Caught Looking versus Swinging

A commenter on my article on Baseball Analysts this morning asks this question:

"Somewhat related to your analysis of Swinging K's, I've often wondered about anything that can be gleaned from players who have a tendency to strike out looking vs. strike out swinging. Is one "worse" than another? Does looking suggest poor pitch recognition and does swinging suggest less of an ability to make contact?"

Good question so I thought I'd run the numbers. Here are the top and bottom 20 in percentage of strikeouts that are called versus swinging (miss, foul tip, swinging strike blocked).

Name                     PA       C       S     C/S
Jody Gerut              191      13       7   0.650
D'Angelo Jimenez        119      14       9   0.609
Brian Giles             674      38      26   0.594
Todd Linden             187      32      22   0.593
Eric Young              163       7       5   0.583
Frank Thomas            124      18      13   0.581
Jeff Bagwell            123      12       9   0.571
Alberto Castillo        115      12      10   0.545
Bobby Hill              105       9       8   0.529
Bobby Kielty            433      35      32   0.522
Chipper Jones           432      29      27   0.518
Oscar Robles            399      17      16   0.515
Kenny Lofton            406      21      20   0.512
Jeff DaVanon            271      22      22   0.500
Marco Scutaro           423      24      24   0.500
Scott Podsednik         568      37      38   0.493
Frank Menechino         180      16      17   0.485
JD Drew                 311      24      26   0.480
Maicer Izturis          210      10      11   0.476
Jose Offerman           118       8       9   0.471

Name                     PA       C       S     C/S
Dontrelle Willis        101       0      12   0.000
Jose Macias             190       1      23   0.042
Angel Berroa            652       5     103   0.046
Aaron Guiel             121       1      20   0.048
Jorge Cantu             631       4      79   0.048
Jorge Piedra            124       1      14   0.067
Kazuo Matsui            295       3      40   0.070
Miguel Olivo            281       6      74   0.075
Juan Uribe              540       6      71   0.078
Vladimir Guerrero       594       4      44   0.083
Todd Greene             134       2      19   0.095
Ivan Rodriguez          525       9      84   0.097
Mike Sweeney            514       6      55   0.098
Johnny Estrada          383       4      34   0.105
Torii Hunter            416       7      58   0.108
Brian Jordan            251       5      41   0.109
Reed Johnson            439       9      73   0.110
Carl Everett            547      11      88   0.111
Garret Anderson         603      10      74   0.119
Eric Bruntlett          121       3      22   0.120

Well, I think from this that clearly players who take fewer pitches overall are the ones who also don't strike out looking very often. Hard to believe that Angel Berroa was caught looking just 5 times.

The top list also I'm sure has a higher OPS since those in the bottom don't walk much.

So to answer the question it doesn't appear as if striking out looking is an indication of poor pitch recognition nor does striking out swinging suggest a reduced ability to make contact. I think it's simply more tied to aggressiveness.