Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 12, 2007
2X

Al Doyle pens an interesting essay on one of my favorite subjects, the double. He writes extensively on Earl Webb's single season record, but neglects Tris Speaker's career mark of 792. Back in his 1983 Abstract, Bill James talked about soft records:

Any time performance levels in a given category rise to where the record represents less than 18 seasons of outstanding performance, the record becomes soft; less than 15, very soft.

If you take the average of the MLB leaders in doubles over the last 10 seasons, you get 53.8 as the level of outstanding performance. That 14.72 years of outstanding performance to break the record. This record should be really soft, like the home run record was in the 1960s and the stolen base record was in the 1980s. But looking at Career Assessments in the latest Bill James Baseball Handbook only Miguel Cabrera owns better than a 10% chance of breaking the record (15%), and the only other person whose career path may take him there is Albert Pujols, and he's at 7%. (In comparison, there are four players with a better than 10% chance of breaking Aaron's home run record.) No one's been able to sustain a number of outstanding double seasons.

The other fascinating point of Doyle's article is how doubles are a leading indicator of declining batting skills.

Using a sharp fall in doubles as a warning indicator, Frank Thomas is the player to watch in 2007. The Big Hurt has seven seasons of 35 or more doubles on his resume, including an American League-best 46 in 1992. The 2006 AL Comeback Player of the Year had just 11 doubles in 466 ABs with the A's to go with his 39 HR and 114 RBI. Will Thomas continue his impressive run production with the Blue Jays, or will he decline rapidly as he approaches age 39?

We'll keep an eye on the Big Hurt's stats this year.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:45 AM | Statistics | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Frank Thomas's decline in doubles had way more to do with a lack of speed than a decline in bat handling skills. He wouldn't even try for two bases unless it would have been a triple for other people. I wonder how many of those doubles were ground rule.

Posted by: MH at January 12, 2007 08:55 AM

Does a decline in doubles mean much when your HRs goes up? I would look at total XBH rather than doubles as an indicator. For Frank Thomas games played in the last 3 years and age are pretty big indicators that he's not likely to keep it up.

Posted by: bruce at January 12, 2007 09:06 AM

So you're saying the HR record is "soft" right now, but wasn't soft in the 80's, while the doubles record is stronger than it appears? That's what I just got out of this and that's interesting. I've often thought doubles are tougher to get than HR's because people swing for the fences or swing to get on base...few if anyone, really thinks about hitting doubles as a goal. Doubles also take a combination of speed and power, where HR's only take power and guys who have the speed will sometimes try to stretch a double into a triple or they'll sit back on a single to distract the pitcher while they pitch to the next hitter.

Still, I think it's very interesting how much harder it seems to get the doubles record than HR's record. I don't quite get why Bill James said the HR record was soft in the 60's though...just because the single season record was broken once, and the all-time record was approached by 2 people...I don't think I'd call that a soft record really. A guy could hit 35 HR's for 20 years and not quite reach The Babe. 35 HR's a year back then, was a strong season...now it sounds average though.

Posted by: Devon at January 12, 2007 10:36 AM

I don't think frank trusted his legs last year he'll get more than 11 this year.

Posted by: bar35 at January 12, 2007 06:24 PM
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