Whiff kings: Dodgers arms setting strikeout records

With just a handful of games remaining in the season, the Dodgers are on track to set a pair of all-time strikeout records. Somehow, that’s both extremely impressive and far less impressive than you’d think. Given how much baseball has changed over the decades, it’s always complicated to make comparisons between today’s teams and those that played a generation or two before the American flag even had 50 stars.

Still, let’s run down the top-line facts before we get into some explanations. This year’s Dodgers have indeed done better than any pitching staff ever at two important strikeout numbers:

1. The 2016 Dodgers have struck out 25.2 percent of the hitters they’ve faced, the best mark of the 2,196 team seasons dating back to 1916, when reliable records were first kept. (Strikeout percentage is a far more reliable metric than strikeouts per nine inning, though the Dodgers have that record, too.)

2. The 2016 Dodgers have struck out 1,459 hitters, also the most of any team in the past century, breaking the record of 1,450 by the Indians in 2014. 

Those are big numbers, and they’re even more impressive when you realize that Clayton Kershaw missed more than two months, and that due to a record-setting number of trips to the disabled list, they’ve used 31 pitchers and 15 starters — both also team records. Of the 46 other teams in the divisional play era (since 1969) to use at least 15 starters, 45 failed to make the playoffs, with the only exception being last year’s Dodgers. By all rights, this staff should have collapsed in a sea of Nick Tepesches and Brock Stewarts. Instead, they set a strikeout record and won the National League West for the fourth straight year.

Now, for the obvious caveat here: Everyone is striking out more. You already knew this, of course, but it’s an important point. Major League Baseball set a record by striking out 17.5 percent of the time in 2008, and it’s gone up (or stayed steady) every year since, to this year’s high of 21.1 percent. At some point it seems like there has to be a tipping point, but we haven’t reached it yet.

So …

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