Watching the World Series, I’ve had the thought a number of times that hits buried deep in the outfield corners were potential triples, and was disappointed to see the batter jogging into second base, standing up, instead of speeding around the bag and drawing a throw and an attempted tag at third. I wondered if the default play of a long hit that bounced around in foul territory at the wall was simply no longer to attempt a triple. Several examples, all taken from last night’s Houston victory:
Bottom of the first inning: Rendon lines one fair but bouncing into foul territory. He makes second base easily, so easily the camera first captures him arriving at second base and then a second camera catches the ball being thrown into the infield by Brantley. Why not try to draw a throw by at least faking a run at third base? I dunno.
Top of the second inning: Correa also lines a ball to left, this time entirely in fair territory though Soto has to make a long run to catch up to the ball. Correa "cruises" into second base, as Joe Buck puts it, jogging rather than running hard. It seems to me that if Soto were to have mishandled the ball, or thrown wide or short or long to second base, Correa would have had the play still in front of him, but probably could have been a safe distance past second base when the ball was coming in from left field.
In the top of the third, Altuve also hit a shot past the third baseman that went into the left field corner. This time, Soto did mishandle the ball, and Altuve got to third –it was scored (properly) a double and a error on Soto, but again I wondered why Altuve was content to stand up on second instead of daring Soto to make the throw into third base. He took that extra base after Soto clearly misplayed the ball, but I think he might have had a real chance to take third base even if he’d handled it cleanly. At the very least, taking the turn around second would increased the pressure on Soto to catch the ball quickly and make a hurried throw. It seemed a kind of gift from Altuve to Soto: "Take it easy, pal, I’m not going anywhere."
In the top of the fifth, Altuve again hit a ball near the left field foul line that Soto had to cover ground to get to it on several bounces. This ball wasn’t buried in the left-field corner, but again Altuve jogged into second base standing up as Soto’s throw came into the infield. This one was probably not capable of turning into a triple, but I question the apparent philosophy of deciding somewhere between first base and second not to force the left fielder to hurry his throw.
Finally, in the bottom of the fifth, Asdrubal Cabrera hit the ball to the wall at the right-field corner. (Normally, four out of five potential triples would be hit into the right-field corner rather than the left-, but not in this game.) It took a fortunate bounce (for Washington) directly into Adam Eaton’s glove and Cabrera had to stop at second base. Again, though, it was a standup double, with no tag attempted or necessary on Cabrera.
My point is not to complain that none of the runners were turning on the jets, and giving the fans an illusion of hustle where no hustle was needed, but that a general decision seems to have been made throughout baseball that any risk associated with being thrown out stretching a double into a triple, even just taking the turn a few steps past second base, is a foolish risk. "Take the double, leave the triple," seems to be the watchword now (echoing Clemenza’s advice in THE GODFATHER, of course). And it may well be the correct advice.
Before I reached this conclusion, I decided to check out whether triples were indeed declining in the current game, or if I was just being a cranky old man. Doing a quick and dirty study, I compared MLB stats for this past season with stats from ten years ago, and twenty years ago, and thirty years ago, and forty years ago, and fifty years ago, and sixty years ago:
YEAR
|
MLB TRIPLES
|
% OF TRIPLES PER PA
|
2019
|
785
|
.0042
|
2009
|
949
|
.0051
|
1999
|
931
|
.0049
|
1989
|
868
|
.0054
|
1979
|
1066
|
.0066
|
1969
|
849
|
.0057
|
1959
|
591
|
.0062
|
The raw total of triples seems to fluctuate around 800-850 per season but of course the number of total plate appearances has gone way, way up since 16 teams were playing 154-game seasons. The frequency of triples since the late 1950s seems to be significantly down, by close to 50%.
Others have suggested reasons for this decline, focusing on increased home runs, increased strikeouts, different stadium configurations, and the phases of the moon:
https://www.twinkietown.com/2019/7/10/18677337/mlb-minnesota-twins-where-are-all-the-triples-going-i-dont-know-third-base-bombas-home-runs-singles
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-xpm-19890604-1989-06-04-8906030174-story.html
https://tht.fangraphs.com › endangered-species-the-three-base-hit
https://www.mlb.com/news/triples-are-disappearing-in-mlb-c233850840
I wonder if it’s not simply a risk-averse strategy. It used to be a given that the way to run out any sure-shot standup double was to overrun second base (by the exact margin that the runner could be sure of returning safely to second given a perfect throw by the outfielder), drawing as rushed a throw as possible. The thinking was that there was so much that could go wrong for the fielders and so much potential for the runner: an errant throw, a weak throw, a botched relay, a mishandled transfer could all result in a sudden successful decision to take off for third base. Personally, I prefer the scenario where the runner arrives at second base standing up, but the outfielder throws a soft toss to the relay man and the runner turns on the jets. It’s turning a sure thing into a dangerous play, but it’s also creating an extra throw and an extra catch-and-tag for the defensive team.
I’m sure someone somewhere has done a careful study of this issue and concluded that the risk of rounding second base at top speed is simply higher than the potential gain of an extra base. I just never got that memo.