Jeff Hanisch-USa As we speak Sports activities
Simply over a yr in the past, the Brewers made one of the best form of baseball historical past: bizarre baseball historical past. On Could 31, 2024, they hosted the White Sox in Milwaukee, shellacking them 12-5. That half wasn’t bizarre. It’s arduous to think about something much less bizarre than the 2024 White Sox dropping a baseball recreation (until it’s the 2025 Rockies dropping a baseball recreation). The bizarre half was how the Brewers beat the White Sox. They put up 23 hits, and 16 of these hits got here on groundballs. That’s probably the most groundball base hits ever recorded for the reason that pitch monitoring period started in 2008. Would you wish to see all of them? After all you’d.
That’s what a report appears to be like like. Groundball after groundball discovering the assorted nooks and crannies that made the 2024 White Sox protection so just like an English muffin. We’ve been ready till this recreation’s anniversary to put in writing about it. In response to Baseball Savant, since 2008, just one different staff has surpassed 12 groundball base hits in a single recreation. The White Sox tallied 15 towards the Tigers on September 14, 2017. And that’s it. That’s the one staff that got here inside three groundball hits of Milwaukee. First, let’s speak about how the Brewers pulled off this feat of worm-burning ingenuity.
As with all report, a good bit of luck was concerned. Balls took loopy hops off the mound and the primary base bag. The Brewers hit a superbly positioned chopper and despatched a ball hugging the third bottom line on a test swing. They wouldn’t have damaged the report if any a kind of balls had bounced one other manner. However because the saying goes, luck is the residue of design, and there was loads of design concerned right here too.
For starters, the 2024 Brewers offense was designed to rack up low-launch-angle hits. They featured younger speed-over-power guys like Brice Take, Sal Frelickand Joey Ortizand the staff led the league by a mile with 19.7 baserunning runs above common. Even the Brewers’ energy hitters aren’t energy lifters. We’ve been writing about Christian Yelich’s launch angle just about since he appeared within the huge leagues, and the Brewers have largely let him do his low-altitude factor. Since 2021, 109 gamers have taken no less than 2,000 plate appearances. Yelich’s 3.3-degree launch angle is the bottom. Catcher William Contreras’ 5.7-degree mark is third lowest.
In 2024, the Brewers had been nice at reaching base on choppersand so they had been nice at hitting the ball proper again up the center. That they had the fourth-highest groundball fee and the third-lowest launch angle within the league. Despite the fact that a excessive stroll fee and reasonable strikeout fee meant they ranked twentieth in balls in play, they nonetheless led the league with 511 groundball hits. As a result of they beloved low line drives too, in addition they led the league with 715 base hits that traveled lower than 201 toes. Through the recreation in query, Yelich led the way in which with 4 groundball hits, together with two doubles. Contreras and Turang had been behind him with three, and Blake Perkins chipped in two. All of that is to say that it makes an entire lot of sense that the Brewers had been those to set this explicit report.
On the opposite facet of the sector, the White Sox protection was designed to surrender base hits. Their -87 defensive runs saved had been the worst in baseball in 2024, and the thirteenth worst since Sports activities Data Options began calculating the stat in 2002. Over the course of the entire season, the infield wasn’t essentially the primary wrongdoer, operating a -12 DRS that ranked sixth worst within the recreation. However on the day in query, they fielded one in all their worst defensive infields. Chicago’s 4 infielders from that day mixed for -11 DRS at their respective positions, though none of them spent a lot as half a season at these positions.
Could 31, 2024 White Sox Infield
The one factor that wasn’t stacked in favor of groundballs was the pitching. Nearly-submariner Tim Hill’s complete recreation is predicated round inducing grounders, however he threw only one third of an inning, throughout which he allowed two groundball hits. (As you’ll see later, the one out that he received was a groundball that simply barely missed going for a success.) Starter Erick Fedde and reliever Michael Soroka each ran middle-of-the-pack groundball charges in 2024. The pleasant John Brebbia someway allowed 4 groundball hits in a 3rd of an inning. That will be bonkers sufficient by itself, however two of them had been on excessive fastballs. Over the course of the season, Brebbia ran a 30% groundball fee, which ranked 462nd out of the 474 pitchers with no less than 30 innings pitched! This was really an improbably sequence. Jared Shusterwho ranked 412, allowed the ultimate hit. Seems the Brewers may flip any pitcher right into a groundball pitcher.
So right here’s the plain query: On Could 31 of final yr, the Brewers notched probably the most groundball hits of the pitch monitoring period. However did they notch probably the most groundball hits of all time? The straightforward reply is possibly. The marginally much less simple reply might be not. The reply that’s only a bit simpler than that’s that we’ll by no means be certain. All of those solutions are true, however we are able to nonetheless do some investigating.
Sports activities Data Options has its personal batted ball knowledge that predates Statcast and PITCHf/x. Mark Simon, editorial content material operations lead at SIS, was in a position to have a look at the years 2004 to 2007, and he confirmed that no staff was credited with greater than 12 groundball hits in a single recreation over that interval. We’ve added three extra years of knowledge, so we are able to now say that the Brewers’ report stretches again by the final 22 seasons, or 17.6% of recent baseball historical past. After that, we enterprise into guesswork and chance.
A bunch of historic components are working towards Milwaukee’s possibilities at holding an all-time report. The additional again you return, the extra seemingly a recreation like this appears. Baseball has been trending towards extra strikeouts, extra energy, and better launch angles for the reason that time of Babe Ruth. In the event you return to 1910, when there have been heaps extra balls in play, with extra of these being grounders, and when the fielding was worse, getting 16 groundball hits doesn’t sound all that not possible.
Then once more, the ball was once softer, the grass was once longer, and customarily talking, the gamers weren’t as fantastically yoked as they’re right now. All of this could end in slower groundballs, giving fielders extra time to get to them. Though league-wide BABIP has been trending down for the reason that highs of the mid-Nineteen Nineties, it’s nonetheless greater than it’s been at any time for the reason that early Forties. As Mike Petriello reminded us not too long agothe easiest way to rack up groundball hits is to blast the ball by the infield as arduous as Aaron Decide does. Perhaps it’s not that a lot more durable to place a ball by the infield now than it was manner again when.
Within the historical past of the pitch monitoring period, 46.9% of singles and 33.5% of all hits have been grounders. Clearly, one recreation is a tiny pattern dimension during which something can occur, however in keeping with these percentages, a median staff would wish to notch 30 singles or 48 complete hits to be able to find yourself with 16 groundball hits. No staff has ever come near reaching both complete in a nine-inning recreation. Taking part in the Blue Jays on August 28, 1992, the Brewers set the report for many singles in a nine-inning recreation with 26. Additionally they tied the 1901 New York Giants with 31 complete hits. The web comprises three units of highlights from that recreation, and so they mix to indicate 13 of the staff’s hits. They’re within the video beneath. Solely three of these 13 hits had been groundballs, which means that to be able to even tie the 2024 Brewers, 13 of the remaining 18 hits must have been hit on the bottom. There’s simply no manner that occurred.
Have in mind, that’s probably the most hits ever recorded in a nine-inning recreation, and it was performed on quick turf, and we are able to nonetheless say with close to certainty that it didn’t even come near having 16 groundball hits. We will additionally say that for sure about different latest video games that featured tons of hits. On July 22, 2022, the Blue Jays tied for fifth all time with 29 hits towards the Purple Sox in a 28-5 win. Solely 9 of their 29 hits had been grounders. On June 24, 2023, the Angels had 28 hits towards the Rockies, with eight of them on grounders. Clearly, it’s not simply {that a} staff wants lots of hits. In all, 24 groups have reached 25 hits in a single recreation in the course of the pitch monitoring period, and none of them have matched the Brewers.
The Brewers wanted simply 23 hits to get their 16 groundball hits, however as we’ve established, they had been a particular staff, designed to hit lots of grounders and to beat them out for hits. They hit 30 complete groundballs within the recreation, a feat that’s occurred simply 13 instances since 2008. Presumably that form of staff was rather more widespread in earlier, less-powerful variations of the sport, so one of the best we are able to do is to make use of the Stathead database to see what number of video games would have no less than given a staff an opportunity at 16 groundball hits.
Since 1901, 350 groups have put up no less than 23 hits in a nine-inning recreation. As a result of we all know no person has matched the Brewers since 2004, we are able to eradicate these years, decreasing our listing of 23-hit video games to simply 269. If we additional cut back our listing by mandating that no less than 14 of the hits got here on singles – the identical because the Brewers had towards the White Sox, since extra-base hits are more likely to come back on fly balls and line drives – the listing will get shortened to 239. In fashionable baseball historical past, there have been 239 video games during which it appears conceivable {that a} staff may’ve executed what the Brewers did. That’s the closest we’ll get to a solution, however earlier than we go, there’s yet one more factor you’ll want to see.
Truly, there are 4 extra issues you’ll want to see. Check out these performs, all of which came about in the course of the Brewers’ probably historic recreation on Could 31.
That’s proper, all 4 of those groundballs had been a razor’s-width from ending up as base hits too. Three of them bounced off any person’s glove earlier than being picked up and was an out! That is how shut the Brewers got here.
These 4 outs may have simply ended up as 4 extra groundball base hits, which might have given the Brewers 4 extra outs to play with, which may have given them the possibility to rack up much more groundball base hits. We’ll by no means know for sure whether or not the pitch monitoring period report the Brewers maintain is definitely an all-time report. However no matter report they maintain, they positively earned it.
