A couple of follow-up thoughts on left-handed and right-handed first basemen. (Too many thoughts to add to the "Comments" section of https://www.billjamesonline.com/displaced_persons/ , and it’s too late, besides. After about a week, or a new article or two by Bill or anybody else, I assume no one is reading the "Comments" any more, at least no one who expects a reply to his comment. I do, however, occasionally read a very old article, two or three years old, and perversely make a comment if I think of a belated related point, knowing full well that I’m writing on the wall of a cave that no one ventures into anymore.) In response to the last few comments posted there, I’d like to point out how no one has yet taken me up on my "offer" to extend the small sampling I did of 2018 first basemen, sorted by handedness, to check if my findings hold up, but I’m hopeful that someone will study this further. For me, it’s a little too much like picking the flyshit out of pepperboxes, going through Bb-ref’s columns of 1bmen’s defensive stats and then sorting them by memory and by research and by hand into lefties and righties, and then adding up the stats in each category. I think the definition of "sufficient sample size" in matters like these is "more than anyone is ever going to do." (In fact, it does sort of creep me out to consider that there could be any flyshit in pepperboxes in the first place. I guess that’s a metaphor for "thankless tedious tasks." I hope so, anyway. But to be safe, I’ve stopped using pepper on my food.) If anyone does continue this study, bless you and please let me know your results.
Mark Bernstein responded to my challenge to come up with "any established third-baseman, off the top of my head, who did make second base his regular position" with "Ron Santo, 1974 (CWS). Probably best considered a counter-example," which, yes, is the classic counter-example. Bill once cited the move as ruining Santo’s career, probably after it was already ruined anyway. Oddly enough, Santo had made the NL All-Star team in 1973, not particularly deservingly but these things are often not entirely merit-based: it was Santo’s tenth All-Star selection, and his last one. He had failed to make the All-Star team in 1970, though, when he knocked in 114 runs, so it evens out. Following that final All-Star year, the Cubs dealt him off to the crosstown Sox, who really didn’t need a third baseman or a second baseman. From his SABR-bio: "Santo spent most of the 1974 season as a utility infielder, spelling Bill Melton at third base or Jorge Orta at second. His primary position was that of designated hitter." He played all of 39 games at second base for the White Sox, then retired, having driven in 41 runs in 418 plate appearances for the Sox, which doesn’t cut it for a DH or a utility infielder. He was all done, in other words, and while the switch to second base didn’t help, it didn’t snuff out his career by itself either.
The Cubs replaced Santo in 1974 with Bill Madlock, whom they had just acquired in a deal with the Rangers; Madlock came in third in the ROTY voting in 1974 at 3B, and interestingly enough is a better choice to answer my challenge than Santo is. Madlock was the Cubs’ regular 3B-man for three years, 1974-6, then, traded to the Giants, played 126 games at 3B in 1977. In 1978, however, the Giants played him at second base for 114 games, and again for 63 games in 1979, when he was traded to the Pirates who put him back at 3B for good. Depending on where you want to draw the line at defining "regular" and "established," this may fulfill my challenge, or it may not. As Bill pointed out in my OF-to-3B conversion article back in the 1986 Abstract, switching to a harder position for a brief period signifies a failed experiment more than it does a successful one. Bill argued that putting Mel Ott or Yaz or Frank Robinson at 3B and then switching him back to the outfield was the team’s way of asking "What the hell were we thinking?" But I’ll be interested if anyone wants to propose a further, more extensive and more successful experiment in 3B-to-2B conversion than Santo or Madlock.
Mr. Bernstein ("Yes, Mr. Kane?") also supplied "Eduardo Nunez 2018 (BOS), if you consider Nunez to be established anywhere. He's had 9 seasons now. It seems to me that he's a 2nd-division 3B who, for whatever reason, has spent his career on good teams with decent alternatives at 3B." Again, I’d consider Nunez more of a utility infielder than anything else: he’s never played half of his team’s games at any one position. Not really what I was talking about, but thanks for trying, Mark.
Among the other subjects touched on in the Comments section I found noteworthy was the question of whether being left-handed prevents more singles from going into the hole between 1B and 2B than being right-handed prevents doubles down the line. Well, obviously it does (if only because some doubles are going to be prevented by going foul), but the real question is whether it prevents ENOUGH singles to compensate for the more-costly doubles. I suppose the more fundamental question is what kinds of numbers are we talking about here: after all, it’s not as being left-handed prevents you from making that play back-handed. I’ve seen enough great stabs on would-be doubles down the line by lefties Keith Hernandez and John Olerud and Don Mattingly to make me wonder if handedness makes any play show up enough for lefties or righties to be statistically significant.
Returning to the nots-and-bults of my little study, I found that there were columns of defensive stats by first basemen on baseball-reference.com that I hadn’t used, but should have. Bb-ref actually did some of my tedious totaling for me. (Always a mistake, doing my own addition—when I do any kind of computation in my head, I often get weird results, numbers that are off by a factor of thousands, telling me that I forgot to carry the "7" somewhere along the line.) These columns would have been useful: the ones labelled "GB" and "GBs," a few columns to the right of the columns headed "3-6-3" and "3-6-1" and "3-6," designate, respectively, the total number of "any groundball double play where the fielder took part," which includes "low-skill" DPs, where the 1bman is merely making the final putout, and the total number of "any groundball where the fielder had the first assist." The latter column would have been particularly useful to me, but there is a discrepancy between it and the totals I came up with by hand, meaning that there are a few DPs that first basemen start that AREN’T 3-6-3 or 3-6-1 or 3-6.
Not many, but some. About one per first baseman per year. I tried to figure out what these DPs might be, and if they’re mostly "high-skill" or "low-skill" plays. If they’re "high-skill," then I can (and you can) just use the "GBs" column instead of adding up the other three.
In scoring shorthand, these DPs must go 3 to some other number (to qualify as an assist). Could you have a DP that goes 3-4? I suppose with a big shift on a right-handed pull hitter, the second baseman might be right on top of the bag, so a hard-hit grounder down the first-base line with a runner on first might have the first baseman stepping on the bag and throwing to second base which would be covered by the second baseman, instead of the shortstop. That’s possible, though I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that play.
How about 3-5-6 or 3-5-4? That would be "runners on first and second, less than two out" with a hard-hit grounder to the first-baseman, who throws to third to get the lead runner, and then the throw goes to second base to get the trailing runner. That seems more likely. Least likely of all is 3-5-3 (or 3-5-1) where there would have to be two very long throws (almost 120 feet apiece)—can’t say I’ve ever seen that one. A 3-5 DP is possible, I suppose, with a very slow lead runner: first baseman grabs the grounder, steps on first and then fires to 3B to put a tag on the runner.
The final possibility involves the catcher, 3-2 or 3-2-3 (or 3-2-1 or 3-2-4). I’m straining my imagination here, but it’s a long season and you do get some oddball plays along the way. Has anyone ever seen a play that goes 3-2-5? I can imagine it—with a slow enough forced runner (or a runner who trips or gets a horrible jump) on second base, anything is possible. A 3-2-5 DP would involve a bases-loaded situation with fewer than two outs where the first baseman grabs a grounder, probably well in front of the bag and fires home to get the force and then the catcher sees his most likely shot at another runner is at 3B. Again, possible, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this play pulled off. Perhaps the trend towards infield shifting is enabling some of these weirder DPs, with infielders being positioned far from their historical spots on the diamond.
Anyway, it seems to me that ANY scenario in which the first baseman gets the first assist on a DP involves considerable fielding skill on his part, either of judgment (in diagnosing the situation quickly and correctly) or of throwing ability (all of these throws, except possibly the 3-2 throw is by definition a fairly long one), or both. So unless someone wants to show me where any of these DPs is NOT a play requiring considerable skill by the 1B-man, I should make my life easier and just go with the "DPs" column on BB-Ref and save myself a lot of donkeywork (and some errors in addition, most likely).
The leader, as far as I can tell, in these oddball DPs in 2018 was Carlos Santana having 4 of them (most first baseman had 0 oddball DPs, which brought the average down to something like 1 apiece per year), although the leader in percentage of oddball DPs appeared to be someone I watched closely for many years at 1B, Lucas Duda. Baseball-reference says 2 out of his 5 "skill" DPs (i.e. the ones designated as "GBs") were "oddball" DPs, groundball DPs started by him that went other than 3-6-3, 3-6-1, or 3-6.
OK, I tediously looked through every game Lucas "Camptown Ladies" Duda played at 1B in 2018 and, like Bogart and the waters of Casablanca, I’ve been misinformed: I did find five Duda-started "GBs" DPs, but only one was of the oddball variety, against the Twins on August 3rd. Baseball reference has it "Double Play: Fielder's Choice 1B; Cave out at Hm/1B-C-3B; Mauer to 2B; Rosario out at 2B/3B-2B." Translated into English that means that in the bottom of the second inning, with runners on 1st and 3rd, Duda had a grounder hit to him at 1B and (with one out) the unforced runner on 3B, Jake Cave, broke for home, and Duda’s throw nailed him. When the batter, Eddie Rosario, tried to take second on the throw home, he also got nailed. DP! Not sure if it went 3-2-4 or 3-2-6? I hadn’t even noted 3-2-6 as an option above, but as I said, it’s a long season and anything can happen.
This 3-2-6 or 3-2-4 does qualify as a skill play, and it reminded of a similar skill play, the most notorious of Duda’s entire career, where his skills fell short of excellence. In the 2015 World Series, you’ll recall, Duda failed to make a throw home that cost the Mets the game and (IMO) their shot at winning the World Series.
We discussed that play extensively in Reader Posts and in "Hey Bill" (the same month we were discussing Harry Truman as a failed POTUS and how long it takes to drive from Boston to Pawtucket and how boring a spectator sport we find cricket and how great Memorial Stadium in Baltimore was https://www.billjamesonline.com/hey_bill/?Year=2015&Month=11 , among other subjects, including one that I think ended "the_slasher14"’s stay on BJOL) but I didn’t recall precisely what the circumstances were, so I went back to take a look. Man, did we dwell on that half-inning! The Duda play wasn’t even the most controversial part: that honor goes to Matt Harvey, pitching a 4-hit shutout through eight innings, convincing manager Terry Collins let him start the ninth inning with a 2-0 lead, amid Citifield fans clamoring for Harvey to stay in the game against Collins’ better judgment. Collins caved to Harvey and the fans, and then when Harvey walked the leadoff batter, left him in the game. Eric Hosmer immediately doubled off Harvey, driving in the run that made it 2-1, Mets, and put the tying run on second. But very close behind that controversy was the play involving Duda’s arm.
Reliever Jeurys Familia came in and got three consecutive groundballs, which let the Royals tie up the game. The first groundball was hit to Duda, who made the put-out unassisted but allowed Hosmer to advance to third base with only one out. The second grounder to 3B-man David Wright was the controversial one:
Wright threw to 1B (some of us said a little lackadaisically, encouraging Hosmer to do what he did) and Hosmer broke for home. Bill pointed out how Hosmer’s timing was key here: he couldn’t break for home too soon, or Wright would have thrown him out easily, but every millisecond that Hosmer delayed running home added exponentially to Duda’s chance to nail him at the plate. Hosmer’s timing had to be right on the money, and it was.
If you check the "Hey Bill" section for that week, you’ll see Bill stood almost alone in claiming that Hosmer scored easily. Bill pointed out the importance of Hosmer’s timing, but he maintained that given that excellent timing, Duda still had to make a perfect throw to nail Hosmer at the plate, and even then it was questionable. At first Bill claimed that Hosmer took a much a larger lead off 3B than he actually did, making Duda’s task almost impossible, but then someone sent him a screenshot showing Hosmer standing pretty near the 3B bag as Wright was releasing the ball. Bill still refused to back off.
Hosmer himself thought he’d made a terrible mistake, breaking for home plate, at first. (In a response to Marc Schneider, Bill wrote "somebody asked Hosmer what he was thinking when he went home. He said he was thinking, ‘Uh oh; I've made a terrible mistake. . . ’"—not 100% sure if Bill was serious, but it rings true to me.) Some folks, like Mr. Schneider, agreed with Bill that it was a pretty heads-up play, strategically, in that 1) the Royals were leading the Series 3 games to 1 at the time, so if Hosmer got thrown out, they would still have two more chances (in KC) to win one game, and 2) if he didn’t run, the Royals would have only one more out in which to get a hit off Familia, who was pitching pretty effectively. But I think it was far from settled that the play was a no-brainer. It was a bold decision, in my book, to run on Wright and Duda. My support for thinking so is "How often do you see an unforced runner try to score on any 5-3 play with fewer than two outs?" Not often. Usually that ends up like Jake Cave did in 2018—dead out.
Because it was the 9th inning, the play was extra-dramatic. If the Mets could win this game, the Series would go to 3 games to 2, in favor of the Royals, meaning that the Series would need at least six games and quite possibly seven to resolve the outcome. (The Mets were coming back with deGrom and Syndergaard on full rest in games 6 and 7, with Colon available for long relief.) They had been leading for the entire game (Granderson led off with a homer), and Harvey had been totally lights-out, so I think everyone, even Royals fans, had felt it very likely that Harvey could get three final outs before giving up two runs, and if he couldn’t, the Mets’ bullpen would cool the Royals’ jets. I certainly took it for granted going into the 9th that the game was all but wrapped up, and the Series would go back to Kansas City.
But Hosmer off took for home, on what I make to be an even-odds play at best, and Duda made an off-line throw. If Duda makes that throw ten times, he gets the ball to D’Arnaud six or seven times on the third-base side of the bag, and Hosmer is a dead duck.
Those other 3 or 4 times, of course, are why they play the games.
The entire 2015 World Series, in my view, hinged on this one play. We’ve discussed World Series that ended 4 games to 1 but nonetheless seemed close, and 2015 was one of them. If Harvey could have gotten three outs before he gave up two runs (which would have gotten you, what, 20-1 odds going into the 9th?), the Series would have been 3 games to 2, in favor of the Royals, but only one of their victories was a blowout (7-1 in the second game) as was one of the Mets’ wins (9-3 in the third game). The first game had been a nail-biter (2 to 1 in 14 innings, favor Royals) and the fourth game had been very close (the Mets led 3-2 going into the 8th when the Royals scored 3 runs). These were very evenly matched teams, right up to the final inning, the 12th, of this fifth game, when the Royals scored five runs and took the Series then and there.
If I were a Mets fan, I would have been disappointed by this half-inning beyond belief, but even as a baseball fan, I was blown away by this single play.
Duda’s 2018 throw home against the Twins came when he was wearing a Royals’ uni, btw. I’d lost track of Duda after the Mets had dealt him off, and it was a bit odd to learn that he’d been signed by the Royals. I would have thought that this one World Series play would have dissuaded the Royals from ever considering hiring Duda to play first base for them. I mean, can you imagine the Mets in 1987 deciding to sign Bill Buckner to play 1B for them? Or the Orioles deciding after the 1966 World Series "We’ve got to get that Willie Davis in our outfield, somehow"? (In both those cases, the Mets and Orioles would have been replacing a stellar fielder, Keith Hernandez and Paul Blair, with the guy who had just handed them a Worlds Championship.) Duda was, of course, replacing Hosmer at first base for the Royals. I’d vaguely remembered that Hosmer had left the Royals for free agency before the 2018 season, but I didn’t grasp the irony of his replacement until I did this little study here.