Double Plays Are Drying Up, Even (or Especially) for Defense-Focused Cubs Infield

[Matthew Trueblood]

The twin killing. The pitcher's best friend. The rally-killer. Though multiple generations of fans came to take the double play for granted, it was the first mark of a great defense doing exceptional things on a baseball diamond--of peak team performance in the field. Now, that majestic creature has become an endangered species.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

When the Chicago Cubs ruled the National League at the dawn of the 20th century, it was thanks (in some part) to their famous infield, immortalized in the florid language of a New York sports editor: Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance. As we now know, they didn't turn double plays at an exceptional rate for the time, but the ones they did manage seemed to so thwart Giants rallies that the annoyed author declared their names "the saddest of possible words".

At that time, rallies depended heavily on stringing together singles and walks, so the double play could be a killer; it pushed you all the way back to Square One. In the 110 years since, the progress of the game has made the twin killing a bit less of a death knell for an offensive irruption, as power has blossomed. Still, it's a huge play every time the defense makes it, even if many of them don't involve highlight-worthy dives or slides. As the ball got livelier, hitters became more dangerous and parks got smaller, the pitcher increasingly needed the double play as an escape rope, and infielders became incredibly adept at turning them--even as baserunners became increasingly ruthless in their efforts to prevent them, until the norms of the game (and then a rules change) put an end to that.

Now, though, the double play is disappearing. It's happening slowly, so maybe you haven't even noticed it yet, but it's happening. More strikeouts and more home runs, of course, mean fewer balls in play, and as the launch angle revolution spreads its roots ever deeper into the soil of the game, more and more of the balls in play that do happen are fly balls.

The thing is, it's not just ground balls diminishing in frequency driving this. Even when teams do induce grounders, infields aren't turning them into double plays at the same rate as they used to. The trend line isn't perfectly clear or especially steep, but it's there. 

Here, we're treating conversion rate as the percentage of fieldable ground balls hit in double-play situations that turn into actual double plays. Infielders just aren't as adroit on the pivot (or aren't strong-armed enough, or aren't positioned well enough) when the chance to turn two presents itself.

In the first 13 years of the 30-team era, there were fewer than 3,700 double plays turned league-wide just once: 2001, when the total was 3,653. In 2007, we peaked at 3,983 double plays, and you'd have been perfectly sane to predict that the league would eventually see 4,000 of them in a single campaign.

Forget about that. In the last five full seasons (2018-23), the highest number of ground-ball double plays was 2023's 3,466. Fewer runners reach first base. Fewer grounders are hit while runners are there, especially before two outs have been recorded. And teams struggle to turn those grounders into double plays, even when the chance comes. On a per-team-game basis, the only seasons since 1900 in which fewer double plays were turned than so far in 2024 were 1940, 1941, 1944, and 1968.

Now, here's the wildest thing: In a league that has forgotten the art of the double play, and with a middle infield in which they've invested over $200 million on the promise of excellent defense, the Cubs are the absolute worst team in baseball at turning double plays. The. Worst.

The Minnesota Twins have technically turned fewer twin killings. You know why? It's because the Twins walk the fewest batters in baseball and allow opponents an OBP about 10 points lower than the Cubs', and thus, that they have had 309 plate appearances where it was possible to draw a ground-ball double play, to the Cubs' 393. No team in baseball has a worse conversion rate, whether we count fieldable ground balls in such situations or just divide double plays by plate appearances in which one could happen.

Part of the problem, of course, is that the team has been without Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner for significant stretches of the young season, and that they've replaced them with the weak-armed, undersized, generally underqualified Miles Mastrobuoni and Nick Madrigal. That's only part of the problem, though, because the thing about paying a premium for the gloves of Swanson and Hoerner is that they certainly didn't pay that premium for their arms.

While both players excel at the quickness of feet and hands required to get single outs on lots of balls, both also have below-average arms for their position--both based on scouting looks and if you consult Statcast data.

Hoerner's hardest tracked throws are relatively hard, considering the low average he's posted, but they've come on relays from outfielders toward third base or home plate. In other words, Hoerner is only throwing at an average or better speed when he has to hump up to throw it a long way. That's not a great sign, because it speaks to another problem when trying to turn the double play: Hoerner is powerful but not fast on the exchange from glove to hand. He's not cutting loose those relays (from the outfield or from the left side of the infield, in pursuit of the double play) as quickly as you want him to. Most strong-armed infielders can create as much velocity from deep in the hole at their position as on outfield relays. Not so for Hoerner.

Swanson is an even more glaring problem, considering the importance of throwing arm at his spot and the difficulty he would have in being worth his lucrative contract if he could no longer play there.

The Cubs knew Swanson didn't have a top-end arm when they signed him for $177 million over seven years two winters ago. They did so on the premise that his quickness, smoothness, and internal clock would keep him a plus shortstop for at least the first half of the deal. That might still be true, but to be sure, this deficiency has contributed to his inability to turn double plays at an acceptable rate so far.

Double play chances can go by the boards for many reasons. In the modern game, there's an increasing tendency for grounders to be total mishits for the batter, which often means they're slower and hit more directly downward than in the past. That, in turn, makes turning a double play very difficult. It's what broadcasters will call a "slow-developing" play, where to get to the ball soon enough to turn two, a fielder would have to charge so hard as to be completely out of position to start that sequence by the time they collected it.

That said, this ball has to be two. Swanson has to play shallower or take an inward angle to collect the ball, or else Christopher Morel has to show better range to his left and snare it, starting a turn with his momentum going toward second.

In their respective Defensive Runs Saved breakdowns, Swanson's GDP Runs Saved (-1) and Morel's Plays Saved to his left (-5) are the worst single markers. The above is a good example of why.

Here's another non-double play against the Cubs. This one is more about the things beyond the team's control, but it's not exclusively that.

This was a trickler, and Swanson would have been in brutal position for a flip to second if he had charged it any harder. At the same time, they had the catcher running, which is how they made the play close--and if Hoerner were quicker with the transfer and fire, they could have had him. Not coincidentally, Hoerner, too, has a -1 GDP Runs figure on his Defensive Runs Saved readout.

One more, to underscore the point.

Jackson Chourio helps illustrate one of the other growing difficulties in turning double plays, these days: Even though it's less emphasized than in the past, the average speed of a big-league player is greater now than in the past. That means that the clock ticks down faster now than 15 years ago, and faster then than 15 years before that. Swanson, here, has to adjust his own internal clock more to match that. He didn't charge this ball with the requisite urgency, which left Hoerner no chance of turning two. A more aggressive shortstop probably picks that up at sufficient speed to step on the base themselves and fire to first with their momentum going that way, and they probably get the out.

Alas, this is the final thing we should mention, as we wind down this topic for now: Fielders are trained to think more conservatively in the modern game. The ones up the middle of the diamond (especially at shortstop and second base) are also selected with a heavier emphasis on offense than in the past, at the expense of some of their defensive chops. It's not that being a good hitter makes it harder to be a good infielder, per se, but that the league is prioritizing bigger, more powerful guys even up the middle. Even when that bigness and power doesn't come at the direct, absolute cost of some quickness, it interferes with the litheness required to turn a double play. 

We live, more and more, in the age of hitters trying to take four bases at once and defenses happily settling for one out at a time. The aesthetics of that shift in style vary from one situation to the next, but the implications of it are real. For the Cubs, who don't rack up strikeouts or keep hitters off the bases at an elite level, it would be nice if they could turn this around and start collecting outs in bunches. Alas, they don't currently have the tools for that job. At least they're not (entirely) alone.

View full article

[Guest234]

Would be good if Dansby could contribute a clutch hit now and again.