Guys can be productive at the Major League level with 30 walks and 110 strikeouts in 500 at-bats! What gives?
Remember that our emphasis is to judge whether a minor league player will go on to have a productive Major League career. A player with strikeout and walk totals like that in the minor leagues will get torn up, eaten apart and spat back out in the bigs. Heck, even players who have solid strikeout and walk totals in the minors will come to the big leagues and struggle to duplicate the same ratios. For examples, see Reggie Sanders (118 strikeouts and 33 walks in 446 at-bats) and Jason LaRue (108-26 in 390). Sanders does provide offensive contributions with homers and stolen bases despite his strikeout-to-walk ratio. LaRue doesnt do as much as Sanders offensively but plays a more premium position defensively. In the minors, LaRue had a strikeout-to-walk ration of nearly 2-to-1 and Sanders ratio was 1.74-to-1. Against major league pitchers in 2004, they combined for close to four strikeouts per base on balls. The Majors is a whole different game and if a player doesnt have a good approach
