Napoli, Mathis, and the Incredible Missing GIDPs
by mattwelch on Mar 9, 2010 7:11 PM PST
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PrintSo the other day I was pondering the Angels' strong advantage with the double play -- last year the team led all of baseball in turning 174 double plays, while grounding into just 128, or the 4th-fewest in the American League (despite producing a crapload of baserunners). This took me to a rather remarkable little factoid: Do you know how many double plays Jeff Mathis has grounded into, during his 5-year career?
Six.
Which is also weird because I already knew that Mike Napoli, like many of the players he most closely resembles (Tom Haller, Ed Bailey, Duke Sims), doesn't ground into any double plays -- just 16 in 1096 ABs (for reference, 43 major leaguers grounded into more than that just last year). In fact, if you add up the careers of Mathis and Napoli, you get fewer GIDPs (22), than sacrifice flies (25), over 1845 ABs. How rare is that?
This rare -- only three players in Major League history with 20 of each have had more sacrifice flies than double plays. They are: Darren Daulton, Gary Redus, and Don Buford. Two very fast sonsabitches, and one Napoli-type catcher.
What does it all mean? Besides "not much, honestly" it means that the Angels were last in all of baseball in GIDPs from the catcher position in 2009 and 2008 (with a miniscule 5 both years), 3rd-to-last in 2007 (12), and again last in 2006 (8). Bengie Molina has grounded into more than twice as many double plays the past four years than 648 games' worth of Angel catchers combined. During that time, we've averaged from the position 26 doubles, 22 homers, 73 runs, 75 RBIs, and 59 walks per year. With Napoli 28 years old and Mathis 27, they should be in or entering their offensive prime.
Tell me again why I should be upset about our two-catchers situation?
This Fan-Post is authored by an independent fan. Tell us what you think and how you feel.
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Naps gets laid not ground in to double plays
The only double play he hits into is in bed
Oh ya
FATHER OF A WONDERFUL SON VLADIMIR
Sorry not named after Guerrero...but would be cool
Do you have your own personal Interwebs?
Tubes all full of GIDP factoids? Man you love posting about them.
Mathis doesn’t have many because he makes no contact with the ball. He has one swing that hits in one area of the K zone. As for Nap’s who knows. Maybe lack of AB’s might be the issue. We all know how much Soth likes him in the starting lineup.
Baseball Reference is your friend
Napoli makes sense — extreme flyball hitter who strikes out and walks a lot. These types historically do not hit into double plays.
But strikeouts aren’t enough to explain Mathis: Evan Longoria struck out 140 times last year, and led the league in GIDP. Five other guys had +20 GIDP with +100 strikeouts. I’m guessing that Mathis is asked to bunt a lot, and maybe he’s more of a flyball hitter than it seems (haven’t looked it up). Still, that number is crazy-low.
asked to bunt, and ...
don’t make contact, and can’t hit the ball hard enough to evoke the double-play, plus them soft pop ups.
crazy-low
I picture you in a tie-dye shirt. And always, Mahalo for the facts Jack Matt.
Another mind-blowing post by Welch
1. I regurgitate the stuff I learn from your post so much I probably owe you royalties. I’m like a mattwelch disciple, no joke.
2. Do you think the Angels coaching staff realizes this? GIDP must drive Soth up the wall. I can only imagine its at least partially the reason why we got rid of Vlad and signed Matsui. Or why Mathis gets as much playing time as he does.
3. Im curious how Mathis stacks up against other catchers in regards to runners left in scoring position. If I wasn’t on my way out the door for a pint I would go to BBref myself and check it out.
4. Thanks for the post!
Halos & Clips...must have something to do with the color red and jaded pasts...
by BryanHarvey'sMoustache on Mar 9, 2010 9:54 PM PST reply actions
Proof I lift Welch info and use it for myself directly...
Check out the comments section of the latest Jeff Miller article on Brandon Wood…
I apologize for not crediting you.
Halos & Clips...must have something to do with the color red and jaded pasts...
by BryanHarvey'sMoustache on Mar 9, 2010 9:58 PM PST up reply actions
For sure, Scioscia manages hard around the double play
I think the 2002 team might have had the fewest GIDP/opportunity ratio of the last decade, or at least close to it. And on defense, all you have to do is watch Kendry Morales to see how much the team coaches an aggressive DP-first mentality. That, plus pretty aggressive baserunning and some judicious use of the bunt.
Does it factor into their thinking about catchers? I doubt it; Sosh is pretty defense-oriented there. But I think it did factor into their Vlad/Matsui calculations.
Neato.
This sent me my beloved baseball-reference.com. Naps grounded into DP in 7% of chances, and Mathis only 4% (versus a league average of 11%). Those are some great numbers, and I hadn’t realized it.
GDP is “worse” than two normal outs, and our two-headed catching solution is looking more and more like a solution in search of a problem.
As a side note, the guy with the most GDP chances was Teixiera; he had only a 7% GDP rate. Nice!
Furthermore
none of catchers claim to be able to travel through time or speak to aliens.
Captain, there are doubt's...
The GIDP v SF ratio is an interesting find.
Though I’m not sure it argues so much in favor of the Mathis-Napoli platoon as it does argue simply for more Napoli overall.
Speaking to their combined production hides the fact that the majority of that production comes from Naps. His doubles, HR and XBH rates per plate appearance simply dwarf those of Mathis.
Napoli v Mathis
2B/PA: 4.3% vs 3.5%
HR/PA: 5.2% vs 2.3%
XBH/PA: 9.8% vs 5.8%
There’s nothing in those numbers that argues for roughly equal playing time between the two (not that Matt’s arguing for that), but over the past three years, Napoli has 969 PA to Mathis’ 795. I’d much rather see the more exaggerated split that we saw while the Molina bros were here — with Napoli, like Bengie, taking the lion’s share of plate appearances.
Again, it’s interesting that Mathis has nine sac flies to six GIDPs over the past three years, but’s it’s more interesting to me that Napoli has 14 sac flies to 14 GIDPs over the same time span. It means that his power ultimately compensates for any lack of speed overall, meanwhile his offensive contribution is double that of Mathis.
Before I feel completely sanguine about our catching situation, I’d like to see an analysis — and one that doesn’t use a flawed metric like CERA — to confirm that Mathis’ defensive contribution compensates for his offensive penalty to the team. Matt’s analysis is fun, but it doesn’t do that. Until then, I’m waiting for the day I can see Kid Conger and Naps doing double duty behind the plate.
The four arguments I see in favor of the status quo are:
1) Fresh legs no matter what come the fall. Would be interesting to chart month-by-month production from the position, and compare it to other teams.
2) It’s allowed us to develop two ML-quality catchers simultaneously, which is A) not easy (see the Joe Ferguson/Steve Yeager situation, which this has always reminded me of, and yet B) is valuable, in that this is arguably the hardest position on the diamond to fill.
3) Weird Scioscia-catcher juju that we can’t begin to understand, and maybe should respect.
And 4) Hey, a little competition is a good thing, right?
All that said, I sure do wish Mathis got no more than 200 ABs a year, barring Napoli injury.
I believe the ideal situation moving forward
Is Napoli as the primary DH and emergency catcher, Conger as the primary catcher, and Mathis as the main backup.
"You gotta have nuts." - Torii Hunter / Part-Time Nemesis of the HH Reply Function
Pujols as the DH
Napoli as the centerpiece to get Mauer and McCann as the main backup.
I brought sexy back, but they only gave me store credit....
I can see that happen
FATHER OF A WONDERFUL SON VLADIMIR
Sorry not named after Guerrero...but would be cool
I wonder if when they bat, there are rarely runners on first base?
Maybe that is why they have fewer GIDP’s?
I love this team.
That's my guess.
It just seems too curious that this sort of result would require close to the same number of the same situations among all hitters to be a meaningful differentiator. And, even if the reference material is searchable and can prove that Mathis/Naps bat with a runner in a force situation the same percentage of time, what will NOT be in those databases is how often runners were breaking on the pitch, or how many times an infield out/hit was the result of a bunt.
I dunno. There seems to be something missing and I agree that it probably the obvious thing.
"God watches over drunks and third baseman." - the Immortal Leo Durocher, predicting the coming of Brandon Wood...
Isn't Vlad the only player on our team to hit into a double play the past two seasons?
Sure seems like it…..
No, but seriously, I like the analysis. I have a man-crush on Naps, so anything that makes him sound like a good player I will stand behind.
RIP NA
Juan Rivera led Vladimir Guerrero 19-16 in GIDP in 2009
Wonderful Juan has a 162 game average of 20 GIDP per season. Rivera’s 19 GIDP in 2009 was his career high. Vladimir Guerero has a 162 game average of 21 GIDP per season. Vladimir’s career high was 27 GIDP in 2008. Vlad also had 24 GIDP in 2001 with the Expos. Good news: in 2009 Hideki Matsui only had 4 GIDP. Godzilla had 25 GIDP in 2003, his rookie MLB season. Matsui’s 162 game average is 14 GIDP per season.
OK, something doesn't make sense.
Wonderful Juan has a 162 game average of 20 GIDP per season. Rivera’s 19 GIDP in 2009 was his career high
If his career high is 19, how the heck could he average 20?
Angels baseball. We do what we must, because we can -- HaloDutch
Juan Rivera played in 138 games in 2009
Rivera had 19 GIDP in 138 games in 2009. That is one GIDP per 7.27 games. If Rivera had played 24 more games in 2009 he would have hit another 3.3 GIDP. That would have given Rivera 22.3 GIDP in 2009 over 162 games. Okay, round it down to 22 GIDP in 2009 for Juan.
In Juan Rivera’s career he has played in 693 regular season games. Dividing by 162 gives Juan 4.28 seasons. Rivera has 86 lifetime GIDP. Divide that by 4.28 and the result is just above an average of 20 GIDP per 162 games played. Double check. Do the math!
They don’t call me Stats for nothing! My Geography Statistics course at the University of Hawaii at Manoa was taught by Professor Woody “Drifty” Pitts, an alumnus of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. I probably picked up my drifty habit of going off on tangents from Professor Pitts. A classmate of Professor Pitts at the U of Michigan owned a map store on Main Street between Katella and Orangewood in Orange. That store had a going out of business sale in late 1985. I purchased maps for Nepal and India in that sale.
India. I have visited India 21 times. Currently I am reading “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. It is about the Bombay underworld. It is fun reading about places you have been to. Earlier this year I read three books by Cormac McCarthy (“The Road,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “Suttree.”). I most recently reread Joseph Conrad’s “Nostromo.” When I read David McCullouch’s “The Path Between the Seas” which describes the digging of the Panama Canal there was a reference to “Nostromo” partially being about Panama. “Nostromo” takes place in the fictional Costaguana (a name that combines Costa Rica with Guyana). “Nostromo” has references to snow capped mountains that suggests Chile. Yes, I was reading about the San Tome silver mine in “Nostromo” when the recent Chilean earthquake temporarily closed nearby Andean silver mines. One drawback with “Nostromo” is that it is NOT narrated by Marlowe, the greatest seafaring narrator of all time (refer to Conrad’s “Lord Jim” to get a story told by Marlowe). After the 8.8 earthquake in Chile my antenna were up for Hilo Bay. I went to the University of Hawaii at Hilo in the fall of 1977. There is a park along the waterfront that was previously filled with shops and houses washed away by a tsunami in 1946. In the Hilo Tsunami Museum there is a photo of a man on a pier running towards shore with a tsunami wave about to crash onto the pier. The man did not make it ashore alive. The interval time for the wavelength of a 500 mph tsunami wave is 1,000 seconds (16 minutes 40 seconds) between crests.
I buy CDs from Amazon.com a dozen or more per artist. After Thanksgiving I was listening to Tangerine Dream, at the beginning of the year I switched to Van Morrison, and now I am listening to Bob Dylan. I pop a six-pack of CDs in the car every ten days or so. Is that drifty enough for you?
He just struck out looking at an Eephus pitch!
Roger says this is Jason LaRue. He knows his baseball cards better than I do!
I read an article this morning that said Mike Napoli had four home runs in six spring training games and was on a pace for 108 home runs over 162 games. I recall one season (1964) Willie Mays began the year with four home runs in the Giants first four games. Sportswriters with nothing better to do wrote that Mays was on a pace to hit 162 home runs over 162 games. Barry Bonds takes the cake. In 2002 (I know the year. I was at the opening day Giants @ Dodgers game) Bonds hit two home runs in each of the Giants first two games. With four home runs in two games Barry was on pace for 324 home runs in 162 games. In the best season Bonds ever had (73 home runs in 2001) he only reached 22.5% of that 324 total. Yes, in 1964 Willie Mays hit two home runs (both off of Warren Spahn) on opening day to also reach the 324 home runs in 162 games projection. No doubt several other players have hit two home runs on opening day. Only Barry Bonds was on the 324 home run pace after two games had been played. Special mention should go to Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes. Rhodes hit three home runs on opening day in 1994 off of Dwight Gooden. That put Rhodes on pace for 486 home runs over 162 games. After two games Bonds 2002 projection was 324 home runs to Rhodes 1994 projection of 243 home runs. Rhodes finished with 13 career home runs. Tuffy Rhodes gets his name mentioned in the same paragraph with Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. No, not everyone with the last name Rhodes has the nickname Dusty.
Good info...
You know frankly, I wasn’t sure who that was. I simply don’t folow the NL, especially enough to know who that was.
It was just one of those photos that both scares you and makes you wonder WTF?! He does need a new cup size at the very least, or…. well I dunno.
But you do quote some interesting facts. I wish I was more of a stathead to appreciate it all.
they are both HOT
giggles with the cute girl authority bestowed upon me by me.
Stats? we don’t need no stinkin stats with looks like that!
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