Last year, Ryan Howard won the MVP with a monster offensive season, hitting 58 home runs and authoring a batting line of .313/.425/.659 (that's batting average/on base percentage/slugging percentage) Personally, I think Pujols was better, but Howard was really awesome. This year, Howard has 194 strikeouts, one away from tying the all time record in a single season. It seems almost certain that Howard will be the first person ever to strike out 200 times in a season.
Quite a falloff for Howard, huh? Um, not really. Last year he struck out 182 times, and this year his line before tonight's game was .265/.388/.569, which while not as good as last year is still one of the 10 best in the National League. Howard is a wonderful example of why you shouldn't look at strikeout totals to judge players; while strikeouts are worse than other types of outs, they are not that much worse, and they are much better than double plays. It is more than possible to be incredibly productive and strike out a lot; in fact, strikeouts correlate positively with most good measures of hitting productivity (although I am almost positive they correlate negatively with batting average.) Striking out a lot is often a sign of patience and willingness to work the count, while a low strikeout total is often (not always) an indication of an impatient hitter with a reasonably high batting average but few walks or home runs. There are, of course, some truly special hitters who manage to combine great power and a high walk rate with a low strikeout total, but there are never going to be many guys who are that special (Ruth and Gehrig, by the way, had very high strikeout totals relative to their time; if Ruth were playing today, he would likely set the career strikeout record.)
Oh yeah, and that A-Rod kid can play a little...
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