GIDP: The New Market Inefficiency

rembrat

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The Sox just finished killing another potential scoring opportunity by hitting into their league leading 16th double play. Let's talk about it. Talking helps.
 

Reverend

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DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Hitting into DPs is a small sample problem.  Having runners on every inning is good.  Sometimes, good shit happens.  There's a silver lining here.
 

rembrat

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David Ortiz finally gets on the board with his 1st DP of the year. The count is now at 17.
 
As of this moment, the only Sox hitters who have failed to ground into a double play are David Ross, Mike Carp, Xander Bogaerts, and Jonathan Herrera.
 

AbbyNoho

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Having so freaking many obviously has a good deal of bad luck associated with it, but I don't think they're all just random. AJ Pierzynski is tied for the lead league in HIDP. He makes contact, but it's consistently weak contact on the infield. I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, but it's not entirely randomness hurting the Sox. 
 

Mr Jums

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I like the way they think outside of the box. So many baseball teams get stuck in the rut of the grounder to a middle infielder style of double play. The strike out them 'em out variation is an inspired choice.
 

Reverend

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Coming into today's game, the Red Sox had 15 GiDP in 8 games. That projects to just over 303 GiDPs for a 162 game season. Granted, that has risen to about 326 walks through four this afternoon...
 
The American League record (held by your very own 1990 Boston Red Sox) is 174.
 
Clearly, we are doomed.
 

alwyn96

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Andrew said:
Having so freaking many obviously has a good deal of bad luck associated with it, but I don't think they're all just random. AJ Pierzynski is tied for the lead league in HIDP. He makes contact, but it's consistently weak contact on the infield. I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, but it's not entirely randomness hurting the Sox. 
 
Hit and run seems like the obvious thing. At least make it more of a challenge for the infielders. 
 

DJnVa

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Reading this thread is like bouncing into a DP. #goodjobgoodeffort
 

alwyn96

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ifmanis5 said:
Quintana, Brunansky & Greenwell: Masters of inefficiency.
 
Look at the bright side - they were extremely efficient at making outs. 
 

dbn

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They have a runner on 1st a lot.
 
They are only T8th in BB+HBP. However, despite currently being 2nd in the AL in hits, they are only 7th in doubles, 10th in HR, haven't yet hit a triple, and have only stolen 1 base.
 

mauidano

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rembrat said:
David Ortiz finally gets on the board with his 1st DP of the year. The count is now at 17.
 
As of this moment, the only Sox hitters who have failed to ground into a double play are David Ross, Mike Carp, Xander Bogaerts, and Jonathan Herrera.
Bench is pulling us down...guys need to step up.
 

Plympton91

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dbn said:
They have a runner on 1st a lot.
 
They are only T8th in BB+HBP. However, despite currently being 2nd in the AL in hits, they are only 7th in doubles, 10th in HR, haven't yet hit a triple, and have only stolen 1 base.
 
The Wade Boggs to Jim Rice effect.
 
Would this be an inappropriate time to bring up that Ellsbury is hitting .414 with 4 steals?  
 

TheYaz67

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Clearly the problem is they got rid of low GIDP guys Drew (9 last year) and Ellsbury (12) and Salty (7), and kept guys like Papi (21) and Pedroia (24 last year.... ;-)
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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TheYaz67 said:
Clearly the problem is they got rid of low GIDP guys Drew (9 last year) and Ellsbury (12) and Salty (7), and kept guys like Papi (21) and Pedroia (24 last year.... ;-)
 
Funny, AJ only grounded into 14 DPs last year; this year he is on pace for like 50 (although he did have 28 GIDP in 2004).
 
Napoli and AJ are on pace to shatter the record set by Jim Ed (36); Pedroia and JBJ currently on pace to contend in that category.
 
Red Sox season pace down to 270.
 

Rasputin

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terrisus said:
 
 
Well, hey - they did make the playoffs that year :p
 
Wasn't that the year of the teenage mutant ninja turtle shoelaces, or was that 1988? We shoulda known then he was a chickenshit quisling sonofabitch.
 

JoePoulson

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Yea, it was 1990, and he also wore eye black that game. The Sox were then promptly swept out of the playoffs.
 

caminante11

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Poulsonator said:
Yea, it was 1990, and he also wore eye black that game. The Sox were then promptly swept out of the playoffs.
 
Not without grounding into 3 more double plays.  But they were able to get the A's to hit into 4 double plays, so the link between hitting into double plays and losing is not ironclad.
 

smastroyin

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I realize you guys mean this stuff as a joke, but just for ha-ha's, here is a chart of each AL team's 2013 GOP normalized rate (X-axis) plotted against Run and Win normalized rate.  For each of these data sets, 1 = league average.  In 2013, league averages were 81 wins (duh), 4.33 R/G, and .77 GDP/G.  You can see there is basically no correlation between GDPs and runs scored, nor GDPs and Winning.  Oakland for instance won 96 games while having a better than average 0.87 GDP rate, while the Sox won 97 (1.2 rate) while having a below average 1.10 GDP rate.  
 

 
 
Less pretty version but with trendlines.  You can see that each variable trends up with increased GDP.
 

 
Also:
Pearson correlation of R/G and GDP Rate = 0.322
P-Value = 0.242
 
Not statistically significant, but a positive correlation, aka more GDP = more R/G.
 

Pearson correlation of Win Rate and GDP Rate = 0.262
P-Value = 0.346
 
Again, positive but not significant correlation.
 
Even with a small data set, though, we can show pretty convincingly that OPS correlates to runs, and this is why it is still very useful at a team level despite all of the attempts to refine it.
 

Pearson correlation of R/G and OPS = 0.971
P-Value = 0.000


 
 
Understanding that 2013 doesn't represent the entire history of baseball, of course, I would generally expect the general conclusions here to remain valid.  Of course, the counterargument to all of this is that the Sox are currently hitting into 1.7 GDP per game, which would be equivalent to a 2.21 normalized rate on my chart, in other words, completely off the chart.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Reverend said:
The American League record (held by your very own 1990 Boston Red Sox) is 174.
 
28 GDPs in 26 games means we are on pace to challenge this.
 
As of yesterday, though, the Red Sox were second in GDP/game.  Texas was number 1.
 

Bone Chips

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That 1990 team is going to be tough to beat. They had it down to a science. They hit into two triple plays in the same game, a record that I believe still stands. And both were 5-4-3. I honestly thought for sure I was watching a replay. And the very next game they hit into a record 6 double plays - 5 in the first 5 innings. Another record that still stands.

But they won both games.
 

wolfe_boston

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The Sox are slow.  Here are run grades, on an 80 scale, from Lindy's Sports:
 
Victorino      60
Pedroia        50
Ortiz             20
Napoli          20
Nava            40
AJP              20
WMB            40
JBJ               55
Gomes         35
Sizemore      ?
 
X wasn't graded but I assume he would be average(50).  There only two left-handers with average or better speed, JBJ and Grady, that should hit into minimal DPs.
 
Combined with its likely high OBP this line-up could set an all-time record.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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In addition to lack of speed generally (getting down the line or turning doubles into singles), lack of base stealing ability possibly is a culprit. From 4th last year to, currently, 26th. (And caught stealing percentage has gone from first to 29th.). I know there is a decent debate about the value of stolen bases, but with the team two to three fewer a week one might expect more GIDP opportunities.
 

jscola85

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wolfe_boston said:
The Sox are slow.  Here are run grades, on an 80 scale, from Lindy's Sports:
 
Victorino      60
Pedroia        50
Ortiz             20
Napoli          20
Nava            40
AJP              20
WMB            40
JBJ               55
Gomes         35
Sizemore      ?
 
X wasn't graded but I assume he would be average(50).  There only two left-handers with average or better speed, JBJ and Grady, that should hit into minimal DPs.
 
Combined with its likely high OBP this line-up could set an all-time record.
 
Our only saving grace is a middling GB rate at 45%, good for 17th in the league.