Because my hometown softball team is really good and it’s Sunday so let’s have some fun.
The St. Louis Cardinals have a rubber game against the Philidelphia Phillies in a few hours as they try to avoid losing their fourth straight series this season. I will try to be brief this fine Sunday morning.
The other day I was reading a post on one of the various social media apps from someone from where I grew up. It was a post congratulating a pitcher from the high school’s softball team on her 1,000th strikeout. In recent years there have been several really good softball pitchers go through that school, which is quite the accomplishment considering the school might have at most 200 kids in it. But even beyond that, it got me thinking: how does a performance like that compare to a major league level?
Before I go any further with this thought exercise, I want to make it abundantly clear that is just what it is: a thought exercise. Obviously, I know there is a bit of skill gap between Major League Baseball and high school softball. This is just for fun and an excuse for me to display a little hometown pride. I found the softball pitcher’s stats online. They are really good. She has a career 1.16 ERA with win-loss record of 54-18 in 105 appearances. She is up to 1,002 strikeouts in just over 502 innings pitched. That is a whopping 18 strikeouts per nine innings. It is nearly the equivalent to this:
Or this:
But every game.
Among qualified starters, the closest one to reaching those numbers is Shane Bieber in 2020. That year Bieber had the highest season strikeouts per nine I can find of any starting pitcher on Fangraphs at 14.20. His ERA that season was 1.63 and his FIP was 2.07. He would go on to win the Pitching Triple Crown in a pandemic-shortened 2020 as the AL leader in each of three categories with 8 wins, a 1.63 ERA, and 122 strikeouts. Actually, Bieber is off to another hot start this season after two years where his strikeouts numbers dropped to career lows (when he was very reportedly dealing with injury — had underwent Tommy John surgery in 2024). In innings pitched so far, he has racked up 20 strikeouts for 15 K/9 and has yet to give up a home run.
Among all pitchers, Aroldis Chapman is the closest to reaching the strikeout heights of the pitcher from my hometown. In 2014 his K-9 rate was up to 17.67 and his ERA was 2.00 in 54 innings pitched. This was the height of Chapman’s career where he was absolutely dominating at the end of games.
As far as Cardinals pitchers go, the top contender surprised me a little, but it really shouldn’t have. I was expecting to see Ryan Helsley at the top of the list, but he comes in second with a 13.08 K/9 in 2022. In first place for the Cardinals is actually 2017 Trevor Rosenthal at 14.35 K/9. Even though he was striking out a lot of hitters that season, his best season looks to me to have been 2013 — a season he wasn’t the primary capital “C” Closer — when he pitched over 75 innings with a 2.63 ERA and 1.91 FIP.
I think that about wraps up that little dig into pitchers that struck out a lot of batters. The conclusion? Sports, at any level require incredible talent and hard work and it is truly a gift to behold. Imagine being a high school softball player and having to face the high school softball equivalent of Aroldis Chapman for 3 plate appearances in a game. Even if there is a bit of a difference between the quality of competition for my hometown softball team and major league teams, it is still a pretty incredible thing to get to see someone truly a master at their craft perform it.
Happy Sunday!
