Padres upgrade their get-hitting.
The Padres have had a somewhat odd offseason - they got rid of Khalil Greene, when he was just 4 HBPs away from breaking the franchise career record, but now they've brought in David Eckstein, who greatly increases their potential to get hit by pitches. Eckstein has been hit once every 8.5 games over the course of his career, which means if he could stay healthy for two seasons, and play 298 games at that rate, he'd own the Padres career HBP record (currently just 35). But, the Padres only signed him to a one year deal.
Among players who have ever spent time with the Padres, only Gary Sheffield has more career HBPs than Eckstein, but Eckstein is only 8 plunks behind Sheffiled, 133 to 125. No player who ever spent time with the Padres and played over 100 big league games has had a games per plunk ratio lower than 12, compaired to Eckstein's 8.5. The best prior Padre in this category is Kevin Kouzmanoff, who's been hit once per 12.6 games so far, and broke the team's single season record last season, when he got hit 15 times. Could the Padres be bringing in the veteran Eckstein specifically to mentor Kouzmanoff in the fine art of staying in the way of pitches? We shall see.
posted by pbr @ 1/16/2009 12:03:00 PM
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