Who Was Best At Avoiding Strikeouts?
From SABR member Jon Frankel at Batter Strikeout Blog on June 28:
For awhile I had been wondering who was the better “strikeout avoider” – Willie Keeler or Joe Sewell.
Sewell’s numbers have been fairly well known in stat circles for awhile, 114 strikeouts over 13 seasons, including 9 straight seasons of under 10 k’s – 2 with 3 (1930, 1932) and 3 with 4 (1925, 1929, 1933).
Willie Keeler has always had a reputation as a tough player to strike out and his up until recently partial totals gave an indication of that (6 in 1894 & 9 in 1896). Now that all of Keeler’s missing seasons have been added to B-R, we can now get a more complete picture of Keeler’s ability to avoid the whiff.
First of all, one can go to B-R and look at the AB/K career leaders and see that Keeler & Sewell are neck and neck.
Keeler – 63.17
Sewell – 62.56
Read the full article here: http://batterk.blogspot.com/2011/06/keeler-v-sewell.html
Originally published: June 30, 2011. Last Updated: June 30, 2011.