RECORDS THAT WON’T BE BROKEN. Bumped into my friend Santiago yesterday and he’s a baseball fan. Here’s a Major League Baseball record that won’t be broken for him as well as for all my loyal readers and listeners.

That record is the lowest percentage of strikeouts per at bat in a season. That’s held by Wee Willie Keeler playing for the New York Highlanders in 1899 who went down swinging only 2 times in 570 at bats for a percentage of .0035%. That’s mind boggling even if it occurred just over 125 years ago.

When it comes to modern day players there are two that share a portion of this record. The least amount of strikeouts with a minimum of 400 plate appearances belongs to Dave Cash who fanned only 13 times in 1976 as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies. The lowest percentage mark belongs to San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn at 2.6% when he experienced a K only 15 times in 577 PA.

Compare that to the record holder for most strikeouts in a season. That dubious mark belongs to Mark Reynolds with 223 in 2009 with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Sadly with the emphasis on analytics that prevails in The Big Leagues, I believe we will see that mark surpassed. The “put the ball in play” mentality of a hitter has been replaced by the “swing for the fences” mantra. That leads to a massive amount of wiffs.

Accepting well over 100 strikeouts in exchange for 20 home runs is painful to watch. Personally I don’t like what MLB has become with that. I bet Santiago and other baseball purists are upset with it as well.

Book it Dano!