What are the Three True Outcomes? Definition and Examples
The three true outcomes are strikeouts, walks, and home runs — plate appearances whose outcomes are decided entirely by the pitcher and hitter with no involvement from fielders.
What the Three True Outcomes Are
The three true outcomes (TTO) are strikeouts, walks, and home runs — the three plate appearance results in which the ball is either never put into the field of play or is hit beyond the reach of any fielder. The concept was coined by sabermetricians in the late 1990s to describe a specific kind of hitter: one whose value is generated almost entirely through the pitcher-batter confrontation, with defense and luck removed from the equation. A TTO rate above 50% defines a true three-true-outcomes hitter; the modern league average sits around 34-36%, up from roughly 25% in the 1990s as strikeout and home run rates have both climbed steadily.
How the Three True Outcomes Rate Is Calculated
The formula is:
TTO% = (Strikeouts + Walks + Home Runs) / Plate Appearances
All three components are counted at the plate-appearance level. Hit-by-pitches are typically excluded from the walk count for this calculation, though some analysts include them. The result is expressed as a percentage of total plate appearances. The metric is sometimes calculated in raw counts as well — "Joey Gallo had 415 TTO outcomes in 706 PA" — but the percentage is the standard for comparing players.
Worked Example: Kyle Schwarber's 2023 Season
Kyle Schwarber's 2023 season is a textbook three-true-outcomes profile. In 720 plate appearances, he produced:
- 215 strikeouts
- 126 walks
- 47 home runs
TTO% = (215 + 126 + 47) / 720 = 388 / 720 = 53.9%
More than half of every Schwarber plate appearance ended without a ball in play to a fielder. Joey Gallo's career TTO% sits around 57%, and his 2021 season touched 60%. On the opposite end, contact-oriented hitters like Luis Arraez (career TTO% around 14%) and Steven Kwan (around 17%) live in the gaps between fielders rather than over the fence or back in the dugout. The league average in 2024 was approximately 35%, meaning roughly one in three MLB plate appearances now ends in a true outcome — a rate that has prompted significant rule discussion around pace of play.
Why the Three True Outcomes Matters
TTO% is a profile descriptor more than an evaluation metric — it tells you *how* a hitter generates value, not whether he's good. Elite TTO hitters like Aaron Judge (career TTO% around 47%) and Schwarber are extremely valuable because their walks and homers more than offset the strikeouts. Poor TTO hitters can be valuable too if their non-strikeout contact is high quality. The metric matters to front offices because TTO outcomes are the most stable year-over-year — they have low variance, no BABIP luck, and minimal defensive influence — which makes high-TTO hitters somewhat more predictable. Fantasy managers use TTO profiles to identify hitters whose counting stats won't crater during cold streaks because the homers and walks keep coming.
Limitations and Misconceptions
TTO% does not measure quality. A hitter at 50% TTO can be Aaron Judge or he can be a Quad-A slugger who can't make contact — the rate alone doesn't separate them. The companion stats matter: ISO reveals whether the home runs are real power, walk rate shows whether the walks are earned or pitcher-driven, and barrel rate confirms whether the contact is genuine thunder or empty fly balls. TTO is also sometimes confused with "all or nothing" hitting, which is a stylistic label rather than a measured rate.
Related Terms
In Legends Deck
Hitter cards with extreme TTO profiles play distinctively in the Legends Deck engine. A Schwarber or Gallo card produces high variance — long droughts punctuated by tape-measure homers — while a low-TTO contact card like Arraez fills in singles and doubles consistently. The engine respects each hitter's individual K%, BB%, and HR/PA rates rather than collapsing them into one number, so TTO profile shape carries through to every simulated at-bat.