The strikeouts argument is so disingenuous it kinda pisses me off.
Aaron Judge finished 7th in the majors for strikeouts when he had his monster 2022 season. According to Ross Atkins, this is less valuable to him despite Judge hitting 62 homers and having the best all around offensive season we'd seen since Barry Bonds head turned into a thumb. Adolis Garcia finished 8th in 2023 before going on to have a postseason for the ages while you guessed it, striking out a bit under a third of the time. (18 Ks/62 ABs)
Then there's the guys like Kyle Schwarber who while they strike out a ton, still manage to get incredible value despite it.
The Jays finished 2024 with the fifth fewest strikeouts as a team. Four of the six teams who won division titles this year finished in the top 10 for home runs in New York, Philly, Los Angeles and Houston as already pointed out. To further that, 8 of the teams who made the playoffs as a whole finished in the top 12 for home runs. Detroit and Kansas City are the only outliers. Boy striking out less really helped all those not runs you scored, Ross! f***ing dork.
Dear god, take a Valium.
He did not state that home-runs (or power) aren't important. Can you try to not be hyperbolic?
Here is a fun stat for you all: the team K% ranking of each World Series winner since 2015:
2015 Kansas City - 1st
2016 Chicago - 15th
2017 Houston - 1st
2018 Boston - 3rd
2019 Washington - 5th
2020 Los Angeles - 3rd
2021 Atlanta - 22nd
2022 Houston - 2nd
2023 Texas - 15th
6 of the past 9 World Series winners were Top 5 in team K% (66%).
Only 1 of the past 9 World Series winners were in the bottom-half of the league in team K%.
Here is what he actually said: "In today's game, you have to be cognizant of strikeouts when you add power." There is nothing factually incorrect about what he stated. It has been proven time and time again that contact hitting becomes incredibly important in the playoffs. You are literally seeing it play out in real time with the Padres and Royals ranking #1 and #3 in K% this season. The Royals just blanked the Orioles, and the Padres are well on their way to quick-timing the Braves.
The Houston/Detroit series is the opposite of this trend so obviously this isn't a "law", but its not some far out conclusion to see that timely hitting generally becomes more important in the playoffs because the drastic increase in pitching quality makes relying on home runs to be less successful than it normally is in the regular season.