The Cubs started off the season with some new found plate discipline.
However, with the weather changing so has the home run swing attitude.
The Cubs team strike out totals have increased quickly back to bad form.
The Cubs lead the National League in team Ks with 312. The league average is 242.
The Cubs have 70 more strikeouts (29% above the league average).
In 31 games played, the Cubs average 10.06 K/G. The league average is 7.56 K/G. That means the Cubs are striking out 2.5 times more per game than the league. That means that the Cubs are basically giving away an inning a game by not putting a ball into play.
On a brighter note, the Cubs are still above average in walks. The Cubs have "accepted" in Maddon's terms 107 base on balls, while the NL team average is 94. That means the Cubs have 0.42 more walks per game than the league average.
Putting the two stats together, we find that the Cubs new mean is still about 2.1 more strikeouts (being unproductive outs) than the league average.
Given that a team only gets 27 outs in a game, the Cubs put themselves in a statistical hole by really having only 25 outs per game. In other words, since the Cubs are striking out more than the average NL opponent, their opponent has a 7.4 percentage statistical advantage over the Cubs before the start of the game. In a close contest, two quality at-bats can mean the difference between winning and losing the contest (the dreaded RISP stat comes to mind).
Player PA K K%/PA
Soler 134 46 .366
Bryant 103 34 .330
Russell 71 30 .423
Fowler 134 28 .209
Castro 131 26 .198
Coghlan 103 22 .214
Rizzo 138 17 .123
Three key players have 110 strikeouts (35.2% of the team total). Yes, they are all rookies. Yes, opponents have quickly scouted Soler, Bryant and Russell to feed them a ton of breaking balls and change-ups. But every batter needs to adjust to "his book" otherwise he will not be productive.
The current strike out trend is not a good sign for the Cubs.
