Last season, the Milwaukee Brewers were fourth in the majors with the most strikeouts by their batters with 1,464. The Angels, Braves and Pirates were 1-2-3 in that category last season in the majors. For the Brew Crew, that meant that they struck out once every 3.7 at-bats, tied for third among MLB teams in ’22.
These stats got me thinking about what players in Brewers history have had the best eye at the plate. There are certainly a lot of ways to approach this question and a lot of numbers to crunch to get an answer. For the sake of this article, I’m looking at one stat: at-bats per strikeout. The premise is simple… the more at-bats per strikeout, the less the frequency of striking out.
This player has the best AB/K ratio in Brewers history
To qualify for this list, players had to have played at least 400 games with the Brewers. A total of 67 batters qualified. The highest at-bats per strikeout as a Brewer was Fernando Vina. In his career with the Brewers (he played in 528 games with the team), he had 1,957 at-bats with 138 strikeouts, an AB/K ratio of 14.2. Second on the list was Ted Simmons, who played 665 games with the Brewers and had a 13.0 AB/K ratio.
Here are the Brewers batters with the highest AB/K stat in Brewers history. There are 17 players who had an AB/K ratio of 8.0 or higher with the team.
Brewers players with 8.0 or better AB/K ratio
Fernando Vina, 14.2
Ted Simmons, 13.0
Jim Gantner, 12.4
B.J. Surhoff, 12.0
Ed Romero, 11.4
Darryl Hamilton, 10.2
Mike Felder, 10.2
Rick Manning, 9.7
Kevin Seitzer, 9.0
Sal Bando, 8.7
Charlie Moore, 8.6
Mark Loretta, 8.5
Paul Molitor, 8.5
Cecil Cooper, 8.3
Brady Clark, 8.3
Robin Yount, 8.2
Don Money, 8.0
Of the 67 players on the list, the worst AB/K ratio for the Brewers was Rob Deer. He had 2,338 at-bats with 823 strikeouts, an AB/K of 2.9.
The all-time MLBAB/K ratio is held by Joe Sewell who played from 1920-33. His AB/K was 62.6.
Best and worst AB/K ratio by Brewers in 2022
The best AB/K for the Brewers last season was Kolten Wong’s 4.9. second was Omar Narvaez at 4.6. The worst? Keston Hiura with a 2.1 AB/K.
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