Plunk Everyone

They don't call the pitcher and catcher "battery mates" for nothing. For every pitch that flies into the body of a batter, there was a catcher who called that pitch and it's location. The ball doesn't always end up exactly where the catcher wanted it, but those guys behind the plate have some control over the situation. So, which catchers were behind the plate for the most plunks in 2008?
Here's the top 20:

Catcher	Total HBPs	Distinct Batters	Pitchers
Ramon Hernandez (BAL)	58	44	18
Bengie Molina (SFN)	51	41	17
Geovany Soto (CHN)	49	43	15
Brian Schneider (NYN)	45	39	12
Jason Varitek (BOS)	44	37	10
Kurt Suzuki (OAK)	43	40	20
Chris Snyder (ARI)	43	34	13
Jason Kendall (MIL)	39	33	11
Gerald Laird (TEX)	38	30	12
A.J. Pierzynski (CHA)	38	32	12
Yadier Molina (SLN)	37	32	15
Russell Martin (LAN)	36	30	14
Paul Bako (CIN)	35	32	10
Dioner Navarro (TBA)	35	25	12
Jeff Mathis (ANA)	34	31	11
Rod Barajas (TOR)	34	31	12
Gregg Zaun (TOR)	33	30	12
Carlos Ruiz (PHI)	33	30	12
Chris Iannetta (COL)	32	30	14
John Buck (KCA)	31	27	13

Ramon Hernandez led the majors, enjoying a close up view of 58 hit batters on the season. That's a career high for the Baltimore backstop, and the first time he's led the league in catching plunks. He got a lot of his battery help from Baltimore pitcher Daniel Cabrera, who led the majors in hitting batters in 2008. But, only 12 of Cabrera's hit batters occurred with Hernandez behind the plate. The other 46 plunks were split between 17 other Orioles pitcher. His favorite team to put batters in harms way was the Yankees, who got hit 10 times with Hernandez catching against them, with the Rays close behind with 9 plunks.


While we're on the subject of catchers, let's take a look at which of them is the most indifferent. That, of course, is measured by how many runners they let advance on defensive indifference.

2008 Defensive Indifference leaders:

Catcher	Runners allowed to advance on defensive indifference
Carlos Ruiz (PHI)	15
Russell Martin (LAN)	13
Jason Varitek (BOS)	12
Jason Kendall (MIL)	11
Geovany Soto (CHN)	11
Brian McCann (ATL)	11
Yadier Molina (SLN)	10
Kelly Shoppach (CLE)	7
Rod Barajas (TOR)	6
A.J. Pierzynski (CHA)	6
Dioner Navarro (TBA)	6
Chris Coste (PHI)	5
Chris Snyder (ARI)	5
Ramon Hernandez (BAL)	5
Kenji Johjima (SEA)	5
Kevin Cash (BOS)	5

It's not too surprising that a lot of the leaders in this category are from playoff teams - teams that won a lot of games and were in a lot of positions where they wouldn't mind a runner taking an extra base late in a game. Overall, defensive indifference was down in 2008 with only 247 base runners advancing in situations where the catcher was judged to just not care. There were 255 such incidents in 2007.