Though offense has generally exploded in recent seasons, there’s one major area in which pitches have gained a further upper hand: hitters have been striking out far more. The analytics behind it make sense — a strikeout is worth the same as any other out and a more aggressive approach at the plate can produce more extra-base hits.
Three pitchers have separated themselves from the pack this season, with the Boston Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet leading the pack with 160 and the Philadelphia Phillies’ Zack Wheeler (154) and the Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal (153) not far behind. Unsurprisingly, these three pitchers have the highest chance of finishing as the league leader in strikeouts, with Crochet at -150, Skubal at +190, and Wheeler at +330 at DraftKings Sportsbook. No other player has better than +6000 odds, since no other player has more than 139 punchouts so far.
Best Bet: Zack Wheeler Most Regular Season Strikeouts (+330)
Though Crochet has a six-strikeout lead, his -150 odds are a little bit too short for my liking in a game with as fine margins as baseball, especially since his strikeout percentage (31.2%) is lower than either Skubal’s (33.4%) or Wheeler’s (33.0%). Thus far, Crochet’s impressive strikeout total is predominantly attributable to his volume: he leads the league in innings, having thrown 7.1 more innings than Wheeler and 8.1 more than Skubal, albeit in one more start. Both pitchers should cut into the gap substantially when they make their 20th start of the season.
I’m concerned about Crochet being able to maintain his volume. Though he’s always been elite in the innings that he’s pitched — last season, he recorded a 2.69 FIP, which would’ve been the second-best mark in the American League if he’d pitched enough innings to qualify — he’s never thrown more than 146 innings in a season and missed the entire 2022 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. After averaging 86 pitches per start prior to the All-Star break last season, he threw just 56 pitches per start thereafter as the Chicago White Sox decided to be cautious with him. The red-hot Red Sox, in the midst of a playoff fight, can’t afford to be so patient, but it’s hard to predict what Crochet will look like towards the end of a 200-inning season because he’s never thrown 200 innings.
For the Tigers, having Skubal healthy deep into October is the priority, and Detroit, staked to an 11.5-game lead in the AL Central, will play a lot of meaningless games late in the regular season. That doesn’t necessarily mean that A.J. Hinch is going to shut Skubal down entirely, but giving him more starts on five and six days’ rest seems reasonable, especially if he wants to experiment with new combinations in a bullpen that has the 10th-worst ERA this season. He already lags slightly behind Wheeler and Crochet in innings thrown and pitches per start, and a relative lack of volume shouldn’t hurt his chances to win his second straight AL Cy Young Award.
That leaves Wheeler, whose 11-season career has been defined by a combination of dominance and availability. He’s thrown more than 180 innings six times, leading the league in innings pitched once and the National League in strikeouts twice, in 2021 and so far this season. Compared to Skubal and Crochet, he also lasts the deepest into games, as Rob Thomson has let him throw 100 or more pitches in 11 of his 19 starts, including seven of his last nine. Of the three contenders, he’s gotten the least lucky overall this season, allowing a wOBA just nine points worse than the expected mark. The Phillies are also unlikely to pare back his volume moving forward: Philadelphia is in the middle of a tight battle for the NL East with the New York Mets that could extend to the season’s final day.
