Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 19, 2006
Diamondbacks Double Plays

Nick Piecoro notes the Diamondbacks are leading the majors in turning double plays, and are on a pace to shatter the major league record. Hudson, one of the best defenders in the game last year, is benefiting from Counsell's knowledge of the hitters:

That has a lot to do with positioning, and Counsell regularly passes along some insights to Hudson during innings. Hudson said that several times this season Counsell has all but predicted a ground ball going to second base.

"Before every pitch, he's got everything thought out," Hudson said.

The downside of breaking a record for double plays, of course, is that there are a lot of batters reaching base. But the double plays turned effectively reduced the OBA of the Diamondbacks opposition from .344 to .312. In Bill James book, The Managers, Bill notes that Casey Stengel always tried to put a good double play combination around second base. He didn't mind pitchers who walked a lot of batters, as long as they got ground balls that could be turned into double plays. It's quite possible Arizona adopted that philosophy.

Update: I didn't know if the book was still in print, but Amazon sells it (click on the link above). For some reason, it wasn't as popular as other James books, but I think it's his best job of combining the history and strategy of the game and should be read for the Stengel section if nothing else.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:10 AM | Defense | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I'm in the middle of re-reading it. I'd forgotten how good it was/is.

I've read all of James books and i think he does the best job in this one of using sabermetrics to figure out historically intriguing questions i.e. how much of baseball is pitching 50%, 75%, ...?

Posted by: Cooper at May 19, 2006 08:42 AM

This comment is just a little late. But do I ever miss Orlando Hudson. Why did they trade that guy? Slick 2nd baseman, double plays etc. Good on base hitter walks etc. I don't follow the jays minute by minute, but what a mistake for fans who might like some entertaining fielders. And this Hill. . .197?

Posted by: John W at May 19, 2006 04:48 PM
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