Originally Posted by
smootness
Saying 'what would be wrong with a team of Tony Gwynn's?' is like asking 'what would be wrong with a team of Barry Bonds?' Tony Gwynn was a freak of nature in his ability to hit. You don't teach that. If a guy can hit like Tony Gwynn, I promise no one is going to tell him to swing for the fences more and K more.
And you act like everyone is out there hitting .220 with 40 bombs. There are plenty of really good hitters out there who have a good approach, make consistent contact, and know what they're doing, just as many as there ever were. My main point is that the change is at the very least not only a change in approach. Part of the change in approach was necessitated by an increase in pitching quality. Pitchers are now much harder to hit, on average, than they've ever been. Hitters didn't just decide to start striking out more; it's actually harder to hit a pitched baseball now because pitchers are better and more specialized. So to combat that, they even more need their contact to count.
Guys are still trying to decrease K's and make more contact, but they're more focused on the kind of contact they're making than they've been before, which is a positive change. Craig Counsell didn't strike out as much as hitters today...great. He also made weak contact, so he still didn't have great BAs and did little damage when he hit the ball. He was able to get on base, so he was useful in some ways but was negligible as a hitter. Dansby Swanson is a guy who is somewhat similar in today's game - he K's more, but he makes better contact, so his BA is pretty similar, and even though he doesn't walk as much, the additional damage he does when he makes contact makes him a slightly better hitter than Counsell was.