Will The Hit By Pitch Keep Declining?

by RZ on Mar 19, 2010 7:30 AM EDT Comment 12 comments

While checking up on some baseball stats, I came across an interesting tidbit on James Shields. Shields hit 10 batters in 2007, 12 in 2008. and then only one all of last season. I then used the Play Index tool at Baseball Reference to try to find out if a pitcher has ever dropped the amount of hit batters as James Shields had. I got to the point where I saw the pitchers who threw at least 12 batters in a single season order by the year. In 2009, only two pitchers hit at least 12 batters. Compare that to 13 pitchers in 2008 and 15 pitchers in 2007.

I then looked up the Major League year by year totals for hit batters and found that the hit by pitched is on a downturn ever since it had a peak in 2001.

Hit_by_pitch_mlb_year_by_year_medium

I only found this worthwhile to write because I thought of the recent ejection and subsequent suspension of M's pitcher Cliff Lee and that is might possibly be related. So are pitchers avoiding going in on batters in fear of suspensions?

It is easy to think not. Then again, James Shields got into the infamous brawl with Coco Crisp at Fenway in '08 and was suspended. And as I mentioned early, the amount of batters he hit then dropped by 11 the following season.

But there are practical reasons for pitchers to not hit batters. Doing so adds base runners. Ask James Shields. His only HBP in 2009 was with the bases loaded and two outs against Brian Buscher of the Twins in April. That run would tied the game at two and the Rays would lose by one run. Not the situation to a hit a batter in nor the actual batter to do it to (career .089 ISO. Ouch). If this is the case, then MLB teams are shying away from wild pitchers and/or emphasizing to their pitchers to avoid going too much inside to batters.

On hitters side, they have has much control as the pitcher whether they get hit or not. The hitter can control the physical part of getting hit by the baseball most of the time while they can also force a pitcher to avoid throwing inside in fear of missing location and having it go through the hitter's sweet spot over the plate.

But this is just my personal theories and thoughts laid out briefly. And I expect the common belief from most baseball fans is that the recent spike in hit batters starting during the 1990's would be related to the Steroid era.

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Interesting

I wonder how much the body armor has decreased a batter’s fear of getting hit? There is a lot less physical sacrifice to getting hit today than in the past as players can often position their shield against the incoming projectile. Net result: runner allowed and less of a mental edge gained. Pena’s finger guard of doom that he wore last night was just the latest body armor accessory. Coming out of the steroid era also could be a factor. Just speculating….

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by FreeZorilla on Mar 19, 2010 7:51 AM EDT reply actions

It'll be interesting to see how Shoppach fares

in that area. Maybe different teams actually ‘try’ to get HBP, as CLE was way ahead in that category the last few years, and Shoppach one of the leaders

by sternfan1 on Mar 19, 2010 8:01 AM EDT up reply actions

Ugh i remember that hbp

I was listening in the car and couldn’t believe it

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by Tommy Rancel on Mar 19, 2010 7:52 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

RZ, you mention HBP has gone down since '01. Can you cite the actual numbers?

by sternfan1 on Mar 19, 2010 8:25 AM EDT reply actions

There is a link to the original table

Year,HBP
2009,0.33
2008,0.34
2007,0.36
2006,0.37
2005,0.37
2004,0.38
2003,0.38
2002,0.36
2001,0.39
2000,0.32

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/19/2010.

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by RZ on Mar 19, 2010 1:35 PM EDT up reply actions

That's honestly not much of a trend

A difference of about 10 hit batters per team per season.

by vivaelpujols on Mar 20, 2010 10:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Body armor on the arm was banned in 2002

Those who were already using it were grandfathered in and were allowed to keep it, but new players can’t use it. With the worry that a HBP on the elbow could earn you a trip on the DL, hitters have backed off the plate. Further away from 2002 it gets, the fewer players can still use the armor. I suspect that has had most of the effect.

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by Brickhaus on Mar 19, 2010 8:58 AM EDT reply actions

I thought Evan had armor on his arm?

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by PriceMultiCyYoungs on Mar 19, 2010 10:17 AM EDT up reply actions

They can still wear protective devices, just not the Bonds body armor.

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by Tyler on Mar 19, 2010 11:07 AM EDT up reply actions

Pitching inside

A pitcher with good control needs to at least stand up a batter once in a while. Certainly pitchers need to be careful in high leverage situations like bases loaded, not to give the batter a free base, but a pitcher with the reputation of having great control isn’t very scary and the batters are able to hang over the plate without fear.This was priceless

That was the best advise my brother gave me when I pitched. We were both good control pitchers. My strikeouts went up significantly after backing off a few guys from the plate with high inside cheese.

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by terp12 on Mar 19, 2010 9:32 AM EDT reply actions

The graph strikes me as very interesting

HBP gets wrapped up in so many discussion about control of the plate, the pitcher taking the inside part of the plate, and a huge range of macho sounding bullshit.

The classic is that pitchers in the AL have no fear pf getting hit, so they can hit guys with impunity. That statistics show little difference in HBP rates between the AL and NL is somehow swept under the rug.

One of my favorites that this graphs ilustrates so beautifully is the myth of the era of Gibson and Drysdale. Those guys weren’t taking any crap from hitters in those days!

Well, either their control inside was beyond impeccable, or that’s just another bunch 0f crap, with HBP’s much closer to historical lows in the 60’s an 70’s. Yeah, those pussies in today’s game, they won’t go inside.

Facts are such a bitch.

by nyyfaninlaaland on Mar 20, 2010 2:49 AM EDT reply actions

Not sure if it is an equal comparison

I may be wrong here, but guys back then didn’t have body armor on to protect themselves at bat. If today’s batters are crowding more and getting hit at the same rate, it could mean something. Have you ever seen Brooks Robinson’s helmet. Ha Ha

by terp12 on Mar 21, 2010 7:13 PM EDT up reply actions