So far this season, Chone Figgins has bounced into 14 double plays, which is five more than his previous career high.
"Well all right," you say, "but he's batting second, instead of his familiar leadoff, so he's coming to the plate more often with guys on base. So of course he's hitting into more double plays."
Good counter. So how about this? So far this season, Chone Figgins has bounced into 14 double plays in 106 potential double play opportunities, for a rate of one DP per 7.6 chances.
For his career up until this season, Chone Figgins had bounced into 45 double plays in 661 potential double play opportunities, for a rate of one DP per 14.7 chances.
Don't take this as me suggesting that I think Chone Figgins has gotten slower. I don't. And it's entirely possible that there's not actually anything here, and we're just dealing with statistical happenstance due to a limited sample size. But, man, batting Figgins behind Ichiro has really not at all worked out like we planned.