Strikeouts don’t have nearly the same stigma as they did a decade ago. In 2007, the MLB strikeout rate was 17.1 percent. It was the third straight season that number had gone up. From 1996 on, it had hovered between 16.4 and 17.3. Those days are long gone.



The strikeout rate has jumped each season since and the current rate of 21.1 percent would be an all-time high.



So when Kris Bryant made his debut last season, not many were scared off by his 30.6 percent strikeout rate. (He led baseball with 199 strikeouts.) When you couple that with his impressive 136 wRC+, there was no real reason to complain.



His minor league numbers – a 26.6 percent strikeout rate with 55 home runs in 181 games – prepared everyone for who Bryant was: a player who would swing and miss quite a bit, but would provide elite power. If you talked to scouts and player development personnel at the time and you’d get the same story. Bryant was an...