The Royals are off to another hot start while the Cubs have been better than expected for some pessimists.
I wondered if there was any early season spring training carryover on plate discipline. The Cubs were horrible striking out last year. The tone was to take more pitches and walks.
As of April 20th, the Cubs ranked 12th in the majors in team strikeouts with 97. The Astros were the worst with 114. The least strikeouts belonged to the Royals with 62. The Cubs are about 15% below the Astros current league leading K pace, whereas last year they were pretty much on par. A team cutting down 15% of their strikeouts means a team will have at least 4 ABs where the ball will either be in play or a walk. With a league team batting average of .250, that means at least one more hit per game. As we have seen in the close ball games this season, one more timely hit can mean victory.
The Red Sox lead the majors in getting walks with 55. The Cubs rank 9th with 43. The Rockies, who played a lot of home games in a HR park, had the least walks with 21.
So there appears to be some statistical evidence that the young Cub hitters are taking more pitches, taking more walks and striking out less than the league averages.
