The following is a list of players who paced the league in swinging on 3-0 counts during the years 2010-2012:
1 Albert Pujols 38
2 Andre Ethier 29
3 Billy Butler 28
4 Justin Upton 27
5 Jose Bautista 26
5 Nick Swisher 26
7 Ryan Howard 24
8 David Ortiz 22
8 Miguel Montero 22
10 Joey Votto 21
10 Matt Kemp 21
12 Dan Uggla 20
Who are these confident lunatics*? More importantly, who do they think they are? And what does it say about them that they're so willing to turn convention on its head? Let us remember the names of these rabble-rousers, so that they may never attain high political office.
* Pretty good name for a band.
I tend to think ballplayers don't swing often enough on 3-0, actually. But that's just an opinion, I don't have any evidence to support it. I have a lot of baseless opinions:
- Middle infielders don't play deep enough.
- Outfielders play too deep.
- Women folk ain't to be trusted.
- There's no way the best pitch framers are saving their teams as many runs as the studies say.
- "Organic" is a euphemism for "riddled with parasites."