Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto has put himself in an unusual race this season: not for a batting title or a Gold Glove, but for a strikeout mark no hitter wants attached to his name.
Neto has 19 home runs, and that production has placed him in the same conversation as some of the game’s biggest bats. But the more dubious number is the one climbing alongside it. He’s up to 128 strikeouts, which puts him in the chase to catch Kyle Schwarber, the current front-runner in this unwelcome competition with 135 strikeouts in just 88 games.
Sam Blum of The Athletic recently wrote about the Angels and included Neto in the discussion, noting the strange overlap between power and punchouts. “The irony [of this],” Blum wrote, “as Schwarber suggests, is that this race to this unenviable crown is being waged by very productive hitters.
Three of the four were named to the All-Star game. And Neto, the lone non-All-Star, has a 119 OPS+, 39 extra-base hits and 2.5 bWAR this year.”
Neto’s role in the Angels lineup helps explain why the strikeouts have piled up. He’s spent nearly the entire season in the leadoff spot, and he’s clearly geared toward driving the ball rather than protecting his contact rate. That approach has brought the home runs, but it has also brought plenty of empty trips.
“The balls are starting to move way more than they used to. It’s tough,” Neto said.
“Pitchers know how to throw a strike-to-ball pitch, or ball-to-strike pitch. It’s just tough.
This league’s tough.
“I don’t pay attention to those numbers, because they’re gonna happen,” Neto said. “It’s just a matter of how you bounce back after that. I don’t want to let it be a snowball effect.”
Blum pointed out that Neto is on pace for 233 strikeouts if he were to play 162 games, and he added that “his candidacy for the record will come down to the wire,” with James Wood of the Washington Nationals and Nick Kurtz of the Athletics also in the mix.
The broader explanation, as always, comes down to incentives. Hitters get rewarded for power, pitchers get rewarded for strikeouts, and that leaves plenty of room for skepticism when the conversation turns to how the game is being played.
For Neto, there’s also a personal angle. He’s doing this for an Angels team whose owner has said winning is not the priority, which makes his best path forward pretty clear: keep swinging for damage, live with the strikeouts, and try to turn that approach into the kind of contract that gets him out of Anaheim.
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