Why the best play in baseball is dying, and who can bring it back
By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer
The triple is the best play in baseball.
Most singles are but a momentary joy. Doubles are fun, but too many of them are of the stand-up variety. Home runs are majestic yet lack dramatic tension after a few seconds. Even the inside-the-park-home-run, one of the sport’s rarest birds, is too much of a circus act, too reliant on a yakety sax moment from the defense.
As Bob Odenkirk would say: "Triples makes it safe. Triples is best."
Angels outfielder Dexter Fowler is the active career leader in triples, with 82, and led the league with 14 back in 2010. A true champion of the three-bagger, currently sidelined with a torn ACL, Fowler spoke with FOX Sports about what makes the play so enjoyable to watch.
"The rarity and the excitement of it is so unique," the 14-year veteran said. "You see a guy rounding the bases at full speed going for three, he’s not jogging for a homer, he’s sprinting past second base, and it’s usually a close play."
Unfortunately, the triple is becoming an endangered species in today’s "three true outcomes" world of major-league baseball. As of Sept. 15, 35% of all plate appearances in 2021 have ended in a homer, a walk or a strikeout.
This isn’t rocket science: Fewer balls in play means fewer opportunities for triples.
But the shift in style has also led to a general reprioritization for teams across the league. Clubs now focus on acquiring, developing and rostering players with power in lieu of players with speed. That means fewer dudes across the league who can make highlight-reel catches in the outfield, fewer dudes who can swipe 40 bags a year and way, way fewer dudes who can leg out a triple.
This season, triples have occurred in 0.36% of all plate appearances, an all-time MLB low (discounting last year’s COVID-shortened season). And 2021 is no aberration; the six lowest triple rate seasons of all time have happened in the past decade. Since its modern-era peak at 0.72% of PAs in 1977, the triple has fallen steadily, from 0.53% in 1987 to 0.49% in 2007 all the way to 0.42% in 2017. And now this year’s shockingly low 0.36%.
Fowler’s spot atop the active triples leaderboard is proof of the overall decline. He has only one triple in the past four seasons and still holds a comfortable 11-triple lead over Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner.
"Yeah, I know no one has caught me [for most triples among active players], and I haven’t hit one in a long time," Fowler said.
The current MLB leader for the 2021 season is Arizona’s David Peralta, with eight. If he fails to notch two more, this will be the first time in modern MLB history that not a single player reaches double-digit three-baggers. It happened only once before, in 1872, when a guy named Charlie "The Bushel Basket" Gould led the National Association with eight for the Boston Red Stockings.
Now, I’m not one to shake my fist at modern baseball’s all-or-nothing style, but I could sure use a few more triples. Many have bemoaned the decline of the stolen base, another exhilarating baseball play centered around speed, but I fear that the triple, a much more compelling play, is just as endangered.
A good triple is symphonic, the hitter looping a ball down the line or into a gap as a conductor roars its players into life. The hitter-turned-runner then races around the bases like an orchestra gradually building its wall of sound before a grand crescendo, headfirst slide into third base.
But how do triples actually happen? Well, there are four ways. Sometimes they overlap.
1. There’s a fast guy
This is the best type of triple. A speedster pokes one into the gap and gets on his horse. Think peak Carl Crawford, think Shane Victorino, think Kenny Lofton, think Jimmy Rollins.
For more up-to-date news on all things MLB, click here to register for alerts on the FOX Sports app!
A great example of a fast-guy triple from the 2021 season is this Trea Turner three-bagger in which he pulls one down the left-field line (a triple rarity) and uses his second-fastest-in-MLB speed to zoom into third.
2. Bad defense
This is the silliest type of triple. Either the outfielders collide, or one outfielder lays out for a ball and misses it, or it takes the right fielder forever to pick the ball up in the corner, or some other version of defensive ineptitude occurs. For example, this super bizarre Curt Casali triple.
3. A weird carom
This one often gets combined with bad defense — or, at the very least, requires some not-good defense. Either the ball bounces off an oddly angled outfield wall, or it ricochets off a fence in foul territory, scoots into a weird area and catches the defense off-guard.
Usually, this is the only way for a slow-footed hitter to make it all the way to third. Here’s Astros catcher Martín Maldonado, the slowest hitter this year to hit a triple, benefiting from a wild carom.
4. Ballpark factors
Some ballparks are perfect for three-bagging. Because of the distance to third base, most triples are hit down the right-field line or to the right-center-field gap. Thus, the parks with deep dimensions to those spots are always more triple-friendly.
Coors Field has an enormous outfield because the ball carries so far there, which also makes it a triples paradise. Almost 50% of Fowler’s triples were at Coors, and he remembers the confines fondly.
"In Colorado, if the ball hit the wall, I knew I was going three," he said. "It was as simple as that. If it went to the wall, it was an automatic triple."
My favorite triple ever, courtesy of D-backs pitcher Archie Bradley in the 2017 wild-card game, was essentially just a fly ball to the deepest part of Chase Field. That’s not a triple in 28 other stadiums.
And of course, Oracle Park in San Francisco literally has a spot called triple’s alley in the right-center gap. That’s how someone such as Brandon Crawford (40 career steals) ends up with more career triples than José Altuve (260 career steals) in almost the exact same number of games.
What are the qualities for a triple threat?
Now that we know how and why triples happen, we can begin an investigation across baseball for a hero or two — someone who can reopen the flow of triples in this three-bag-less desert.
Here’s the criteria we’re looking for.
Speed
Being fast obviously helps. I don’t really need to explain this one.
Left-handed hitter or switch hitter
No right-handed hitter has led the league in triples outright since Jim Rice in 1977. That’s more than 40 years of lefty or switch-hitting dominance. Hitting from the left side helps in two ways. The first is that lefty hitters start marginally closer to first base out of the batter's box.
But the bigger reason is that most triples come from balls hit to right field, due to its extreme distance to third base. Longer distance equals a longer throw equals more time for the runner to arrive safely. And because most hitters are pull hitters, lefties who can yank a ball down the line are more triple-friendly than righties trying to poke one to the opposite field.
Good triples ballpark or at least good triples division
We’ve established how monumental the ballpark is in triple-creation. Any great triples hitter has to play in one of the great triples parks (the top tier is San Francisco, Arizona, Colorado, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami and maybe Wrigley or Philly) or at least a good triples division (NL West or AL Central).
Who could save us?
Jazz Chisholm Jr., Miami Marlins
The supersonic highlight reel Bahamian has only four triples in his first full MLB season, but if you take a deeper look, he might be just the guy. The lefty ranks in the 94th percentile for sprint speed and plays in a favorable park in Miami. But most importantly, he’s a gamer, a hustler, the type of guy who actually wants to hit triples.
If you’ve watched Jazz play for two seconds, you know he’s an unforgettable gif waiting to happen. He plays with his hair on fire, and anytime he puts a ball in the gap, he’s got third base on his mind. That’s the type of Triples Hero we need.
Akil Baddoo, Detroit Tigers
Baddoo is second in the bigs this season with seven triples — not eye-popping but a solid debut effort. Baddoo has great Triple Hero potential. He’s in the 91st percentile for sprint speed, he’s a lefty swinger, and he plays in Comerica Park, which Statcast ranks as the best triples yard in the bigs. It’d be great if Baddoo struck out a little less, but he’s only 23 and has all the makings of a three-bag hero.
Jake Cronenworth, San Diego Padres
San Diego is a tough place to hit triples, but San Francisco, Arizona and Colorado are all great for it and are all in-division for the Crone Zone. He also has 85th-percentile speed and some very pull-happy tendencies, which, considering the weird right-field corner in San Diego, could lead to some good tripplage. Too bad he’s already 27 and is only going to get slower.
Corbin Carroll and Alek Thomas, Arizona Diamondbacks (minor leagues)
Neither of these guys has made the big leagues yet, but sometimes you need to dig deep to find hope for the future. Both are lefty hitters with good-to-great speed who are likely to play a significant part of their MLB careers in the cacophonous confines of Chase Field.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this trip through the world of the triple. It’s a magnificent thing to watch, a true baseball delight sadly on the decline. Perhaps the play's ever-increasing rarity has just made it even more enjoyable to see, a white whale in the wild.
Either way, the next time you go to your local ballyard and a hitter rips one down the right-field line, may you stand and cheer for the eventual slide into third.
Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.