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| Carpenter grounded into zero double plays in 2018 |
Matt Carpenter's 2018 season will be largely remembered
for enduring the worst slump of his career and the seemingly salsa-fueled
hot streak that followed. However, the
St. Louis Cardinals infielder also quietly achieved a rare feat during his
excellent 2018 campaign when he finished the season without grounding into a
double play. By doing so, Carpenter
became just the tenth hitter to go an entire campaign without being doubled up
while amassing the required number of plate appearances to qualify for the
batting title.
Grounding into double plays has been tracked by the NL since
1933 and by the AL since 1939. Over that
time, going an entire season without being doubled up while accumulating enough
plate appearances to qualify for the batting title is a rare feat only
accomplished by nine other hitters prior to Carpenter--George Watkins, Pete Reiser, Dick McAuliffe, Rob Deer, Rickey Henderson, Ray Lankford, Otis Nixon,
Craig Biggio, and Chase Utley--and never by the same player twice. Moreover, nearly half of the players to
complete the double play-free campaign achieved it under special
circumstances. The first hitter to turn
the trick, Watkins, did so in 1934 with just 329 plate appearances for the
season as only 100 games played were required to qualify for the batting title
at the time. In addition, Henderson,
Lankford, and Nixon each had their double play-free campaigns in 1994 when the
baseball strike wiped out nearly the last third of the season. Also, Augie Galan is sometimes credited with
going the entire 1935 campaign without hitting into a twin-kill, however,
according to Retrosheet's game logs from that season, the slugger was indeed
doubled up on June 25 of that year.
Statistics from the ten double play-free seasons
| Year | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | OPS+ | ||||||||
| Watkins | 1934 | 105 | 329 | 296 | 38 | 73 | 18 | 3 | 6 | 33 | 24 | 34 | 2 | 0.247 | 0.316 | 0.389 | 0.704 | 89 | |||||||
| Reiser | 1942 | 125 | 537 | 480 | 89 | 149 | 33 | 5 | 10 | 64 | 48 | 45 | 20 | 0.310 | 0.375 | 0.463 | 0.838 | 142 | |||||||
| McAuliffe | 1968 | 151 | 658 | 570 | 95 | 142 | 24 | 10 | 16 | 56 | 82 | 99 | 8 | 0.249 | 0.344 | 0.411 | 0.755 | 126 | |||||||
| Deer | 1990 | 134 | 511 | 440 | 57 | 92 | 15 | 1 | 27 | 69 | 64 | 147 | 2 | 0.209 | 0.313 | 0.432 | 0.745 | 108 | |||||||
| Nixon | 1994 | 103 | 461 | 398 | 60 | 109 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 25 | 55 | 65 | 42 | 0.274 | 0.360 | 0.317 | 0.677 | 75 | |||||||
| Lankford | 1994 | 109 | 482 | 416 | 89 | 111 | 25 | 5 | 19 | 57 | 58 | 113 | 11 | 0.267 | 0.359 | 0.488 | 0.847 | 121 | |||||||
| Henderson | 1994 | 87 | 376 | 296 | 66 | 77 | 13 | 0 | 6 | 20 | 72 | 45 | 22 | 0.260 | 0.411 | 0.365 | 0.776 | 111 | |||||||
| Biggio | 1997 | 162 | 744 | 619 | 146 | 191 | 37 | 8 | 22 | 81 | 84 | 107 | 47 | 0.309 | 0.415 | 0.501 | 0.916 | 143 | |||||||
| Utley | 2016 | 138 | 565 | 512 | 79 | 129 | 26 | 3 | 14 | 52 | 40 | 115 | 2 | 0.252 | 0.319 | 0.396 | 0.716 | 92 | |||||||
| Carpenter | 2018 | 156 | 677 | 564 | 111 | 145 | 42 | 0 | 36 | 81 | 102 | 158 | 4 | 0.257 | 0.374 | 0.523 | 0.897 | 143 |
Throughout his career, Carpenter has always been difficult
to turn two on. Going into the 2018
campaign, the Cards slugger had only once grounded into more than five double
plays in a season. Moreover, prior to
2018, Carpenter's career average for grounding into a twin-kill when he had the
opportunity do so was just 6.1%--well below the MLB average which usually
hovers around 11%. Part of what makes
Carpenter so difficult to double up are his swing mechanics which focuses on
hitting the ball in the air and slugging hard line drives while avoiding hitting
the ball on the ground. In fact, Carpenter's
26.4% ground ball rate in 2018 easily ranked lowest among 140 qualified hitters
and well below the MLB average of 43.2%.
Low ground ball rates have been commonplace for Carpenter the last
several seasons as the Cardinals infielder produced the lowest mark in 2017
with 26.9% while his respective totals of 30.6% in 2016 and 29.7% in 2015
ranked him fifth and second from the bottom in those years. Conversely, Carpenter's swing mechanics
generates lots of fly balls and line drives as the slugger ranked among the
top-ten in both categories during 2018.
Carpenter’s yearly GDP per Opp rates
| Year | DPopp | GDP | GDP% | |
| 2011 | 3 | 0 | 0.0% | |
| 2012 | 86 | 10 | 11.6% | |
| 2013 | 74 | 4 | 5.4% | |
| 2014 | 80 | 3 | 3.8% | |
| 2015 | 95 | 5 | 5.3% | |
| 2016 | 71 | 4 | 5.6% | |
| 2017 | 97 | 5 | 5.2% | |
| 2018 | 91 | 0 | 0.0% | |
| Career | 597 | 31 | 5.2% |
In addition to his swing mechanics, batting out of the
leadoff spot played a large role in Carpenter joining the small group of
hitters to complete a double play-free campaign. Leadoff hitters are more likely to accomplish
the feat than any other spot in the batting order because they are guaranteed
at least one plate appearance with no runners on base. Moreover, following their initial plate
appearance, leadoff batters spend the rest of the game batting behind the
weakest hitters in the order who are often asked to sacrifice when there is a
runner on first base.
For the majority of his career, Carpenter has batted out of
the leadoff spot where he has hit much better than in comparison to other spots
in the order. Carpenter is certainly not
the prototypical top of the order base-stealing speed merchant, having
never swiped more than five bags in a season.
What's more, over the last few seasons, Carpenter started putting up slugging
percentage and home run totals more commonly seen by hitters batted in the
heart of the order. Nevertheless,
Carpenter and the Cardinals seem to have recognized, perhaps begrudgingly, that
despite his skill-set, the infielder performs his best when batted leadoff.
 |
| Carpenter's career GDP per Opp is just 5.2% |
St. Louis initially began batting Carpenter at the top of
the order during his 2013 breakout sophomore campaign in which the club won the
NL Pennant and the slugger led the senior circuit in hits, doubles, and runs
scored. Since that time, the Cardinals
have only temporarily moved Carpenter from leadoff--once to the number two spot
in the order for three months in 2015 and then to the three-hole for the
opening two months of 2017. However,
both times Carpenter struggled to produce and was subsequently moved back to
leadoff where he regained his hitting stroke.
Despite Carpenter's previous difficulties batting outside of the leadoff
spot, the Cardinals opened 2018 with Carpenter hitting third in the order. After getting off to a slow start, Carpenter
was moved from the three-hole on April 20 and rotated between leadoff
and the two spot for the next several weeks.
Carpenter's season hit a low point on May 15 when the Cards
infielder sported an anemic .140/.286/.272 batting average/OBP/slugging
percentage slash line. Nevertheless, a
couple games on the bench and starts as the number seven hitter seemed to
revive the slugger's struggling bat. Finally, on
May 26 the club moved Carpenter back to leadoff where he remained for the
duration of the season.
Following his career pattern, Carpenter excelled hitting
leadoff and put himself among the league leaders in several categories and into
the NL MVP conversation. Carpenter's
move back to the leadoff spot and resurgence from his horrendous early season
slump largely coincided with the secret planting of a garden in the
slugger's backyard by teammate Adam Wainwright and Wainwright's daughters while
the St. Louis pitcher was on the disabled list and Carpenter and the Cardinals
were on a road trip in early May. From
this garden, Carpenter started making his own spicy homemade salsa and as his
bat heated up he began putting the salsa on most meals and taking jars of it on
road trips. As Carpenter slugged his way
out of his early season slump, his seemingly salsa-fueled hot streak gained
ample media coverage. Soon, T-shirts
bearing the inscription "It's Gotta Be the Salsa" and salsa jars with
Carpenter's secret recipe were being sold with a portion of the proceeds going
to St. Louis charities.
Overall, Carpenter made 115 starts as St. Louis'
leadoff hitter while having his name written into the three-spot 17 times and
being tapped as the number two batter for 15 games. In addition to Carpenter, six of the other
nine hitters to complete a double play-free campaign--McAuliffe, Henderson,
Lankford, Nixon, Biggio, and Utley--were primarily batted leadoff in the season
they achieved the rare feat. By
contrast, hitters batted in the heart of the order are much less likely to
complete a season without grounding into a double play as a higher majority of
their plate appearances come with runners on base. In fact, only Reiser has been able to turn
the trick while regularly batting in the heart of the order as he was hit out
of the three-hole during his double play-free 1942 campaign. Interestingly, the two other hitters to turn
the trick, Watkins and Deer, regularly batted sixth--though Deer also saw a
fair share of his plate appearances come from the five and seven spots along
with a few from the eight hole.
GDP opps from double play-free year and career GDP rates
| DPopp | cGDP% | |
| Watkins | 50 | 6.4% |
| Reiser | 148 | 3.3% |
| McAuliffe | 78 | 6.7% |
| Deer | 87 | 4.2% |
| Nixon | 61 | 9.6% |
| Lankford | 67 | 6.4% |
| Henderson | 31 | 9.5% |
| Biggio | 78 | 8.1% |
| Utley | 61 | 6.2% |
| Carpenter | 91 | 5.2% |
Over the course of his 2018 campaign, Carpenter had 91 plate
appearances in which there was an opportunity for the slugger to ground into a
double play. Carpenter's 91
opportunities rank second highest among the ten hitters to achieve the rare
feat, trailing only Reiser's incredible total of 148. Reiser's presence at the top of the
leaderboard is not surprising, as he was the only one of the ten hitters
regularly batted in the heart of the order.
With his 2018 season included, Carpenter's career average for grounding
into a double play when he had the opportunity do so dropped from 6.1% to
5.2%. Among the ten hitters, only Reiser
and Deer have career marks lower than Carpenter's impressive 5.2%. Despite not being recognized as a fast
baserunner, Carpenter's 5.2% is well below the career averages of Henderson and
Biggio--two Hall of Famers renowned for their speed on the basepaths and
expertise at batting leadoff. In 2018,
the average major league hitter grounded into a double play just over ten
percent of the time that they came up with the opportunity to do so. Thus, a hitter with Carpenter's 91 double
play opportunities on average would have grounded into a twin-kill nine times.
Carpenter's 36 home runs stand out in comparison to the
other nine hitters who completed the double play-free campaign. Although Deer, Lankford, and Utley all
produced 30-home run seasons during their career, each of those three sluggers'
round-tripper totals were well shy of Carpenter's 36 during the year they
avoided the twin-kill. Through May
15, Carpenter had gone deep just three times.
However, as Carpenter went on his seemingly salsa-fueled hot streak, the
slugger put up mammoth home run totals and surged into the NL-longball lead
late in the summer. Unfortunately,
Carpenter's early season struggles reared their ugly head again as he homered
just once in September and was consequently caught and passed for the lead in
the campaign's final days.
 |
| The majority of Carpenter's HRs came in clusters |
The manner in which Carpenter put up his impressive home run
total added an extra level of intrigue to his double-play free 2018. In fact, Carpenter went on a home run tear
each month of the season--save for the first and final months of the
campaign--with the majority of his longballs coming in tightly-packed clusters
of games. Carpenter’s first cluster of
home runs took place between May 26 and 29 when the Cards slugger
went deep in three out of four games. Then
from June 15 to 21, Carpenter smacked five round-trippers over seven
contests including three consecutive games in a row. Carpenter’s most impressive home run barrage
came in July when he crushed eight longballs in six games between the 14th and
21st. During that stretch Carpenter
became one of just 28 players to go deep in six straight games--two shy of the
record of eight shared by Ken Griffey Jr., Don Mattingly, and Dale Long. Carpenter's July longball barrage also
included a three-home run game on the 20th.
Finally, between August 3 and 10, Carpenter had two separate streaks in
which the slugger went yard in three consecutive games interrupted by just one
homer-less game to give him six longballs over the seven-contest stretch.
By finishing the 2018 season without grounding into a double
play, Carpenter became just the tenth hitter to accumulate enough plate
appearances while avoiding the twin-kill for an entire campaign. Although the most recent double play-free
season prior to Carpenter's happened just two years ago, due to its overall
rarity, it may be a while before the next player accomplishes the feat. Moreover, nearly half of the double play-free
seasons were achieved under special circumstances, underscoring its difficulty
and exclusivity. However, with the
combination of his swing mechanics and ability to consistently avoid the
twin-kill coupled with the Cardinals proclivity to bat the slugger leadoff,
Carpenter has the potential to put together another double play-free campaign
and be the first hitter to accomplish the rare feat twice.
----by John Tuberty
Follow non-salsa-fueled blog on Twitter @BloggerTubbs
Sources: Baseball Reference, Baseball Reference Play Index, MLB, ESPN, Fangraphs, Retrosheet, Roger Dean Stadium TV Adam Wainwright interview via You Tube, Alex Rodriguez/Matt Carpenter ESPN interview via YouTube
Photo
credit: Matt Carpenter 2016 Topps, Matt
Carpenter 2017 Topps BUNT, Matt Carpenter 2018 Topps Now
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