Plunk Everyone

Since there seems to be a lull in the HBP action this offseason, here's a look at the final standings in difficulty ratings for various stats for the 2009 season. Difficulty ratings are explained here or here. Maybe.

HBPs
Chase Utley got hit by a lot of pitches, but he didn't do it by stocking up on plunks against pitchers who throw them in excessive numbers. In fact, the pitchers who plunked Utley where, as a group, right on the major league average in plunks thrown per batter faced. Kelly Shoppach, on the other hand, got a lot of relatively cheap and easy plunks, being hit by pitchers who just hit a lot of batters. By difficulty rating, Shoppach's 19 plunks were only equivalent to 13.8 plunks against average pitchers. Kevin Youkilis and Jason Kendall, on the other hand, got some style points by being hit by guys who don't throw a lot of plunks, so they would have each needed another 2 plunks to equal their difficulty scores if they only got hit by average pitchers.

Player	HBP	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Chase Utley	24	2819	117.4
Jason Kendall	17	2305	135.6
Kevin Youkilis	16	2127	133
Carlos Quentin	15	2078	138.5
Shin-Soo Choo	17	1945	114.4
Ryan Braun	13	1796	138.2
Andre Ethier	13	1656	127.4
Brandon Inge	17	1655	97.3
Kelly Shoppach	18	1620	90
Kevin Kouzmanoff	11	1514	137.6
Josh Willingham	12	1373	114.4
Chris Iannetta	11	1352	122.9
Russell Martin	11	1288	117.1
Aaron Rowand	14	1282	91.5
Hanley Ramirez	9	1247	138.5
Marlon Byrd	10	1230	123
Ryan Garko	10	1221	122.1
Matt Diaz	13	1217	93.6
Milton Bradley	11	1181	107.4

Hit batters
Just like it's easier to get hit by Dave Bush than is to get hit by Andy Pettitte, it's much easier to plunk Brandon Inge than it is to plunk Chone Figgins, so we can apply the same theory to the pitchers and rank their Hit Batter totals by difficulty rating. Dave Bush may have hit the most batters, but Joba Chamberlain did the best job hitting batters who don't get hit very often. Tim Stauffer really went for the difficulty ratings, coming in fourth with only 5 plunks thrown - he was the only pitcher to hit Rafael Furcal in 680 plate appearances, and the only pitcher to plunk Dexter Fowler in 518 plate appearances.

Player	Hit Batters	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Joba Chamberlain	12	1846	153.8
Chad Gaudin	8	1768	221
David Bush	15	1756	117.1
Tim Stauffer	5	1461	292.2
Kevin Millwood	11	1453	132.1
Jeff Suppan	11	1380	125.5
A.J. Burnett	10	1336	133.6
Edgar Gonzalez	6	1329	221.5
Johnny Cueto	14	1322	94.4
Brian Bass	5	1297	259.4
Vicente Padilla	8	1255	156.8
Rich Harden	6	1236	206
Fausto Carmona	8	1232	154
Scott Feldman	9	1184	131.6
John Lackey	9	1171	130.1
Jorge De La Rosa	9	1158	128.6
Chris Perez	6	1041	173.4
Ervin Santana	10	1027	102.7
Jamie Moyer	10	1007	100.7

Home Runs
These are the players who were the best at hitting a lot of home runs, and hitting them against pitchers who give up relatively few home runs. Miguel Cabrera hit 34 homers, but didn't make the list because he's rated as the most guilty of pumping up his home run totals against pitchers who give up a lot of longballs. His 34 real life homers had a difficulty rating equal to just 28 homers against average pitching.

Player	HR	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Mark Reynolds	44	1991	45.3
Prince Fielder	46	1897	41.2
Ryan Howard	45	1814	40.3
Albert Pujols	47	1671	35.5
Adrian Gonzalez	40	1446	36.1
Adam Dunn	38	1444	38
Kendry Morales	34	1384	40.7
Jayson Werth	36	1383	38.4
Ryan Zimmerman	33	1356	41.1
Raul Ibanez	34	1352	39.8

Home Runs Allowed
These are the pitchers who gave up the most homers to guys who are not normally what you'd consider homer run threats. Braden Looper tops the list mostly on sheer volume, but Jonathon Sanchez comes in second thanks largely to being the only pitcher to give up a homer to Luis Castillo in 580 plate appearances. That's... probably not good.

Player	HR	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Braden Looper	39	1782	45.7
Jonathan Sanchez	19	1576	82.9
Bronson Arroyo	31	1390	44.8
Derek Holland	26	1360	52.3
Jeremy Guthrie	35	1322	37.8
Kevin Millwood	26	1226	47.2
Johnny Cueto	24	1206	50.2
Chris Volstad	29	1187	40.9
John Danks	28	1156	41.3
Luke Hochevar	23	1088	47.3

Strikouts (pitchers)
Overall, batters struck out once every 5.6 plate appearances so you can see that the batters struck out by Justin Verlander and Tim Lincecum were pretty close to average on the difficulty rating. CC Sabathia is the standout of the group since his 197 strikeouts would have been equivalent to 215 strikouts against average batters.

Player	K	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Justin Verlander	269	1530	5.7
Tim Lincecum	261	1442	5.5
Zack Greinke	242	1394	5.8
Jon Lester	225	1327	5.9
Javier Vazquez	238	1294	5.4
Felix Hernandez	217	1273	5.9
Dan Haren	223	1218	5.5
C.C. Sabathia	197	1200	6.1
Josh Beckett	199	1194	6
Adam Wainwright	212	1172	5.5

Strikeouts (batters)
Mark Reynolds strike out with ridiculous frequency, but a lot of those strikeouts were against pitchers who strike out lots of batters. His 223 strikeouts only had a difficulty rating equal to 213 strikeouts against average pitchers. Of course 213 strikeouts is still awful, just not as bad as 223. Good thing he hits a lot of homers.

Player	K	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Mark Reynolds	223	1191	5.3
Jack Cust	185	1071	5.8
Ryan Howard	186	1037	5.6
Adam Dunn	177	971	5.5
Brandon Inge	170	949	5.6
Jason Bay	162	938	5.8
Carlos Pena	163	909	5.6
Russell Branyan	149	863	5.8
Mike Cameron	156	849	5.4
Chris Davis	150	844	5.6

Walks (not including intentional walks)
Chone Figgins appears to be a big fan of inflating his walk total against pitchers who throw a lot of walks. Maybe his new "patience at the plate" the TBS announcers have been talking about is really just a better understanding of which pitchers give up a lot of walks, and therefor are the ones you should swing less against. Anyway, walks were handed out to about 1 in every 12.1 batters, so Figgins' 101 walks were equivalent in difficulty to about 97 walks against average pitchers.

Player	BB	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Adam Dunn	100	1303	13
Adrian Gonzalez	97	1221	12.6
Nick Johnson	95	1204	12.7
Chone Figgins	101	1181	11.7
Nick Swisher	95	1149	12.1
Marco Scutaro	90	1126	12.5
Kosuke Fukudome	90	1110	12.3
Jason Bay	90	1097	12.2
Jack Cust	88	1096	12.5
Lance Berkman	83	1068	12.9

Walks Allowed (not including intentional walks)
Here are the guys who walked the most batters who don't get issued a lot of walks. Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw really went out of his way to walk some guys that no one else wanted to walk - he was the only pitcher to walk Adam Wainwright this year, as well as the only pitcher to walk Jason Hammel - and he did that twice.

Player	BB	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Doug Davis	102	1238	12.1
Clayton Kershaw	87	1177	13.5
A.J. Burnett	97	1156	11.9
Yovani Gallardo	89	1059	11.9
Jorge De La Rosa	80	1040	13
Jonathan Sanchez	83	994	12
Ubaldo Jimenez	79	983	12.4
Chad Billingsley	79	977	12.4
Ian Snell	80	977	12.2
Jason Marquis	74	965	13

Sacrifice Flies
Sacrifice Flying is largely a lost art... or a never found art. But Casey Blake sacrificed in the most fly manner this year, accumulating a difficulty score equivalent to 12.7 sac flies against average pitching in only 10 Sacrifice Flies. Adrian Gonzalez also hit some impressively unlikely sacrifice flies, including the only one allowed this year by Paul Maholm (836 total batters faced), and the only one allowed by Charlie Morton (416 batters faced).

Player	SF	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Casey Blake	10	1738	173.8
Bengie Molina	11	1580	143.7
Garret Anderson	9	1503	167
Adrian Gonzalez	4	1473	368.3
Ryan Zimmerman	9	1347	149.7
Jeff Francoeur	9	1299	144.3
Todd Helton	10	1232	123.2
Randy Winn	8	1207	150.9
Bobby Abreu	9	1181	131.2
Fernando Tatis	4	1179	294.8

Sacrifice Flies Allowed
Grady Sizemore was nearly shut out in the Sac Fly column in 2009, in 503 plate appearance, but Armando Galarraga gave one up to him. Nobody else did. Jeremy Guthrie gave up Johnny Damon's only sac fly in 626 plate appearances. (By the way, sacrifice flies occured 7.8% more often at this season's yankee stadium than they did at last season's yankee stadium, so not every ball flies out of the new park. Although, the increase in sac flies may be due to more batters thinking that every fly ball will be a homer due to the April hype, and swinging for the fences more often)

Player	SF	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Armando Galarraga	11	1566	142.4
Jeremy Guthrie	8	1517	189.7
Chad Billingsley	11	1499	136.3
Chad Gaudin	8	1429	178.7
Livan Hernandez	10	1401	140.1
Zach Duke	10	1254	125.4
Brian Bannister	10	1227	122.7
Felix Hernandez	11	1166	106
Jason Marquis	10	1138	113.8
Brian Tallet	7	1113	159

Hits
Hits occured about once every 4.3 plate appearances in 2009, so most of these guys faced pitchers who were really close to the league average. (There just isn't that much variance from pitcher to pitcher in hits allowed per plate appearance, compared to something like HBPs per plate appearance). But, it looks like Robinson Cano found a few extra hits against weak pitching to put him over the 200 hits mark. His total difficulty score for his 204 hits was equivalent to just 195 hits against average pitching.

Player	H	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Ichiro Suzuki	225	970	4.3
Derek Jeter	212	895	4.2
Miguel Tejada	199	881	4.4
Ryan Braun	203	877	4.3
Miguel Cabrera	198	845	4.3
Robinson Cano	204	840	4.1
Aaron Hill	195	836	4.3
Hanley Ramirez	197	831	4.2
Felipe Lopez	187	823	4.4
Joe Mauer	191	820	4.3

Hits Allowed
This would be the list of pitchers who gave up the most hits to batters who did get a lot of hits, but most of these pitchers faced groups of batters who were just about average. James Shields is down the list somewhat from his total hit rank, because he gave up more hits against batters who are easy to give up hits to.

Player	H	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Cliff Lee	245	1057	4.3
Nick Blackburn	240	1023	4.3
Jon Garland	225	1008	4.5
Derek Lowe	232	998	4.3
Braden Looper	226	997	4.4
James Shields	239	992	4.2
Zach Duke	231	992	4.3
Roy Halladay	234	991	4.2
Carl Pavano	235	988	4.2
Jason Marquis	218	964	4.4

Foul Balls Hit
Once again, there just isn't that much variation among foul ball rates for pitchers.

Player	fouls	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Brian Roberts	574	3246	5.7
Andre Ethier	538	3090	5.7
Pablo Sandoval	529	3010	5.7
Todd Helton	531	3008	5.7
Carl Crawford	526	2951	5.6
Ryan Howard	503	2915	5.8
Jose Lopez	512	2906	5.7
Jayson Werth	508	2903	5.7
Ichiro Suzuki	507	2883	5.7
Aaron Hill	504	2881	5.7

Foul Balls Allowed
Sure, why not.

Player	Fouls	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Justin Verlander	860	4884	5.7
Scott Baker	805	4523	5.6
Cliff Lee	758	4269	5.6
Randy Wolf	701	3973	5.7
Edwin Jackson	680	3874	5.7
Matt Cain	673	3860	5.7
Roy Halladay	652	3741	5.7
C.C. Sabathia	655	3723	5.7
Matt Garza	634	3677	5.8
Jon Lester	646	3676	5.7

Missed Swings
These are the batters who swung and missed the most against pitchers who don't cause that many swinging strikes (not to be confused with actual strikeouts - these are just swinging strikes, with difficulty based on swinging strikes per pitch). Whiffs occured about once every 11.8 pitches, so Mark Reynolds swung and missed 478 times against a group of pitchers who caused slightly more swings and misses than average. Russel Branyon, Jack Cust and Miguel Olivo did more swinging and missing against pitchers who don't make a lot of batters miss.

Player	Whiffs	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Mark Reynolds	478	5542	11.6
Ryan Howard	446	5300	11.9
Russell Branyan	337	4201	12.5
Carlos Pena	346	4179	12.1
Jack Cust	316	3964	12.5
Brad Hawpe	324	3962	12.2
Miguel Olivo	312	3885	12.5
Chris Davis	315	3727	11.8
Brandon Inge	308	3595	11.7
Shin-Soo Choo	298	3548	11.9

Whiffs Caused
Justin Verlander caused 442 missed swings, and those batters he caused to swing and miss averaged a whiff every 12.3 pitches - which means they whiffed less often then the league average which is 1 miss per 11.8 pitches. But he also caused the most overall swings and misses, before applying the difficulty score. CC Sabathia was especially good at getting batters who don't miss the ball often to miss against him. His 391 whiffs caused had a difficulty equal to 420 swinging strikes against average batters.

Player	Whiffs	Difficulty Rating	Average Difficulty
Justin Verlander	442	5434	12.3
C.C. Sabathia	391	4971	12.7
Javier Vazquez	410	4747	11.6
Rich Harden	372	4549	12.2
Tim Lincecum	371	4457	12
Felix Hernandez	383	4422	11.5
Jon Lester	364	4356	12
Cole Hamels	364	4342	11.9
Dan Haren	365	4320	11.8
Zack Greinke	344	4161	12.1

So, this information will probably help you when you least expect it. Better print it out and carry it around in your pocket.