The value/lcurse of the strikeout

You never want to strikeout. Put the ball in play and you have a chance.

TW334,
There could be three perspectives here: The pitchers, the hitters and the power hitters. When my son was pitching I always felt as if the strikeout was nothing more than a gift from the baseball Gods. When my son was hitting I always felt it was the baggage that comes with being a power hitter. I don’t think either the pitcher or the power hitter should allow the K to be a major factor in their approach. It is the timing of the K that makes it appear to be so huge. I agree with JBB in the goal of most hitters is to put the ball in play. A pitcher’s goal is to prevent him doing it with authority.
Fungo

Pitchers with high K rates usually have high pitch counts---you can take it from there

Justbaseball:

I agree that a hitter never "wants to strikeout." Is there a situation, however, where you might want a hitter to bunt rather than simply try to "put the ball in play" [depending on the hitter, of course]?

I could see a situation where runners were on first and second with no outs or one out. To avoid the double play, why not bunt rather than take a chance on either hitting a ground ball or striking out.

There are probably more hitter/pitcher specific situations where bunting might be preferable to hitting.

Fungo: I am not sure I would make a distinction between the power hitter and the hitter. It seems to me that when both get two strikes, they need to change their mental approach. For the non-power hitter, his initial approach is to hit a pitch located in a zone he can safely hit the ball "where they ain't" to borrow a cliche. For a power hitter I would think the approach is to hit a pitch located in a zone where he can unload with a good chance of slugging a home run or extra base hit. But once they both have two strikes, to minimize the risk of a strikeout, they both need to make adjustments that would allow them to put any ball in the strike zone in play.

TRhit: I agree that pitchers with high K rates usually have high pitch counts,with all the implications that brings to their longevity, their innings per game and their complete game finishes. Sometimes the pticher that can induce the double play two or three times a game when the right situation exists [slow batter/runner] can help himslef out with all the above.

Thanks to everybody for responding.

TW344