Strikeouts. Simple, seems silly to care so much, but I did a quick (tho tedious) comparison of 2011 Nats, 1969 Nats (the last winning team), 1960 Nats (the last good Old Senators), 1933 Nats (last pennant winners) and 1924 Nats (whoever doesn't know shouldn't be here)
Summary conclusions:
- .700 OPS is the winners mark, and .750 wins a pennant. 2011 Nats were about .690. The '33 and '24 teams were around .750 (and I'm not looking at the notes I took). Mini-conclusion: OPS is a powerful stat, consistent across 100 seasons. (Wow)
- Walks have remained roughly constant from 1960
- Strikeouts in 2011 are horrendous. Before 1970, teams typically had more walks than strikeout. The 2011 Nats had about 1300 strikeouts. The '69 team had 900...already in the "we value the HR" era, but what a difference! Cubs in '69 had 925 strikeouts, so that seems about typical for a respectable team. The pennant-winners of '33 and 24 had about 400 strikeouts. There we see a change in the game.
- By the way, the '69 and '60 teams had just slightly fewer HRs than 2011, although bunched more around three or four players. In 1969, Hondo hit 48, Epstein hit 30, and McMullen hit 19. The 1960 team had Killebrew (hurt part of the season, Jim Lemon (38) and Allison (guess: about 24).
- My first thought: a team with a bunch of guys who hit 10 HRs doesn't feel as powerful as a team with Howard and Epstein, or Killebrew, Allison, and Lemon. Even though the 2011 team actually hit more Hrs than 1969 or 1960. (1959, the all-time power-or-nothing team had 163 HR as Sievers got hurt but Killebrew returned from the minors and Allsion was ROY)
