing in a team’s record.

San Diego is not immune to similarly idiotic statements from its local sports media. While I am thoroughly impressed by the work of Matt Vasgersian, Scott Kaplan, and Billy Ray Smith among others, Ted Leitner fascinates me for reasons other than the quality of his work. I am amazed that the guy both still has a job, and is as popular as he continues to be.

A few weeks ago in the car, I was listening to a little sports talk radio on 1090 AM, when “Uncle” Teddy Leitner made a guest appearance on the show. Following the customary exchange of pleasantries with the hosts of the show, Leitner proceeded to discuss Padres Baseball, eventually touching on the club’s trouble putting the ball in play. Anyway, Leitner had this little nugget to share with the audience: He argued that strikeouts have increased throughout major league baseball due to an overall rising level of salaries.

Leitner’s most egregious mistake was confusing correlation with causation. It may very well be the case that in recent years, as salaries have risen exponentially, so too have strikeouts. What I cannot conclude is that rising salaries have caused an increase in strikeouts.

Ballplayers get paid (at least in free agency) just like anybody else-based on the amount of dollars they are capable of generating for their team. (Note: Part of this may be the appreciation of the team's overall value). This is the case because if a team were to offer a player a contract substantially below the amount of revenue that player could generate, then a different team would likely swoop in and offer a contract that pays the player more, but still allows the team to profit. Next, another team would intervene and offer a slightly larger contract. Theoretically, this process continues until there is no gap between the amount of money a player is paid, and the amount of revenue he is generating for his team.

Therefore, it is likely that players are being paid exactly what they are worth to the team that signed them. Over the past decade, acceptance of statistical analysis has led many teams to conclude that for hitters, the two skill sets that most contribute to runs scored are getting on base, and hitting for power. Thus, teams are willing to pay hitters who can do both of these things well a lot of money. Few teams like large strikeout totals, but so long as players are getting on base and hitting for power, it is of negligible concern.

A better explanation for the increasing number of strikeouts is that teams understand strikeouts are not the end of the world, and are developing players who get on base and hit for power-even if that means striking out more than in the past. Teams have shifted from valuing players who hit dinky singles and rarely strikeout to players who walk frequently, but swing hard at pitches in the strike zone. I acknowledge I have completely ignored the pitching side of the equation (every strikeout includes both a pitcher and a batter), but even so, I am comfortable concluding that higher salaries do not cause more strikeouts.