The Doubles Record

As I was writing my Carlos Beltran post yesterday, I started looking up all-time doubles leaders and their history. I think doubles are great. You don't need to have blazing speed or superhuman strength to be a doubles champion; one year its Dustin Pedroia, one year its Brian Roberts, the next its Miguel Cabrera or Paul Goldschmidt. Doubles are some of the most well struck balls; even Big Papi can just miss a waist high fastball and still muscle it over the wall. Doubles, though, are pure contact, they are laced down the line and carom into the corners of the park or they are sent soaring into the gap on a relaxing two hopper to the wall. Doubles are beautifully hit baseballs, it is incredibly rare to see a mistake double, but at the same time a hitter holds his own fate if he wants to test the outfielder and take the chance at second base. 

John McCain loves America and doubles. So you have to, too.

Excuse the gushing over doubles. They're just real neat.

Tristram E. Speaker, The Grey Eagle, also known as Tris to everyone else, is the career doubles champion with 792. Speaker played 22 seasons for primarily Boston and Cleveland, but also had single season stints with the nation's capital and the City of Brotherly Love to round out his career. Speaker was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, with those 792 doubles, 3,514 hits, a .345 batting average (just check out his 1916 season, it was pretty great), and career .500 slugging percentage (even though he only has 117 home runs, you gotta love the Dead Ball Era). 

But here's what I'm going to determine with this blog. The doubles record seems like its certainly attainable compared to DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, Ripken's Iron Man streak, Young's 511 wins, etc. That's why I think it will be broken in my lifetime - who will do it is a big question but I am confident it will be done. Whether it is an active player today or someone to be a star in the future I don't know, but what I do know is that like the 1910s and 20s when Speaker played, baseball is becoming a hitter's game again, unlike the cruel post WWII era of Koufax, Gibson, Ford, Spahn, Marichal, etc. 

Let's do some math first. Speaker's 792 doubles across 22 seasons equals exactly 36 doubles a season. Hitters nowadays are rarely hitting for 22 seasons at that high of a level, so let's adjust it to 17 seasons: that comes to approximately 46.5 (round up to 47) doubles a season. But that's if someone were to come into the league starting next year, we haven't taken into account the active players. Here are my top projections to take over the doubles crown:

1. Miguel Cabrera
Cabrera has led the league in doubles in his career in 2011 and in 2014. His career high of 52 came this past year in 2014 despite playing through such intense pain that he needed pins in his ankle after the season was over - can you imagine how many more he could get if he weren't hitting on one leg? His bionic abilities are neither here nor there, what's important is that he has 464 career doubles after his age 31 season. Next year he'll turn 32 shortly after Opening Day and is already a full season ahead of Speaker's 395 doubles after his own age 31 season. I think if these surgeries have paid off for Miggy and the Tigers can sign VMart to protect him in the cleanup spot in the future, we could see many more 50 doubles seasons in the future. 

Now, back to the math: Cabrera has to hit 328 doubles to tie Speaker. If he can muster 7 more full seasons (he'll switch to DH eventually) of high caliber doubles baseball, he'll need to average 47 doubles a year to catch him. If he has another year like 2013 (only 28 doubles), it will be distinctly more difficult. Beginning at age 32, Speaker had consecutive seasons ripping 50-52-48-59 doubles. That's what got him to be the doubles champion, not just playing for a long time. Cabrera will have to mimic that to get a higher career total than he.

2. Robinson Cano
Cano has never led the league in doubles (yet) but he has been one of the most consistent doubles hitters in the league during his career. His rookie year brought 34 doubles and his 2014 campaign brought 37 - that's impressive in itself but what's even more impressive is that he's reached his career high 48 doubles on two separate occasions 3 years apart (2009, 2012). Since 2007, Cano has not missed more than 5 games in a season so he has both durability and a highly consistent 44 doubles per 162 games average working in his favor. He is a few months older than Cabrera so that may present an issue but considering his sturdy type of play, I doubt that will play much of a factor - most teams wouldn't mind Cano as a DH in the future. 

Where he plays is probably his biggest advantage but also the worst thing for him. Safeco Field is an absolutely huge field with spacious power alleys and deep foul poles. Prior to being a Mariner, Cano was in the bandox that was Yankee Stadium. Nearly any fly ball he hit there turned into a home run while many of those same fly balls were either doubles or long outs at Safeco Field. Cano's average held steady at .314, no change from 2013 and only one point higher than 2012, so it's evident that many of his hits are still falling but they're falling on the green side of the fence rather than in the stands - his power was just about cut in half in 2014. He hit 14 home runs in '14, compared to 27 in 2013 at the tiny Yankee Stadium, his lowest total since 2008 when he was 25. Cano is still making excellent contact with the ball (lowest strikeout total since 2009), but just not collecting the power numbers as much - because of the park. He adjusted his swing path because he knew the home runs wouldn't come:

Spray charts are courtesy of FanGraphs. His last season as a Yankee (2013) is on top, his 2014 season is on bottom.

In 2014 as a Mariner, he hit more opposite field line drives than turning on the ball to tuck them into Yankee Stadium's short porch. His average was the same, his OBP was the same, but his slugging dropped. But his doubles hovered right around his career average. Interesting.

Cano has 412 career doubles through only 10 seasons (nearly twice Speaker's total in his first 10 seasons). He'll need to hit 380 doubles in 7 seasons to tie Speaker, which is 54 doubles a season. Considering he has never had a 50 double season, that is unlikely although I can see it happening. If he stays healthy and plays another 9 years to age 40, he'll need to average 42 doubles a season and since he's averaged 44 to this point, I would consider it a definite possibility.

I know Pujols is the active leader in doubles with 561. He's only 231 off of Speaker's record but Pujols has slowed down considerably since leaving St. Louis. His career average has dropped 11 points (.328 in St. Louis to .317 overall), his slugging percentage has plummeted from .617 in his Cardinals years to .588 career (and he's still the active leader!) and his doubles totals have been anemic in recent years (29 in 2011, 19 in 2013). He's shown signs of old Pujols, but not at the torrid pace that he used to hit at in the early 2000s when he was being snubbed of MVPs left and right by Barry Bonds.

Gun to my head, I'd think Cabrera has the best shot at beating the record simply because he has a head start on Cano. Cano is certainly more consistent and will have a longer career but he will have to play early into his 40s if he wants to beat it.

As always, I don't think these guys will care about the record if they all get rings. 
Any thoughts on who will beat the record, you know where the comment box is or you can give me a shout on Twitter. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed that John McCain gif.