Ok, Im sorry I even tried to say that strikeouts are bad - or simply worse than putting the ball in play with no runner on 1st base. I'll take my feeble mind and leave and because I obviously dont understand baseball. Well, you're clearly not understanding the points being made. You guys can sit around and come up with crazy hypotheticals with balls being put in play and hitting runners in the head, bouncing to the first baseman for an out and then making a triple play by throwing out a runner at home... Nobody wants to hear it. How about the crazy hypothetical situation of a popup?? You are creating hypotheticals where you already have determined that the BIP moved the runners up. There are just as many situations (popup, FC, short fly, etc etc) that *do not* move the runner.