One of the big stories of the 2023 Texas Tech baseball season thus far is the home run hitting of sophomore first baseman Gavin Kash, a transfer from the University of Texas. As shown in the following figure, Kash has hit 20 homers through his first 45 games (those in which he has gone yard are indicated in red, with a “2” to denote two homers in a game instead of just one).
With at least 10 regular season games remaining (pending the rescheduling of the suspended April 25 game at Abilene Christian), at least two in the Big 12 tournament, and potentially more in the NCAA tourney, Kash seems likely to take over the No. 2 spot on Texas Tech’s list of best single-season home run totals (currently held by John Grimes with 24 in 1984). Joe Dillon’s record of 33 (accomplished in 1997) will obviously be more difficult for Kash to reach. Regardless of records, Kash nevertheless has established himself as one of Tech’s best sluggers in modern history.
When someone – such as Kash – starts putting up gaudy home run numbers, some observers will start to wonder if that player’s big swings carry the risk of an inordinate number of strikeouts. The first player who comes to my mind in this regard is former major leaguer Adam Dunn, whose 462 homers over a 14-year career were accompanied by 2,379 strikeouts!
I think the idea of examining hitters’ balance of home runs and strikeouts would seem reasonable to baseball coaches, players, and fans. But how exactly should we do this? Fortunately, Sonoma State University professor Douglas Jordan, writing in the Society for American Baseball Research’s (SABR) Baseball Research Journal, has developed a simple statistic for home-run/strikeout balance.
Jordan’s metric, which he calls HRKAB (“her cab”), only requires three inputs: a player’s at-bats, homers, and strikeouts. These inputs can be for either a season or a career, whatever one’s interest. Two intermediate quantities are obtained, AB/HR (at-bats per homer) and AB/K (at-bats per strikeout), and then one takes AB/HR minus AB/K. In the following chart, I report these numbers and calculations for all Red Raider batters who hit at least 10 homers in a season from 2016 to the present (excluding the COVID-19 season of 2020).
One wants AB/HR to be small, signifying that relatively few at-bats occur between a player’s home runs. As highlighted in red boxes in the chart, the three best Tech hitters from 2016-present on AB/HR have been Kash this season, Jace Jung in 2021, and Zach Rheams in 2018. Each delivered a blast roughly once every nine or ten at-bats. In contrast, several other very good Raider hitters homered only around once every 20 AB.
Conversely, one wants AB/K to be large, so that numerous at-bats take place between strikeouts (i.e., strikeouts are rare). As highlighted in black boxes, the best Red Raider seasons on this marker belong to Cam Warren in 2018 and 2019, and Josh Jung in 2018, each of whom struck out only around once per seven or eight at-bats. Kash does not fare as well on this element, fanning more frequently, once every 4.5 AB.
Finally, to arrive at the final HRKAB value, we take AB/HR minus AB/K. We also want this difference to be small. The top three on this metric are Kash this season, Jace Jung in 2021, and Warren in 2019, all with HRKAB values of approximately five (far-right column). Other players on the list have a HRKAB of roughly 18 or 23, for example. What these results tell us is that the number of at-bats Kash has needed before hitting a home run (on average) exceeds the number of at-bats per strikeout by only five (4.90 to be exact). On the other hand, in 2016, Stephen “The Bull” Smith needed nearly 23 at-bats more (on average) to hit each of his homers than to record each of his strikeouts.
The aforementioned Joe Dillon’s HRKAB was 0.00 in 1997, as he hit 33 homers and struck out 33 times. Remarkably, Dillon’s number of at-bats per homer and at-bats per strikeout were exactly the same (229/33 or 6.94). To cite some MLB findings from Professor Jordan’s article, Ted Williams (three times) and Barry Bonds (once) recorded negative HRKAB values in a season, meaning that they went fewer at-bats between homers than between strikeouts! Adam Dunn’s career HRKAB score was 12.01.
Note that Kash’s current season is incomplete and thus his status atop the 2016-2023 Texas Tech season-long HRKAB list is uncertain. Regardless of Kash’s exact ranking on the list at season’s end, however, it’s pretty clear that his home run/strikeout ratio is not like Adam Dunn’s!
In conclusion, HRKAB illustrates home-run efficiency relative to strikeouts. It involves only basic calculations on three input numbers and, most importantly, helps put players’ home-run totals in perspective. Based upon this statistic, Gavin Kash has definitely been an asset Texas Tech can bank on.
Alan Reifman is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at Texas Tech University
