Why so many double plays!

[dcs]

What is going on with the Astros hitting into so many double plays?  There has to be some strategy to over come this.  I am thinking one way is to be way more aggressive and not get into that situation in the first place by stealing second and eliminating the double play.  

It seems to me, every time we get a guy on first the next batter get an infield hit right to the short stop or second base and there you go double play.

[ɮօʀȶǟʐ]

That's exactly it. They need to work on the running game, get players in motion.

[Deleted]

Also when the shift is in play do what Bregman did and hit opposite the shift. Even slow grounders will go through the shift or break up the double play ball.

[m240]

we have lost some of the plate discipline that we had last year.  This year we seem to be swinging at stuff outside the zone and trying to pull the away stuff much more than I remember from last year.  

[Saint]

We're not running much this year. Even before the injury Altuve wasn't running much, and Kemp has basically stopped as well.

[astrosdoug]

For one thing, the Astros are not a terribly fast team. A lot of average and slightly above-average runners, but really only Marisnick and Fisher are spectacular in terms of speed. And oftentimes, neither of them is on the active roster.

Beyond them, the only players I'd trust to steal bases regularly are Altuve, Correa, and Bregman. (Don't be fooled by Kemp; his sprint speed is not much above average.) Average sprint speed in the MLB this year is right around 27 ft/sec and those 3 guys are all above average... I tend to find that if a player steals a lot of bases, his sprint speed is 28 ft/sec or higher. Of course there are other aspects to successful stealing than just pure speed... you have to be able to read the pitch to some extent, understand the pitcher's windup, etc etc, but pure speed sure does help.

Early in the season, the Astros were measurably hitting into more GIDP than would normally be expected. It was about 13% of the time in situations where a GIDP was possible, compared with only 11% for the league average. However since the ASB it seems the rate hasn't been that high. I haven't searched the stat sheets to see exactly what the Astros' GIDP% since the ASB is, but on the surface they don't seem to be GIDP'ing any more than the average team does.

[dcs]

Aug 20, 2018 9:03:30 GMT -6 @inluhnowwetrust said:

Also when the shift is in play do what Bregman did and hit opposite the shift. Even slow grounders will go through the shift or break up the double play ball.

That was a great at bat!  Yep, keep putting that shift on.