Wednesday, September 14, 2005

So that's why we don't have rallies!

Baseball Prospectus analyzes the frequence with which a batter hits into double plays. Among BP's metrics is NET DP, which is the number of additional double plays a player generates versus an average player with the same number of opportunities. The lower the NET DP the better. To give you some context, Bobby Abreu leads the National League in the NET DP category with -12.11. Abreu has hit into only 5 double plays despite the fact that he's come up in 131 potential double play situations.

BP has statistics for 579 National League hitters. Only 48 of them have NET DP scores of 3.00 or higher. Unfortunately, five of those 38 are in the Nationals' starting lineup:





RankPlayerNET DP
532Marlon Byrd3.12
543Preston Wilson3.51
551Brian Schneider3.99
562Vinny Castilla4.85
569Jose Vidro5.34

And where does Cristian Guzman rank? He's at 478 with a NET DP of 1.16.

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