Plunk Everyone

The Mets had a strange year last year in the HBP stat column. Their pitchers tied for the National League lead in dishing out plunkings to opposing batters with 70, but their batters got hit an NL worst 39 times. On the pitching side, they should be near the top of the National League again in 2009, with top plunkers Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez returning. Aaron Heilman and Pedro Martinez hit a combined 15 batters, and have moved on, but the Mets have 5 non-roster invitees to camp with over 50 career HBPs, so they ought to be able to pick some replacements who will do the job from that group. Among them are Livan Hernandez, who has a 4 plunk game on his resume, and Casey Fossum who is the only retro-sheet era player to hit a batter in 10 consecutive pitching appearances. So the pitching staff looks okay in the plunks category, but the batters really need to step it up.

Carlos Delgado led the Mets in HBPs last year, but he only had 8, and perhaps with a little more leadership on his part, he could inspire the rest of the team. Damion Easley got hit 7 times last year, but he's been replaced by Alex Cora who got hit 9 times in 2008 (in just 75 games). So that should help, but the rest of the team is largely the same, and will require inspiration to achieve the modest goal of getting out of last place in the National League HBP rankings.

So, here are a few things Carlos Delgado can do to inspire the rest of the team to get hit by more pitches:

• Get hit by 13 pitches - If Delgado can get hit by 13 pitches this season, he'll bring his career total with the Mets to 42, which would break the franchise record held by Ron Hunt. Surely the excitement caused by that record breaking plunk would inspire younger players on the team to set their sites on such an low and achievable career franchise record. Chase Utley has been hit by more than 42 pitches in just the past two years, so if any of the Mets could put up those kind of numbers they'd have a spot in Mets history - of course they'll have to catch Delgado still.
• Get hit by 14 pitches - Obviously the 13 pitch mark would come first, so everyone would already be excited about getting hit by pitches, but if Delgado can get to 14 plunks this season he'll own the Mets single season record as well as the Mets career record. Ron Hunt got hit 13 times in 1963 for the Mets, and John Olerud got 13 plunks for the Mets in 1997. This record should be especially embarrassing for the Mets now that Kevin Kouzmanoff broke the Padres single season record, leaving the Mets with the lowest single season plunk record of any Major League team. It's time for this record to be improved upon.
• Get hit by 16 pitches - It might not be as inspiring on a team level, but if Delgado can collect 16 plunks this season, he'll bring his career total to 184, which would be the all time HBP record for left-handed batters. (Tommy Tucker and Dan McGann were switch hitters, but they probably got most of their HBPs batting right handed - unfortunately which side of the plate they got plunked on is probably lost to history). But, maybe if young left-handed batters on the team see Delgado break the all time left-handed plunk record, they'll realize that getting hit by pitches isn't just for right-handers, and maybe they too could aspire to climb the HBP list even farther than Delgado. And, by showing he can get hit by that many pitches in his career, he'll show the younger players that you can get hit by a few pitches now and then and still stay healthy enough to have a long and productive career. Also, he's only 11 plunks ahead of Jason Giambi, so if Delgado wants the record he better get their quick. Or, just keep playing longer than Giambi does. That could work too.
  

Hopefully this advice will help and the 2009 Mets will have more success than last year's team. At least in the HBP standings, if not those abstract win-loss standings that they use to decide who goes to the playoffs. Who understands those things anyway, other than the nerdiest of baseball nerds?