Plunk Everyone

HBPs of note: May 30, 2010

Jamie Moyer hit Brett Carroll with a pitch yesterday, making him the first 47 and a half year old pitcher to hit a batter since Phil Neikro hit Dick Schofield on June 30, 1987. Carroll has been hit 7 times this year.

Carlos Quentin got his 6th plunk of the season yesterday, and has now been hit 60 times in his career.  James Shields threw that one.

Twins pitcher Scott Baker hit Texas Ranger Matt Treanor making that the 13 plunk at Target Field.  Baker is the 13th pitcher to hit a batter a Target Field, and no one has done it twice yet.

Clayton Kershaw hit Carlos Gonzalez with a pitch, and that marked the 4600th plunk thrown by a pitcher born in Texas.

HBPs of note: May 28, 2010

Ryan Theriot got hit by a Kyle McClellan pitch yesterday, making that Theriot’s 13 career HBP.  But more importantly, that plunk was the 1,000th plunk ever recorded by a batter from Louisiana!   For a state that’s probably sick of being hit by things like hurricanes and oil spills, it’s nice that their native born players have still been able to find the grit and determination to get hit by 1000 major league pitches.  Congratulations on 1,000 HBPs, Louisianna!

Jason Giambi got hit by a pitch yesterday, making him just the 3rd left handed batter to get hit by 167 pitches (not including switch hitting Tommy Tucker).  He was hit by Jonathon Broxton, who is now the only pitcher with the letter X in his last name who has plunked Giambi.

From the frequently plunked, to the nearly impossible to plunk, Nick Punto got hit by a Colby Lewis pitch yesterday.  Prior to yesterday, Punto had been hit just twice in 2,628 career plate appearance.  The only active player with over 2000 plate appearances who had been plunked fewer times than Punto is Juan Castro.   But, after Lewis’s plunk, Punto has dropped behind David Murphy and Garrett Anderson on the least frequently plunked list.  Punto now has 1 plunk for every 877 plate appearances.  Lewis joins Chris Capuano and Erik Bedard as the only pitchers who have plunked Punto.

One pitcher who hasn’t plunked Nick Punto is Jamey Wright, even though Wright has now hit 136 batters.  Curtis Granderson became his 136th victim in the bottom of the eight inning yesterday, putting Wright in 20th place on the all time list, moving ahead of Chan Ho Park.  Park actually came in to pitch the top of the 9th inning for the Yankees in that game, but resisted the urge to throw a couple of plunks and re-take 20th place on the career hit batters list.

Shane Victorino got his 40th HBP, extending his Hawaiian career record.  Ichiro Suzuki got his 45th HBP, extending his Japanese career record.  Reed Johnson got his 99th career plunk, which isn’t any kind of record I can think of, but does leave him one short of being the 69th member of the 100 plunk club.  Carlos Quentin got his 59th.

Jason Hayward got his 4th career plunk yesterday, and had the misfortune of getting the fastest recorded pitch speed for a plunk this year.  Joel Hanrahan’s pitch left his hand at 98.5 mph, according to mlb.com’s gameday.  That’s the fastest starting speed for a plunk this year, but it slowed to 88.1mph before hitting Hayward.  By speed at contact, it was only the 8th fastest plunk this year.  (If you want to keep track of his sort of thing, the season’s fastest plunks are available in the interactive bruise board menu in the upper right of this page).

The Astros extended there plunkless streak to 16 games.

With the season close to 1/3 of the way through, and several players on pace to have seasons HBP totals in the neighborhood of 20 plunks, it’s a good time to look at which of this years leaders has a chance to break some kind of single season plunk record. Obviously no one is going to touch the Hughie Jennings 51 plunks season, or the more recent (post-1900 record) Ron Hunt 50 plunk year, and Don Baylor’s American League record 35 plunks is really unlikely, but there are other records to look at.

Jose Guillen (8 HBP, 27 projected) – If Jose Guillen keeps up his plunks per game pace for the rest of the Royals season, he’ll reach 27 plunks. The single season record for the Royals is 23, set by David DeJesus in 2007. Also, if Guillen reaches that number he’ll break the single season HBP record for a player born in the Dominican Republic, which currently stands at 19. But, Guillen is the one who holds that record, having set it in

Prince Fielder (8 HBP, 28 projected) – The Brewer’s single season record is 25, set in 1998 by Fernando Vina. Fielder was born in California, and Jason Kendall holds the single season record for that state, with 31 in both 1997 and 1998. It’s tough to see Fielder threating that record, but it’s not out of the question.

Rickie Weeks (7 HBP, 24 projected) – Weeks needs to pick it up a little more to get to Vina’s mark, but he might have his teammate Prince Fielder in the way. And that’s not an easy roadblock to get around. But, if Weeks does pick up his HBP pace a little bit, he could make a push for David Eckstein’s single season record for Florida born players, which is 27 HBPs.

Travis Hafner (7 HBP, 25 projected) – If Hafner stays healthy this year, he’s on an excellent pace to crack the Indians single season record, which stands at 20. Ryan Garko set that in 2007. Hafner could also improve his North Dakota single season record of 17 HBPs set in 2004.

Josh Willingham and Juan Pierre (6 HBP, 21 projected) – Willingham and Pierre were both born in Alabama, and the record for an Alabama born player is 17 by hall of famer Heinie Manush in 1923. Pierre could also pick up his pace a little and threaten Minnie Minoso’s White Sox record, which is 23 plunks in 1956. Willingham has no shot at the Nationals team record, since they used to be the Expos, and Ron Hunt got hit 50 times for them.

Kurt Suzuki (6 HBP, 20 projected) – The Oakland team record for a single season is 20, which has been done by notable plunk artists Don Baylor, and Jason Kendall. Suzuki is right on pace for that, but he is also on track to break Shane Victorino’s record for plunks by a player born in Hawaii. Victorina was hit 14 times in 2006.

Brett Carroll (6 HBP, 20 projected) – If Carroll gets to 20 plunks this year, he’ll break both the Marlins single season record, and the record for most plunks in a season by someone born in Tennessee. Carlos Delgado holds the Marlins record with 17 in 2005, and the Tennesse record has stood since 1910, when Clyde Milan got hit 15 times.

David Eckstein (5 HBP, 17 projected) – This won’t be a career year for Eckstein, but he could break the Padres record for single season plunks. Kevin Kouzmanoff got hit 15 times in 2008 for the Padres, but if Eckstein breaks that he can add it to his record collection along with the Angel’s single season record.

Jason Bay (4 HBP, 14 projected) – 14 plunks wouldn’t do much on most teams, but on the Mets, it would be a single season record. John Olerud (1997) and Ron Hunt (1963) are the only Mets who have been plunked 13 times. Also, Jason Bay is Canadian, and the Canadian record for HBPs in a season is 14, which Larry Walker accomplished 1995, 1997 and 2001. Tim Harkness has the single season record for a Canadian player on the Mets, with 7 in 1964.

John Buck (4 HBP, 13 projected) – John Buck is from Wyoming, and the Wyoming single season HBP record is 10. Buck already holds a share of that record, with a 10 HBP 2007 season, but Mike Lansing was hit 10 times in 1996, and Buck would probably like to have the record to himself. Because nobody likes sharing.

For the sake of reference, the complete list of single season record holders by team can be found here – but the Padres record listed is out of date. It’s now 15 by Kevin Kouzmanoff.

And, here’s the full list of single season HBP records by country or state or province of birth:

Since the beginning of the 2005 season, no batter has been hit by more pitches than Chase Utley.  He’s been hit 102 times in that span – 14 more than Aaron Rowand, and 28 more than Jason Kendall and Jason Giambi.  But, for every pitch that hits Utley, about 140 are thrown to him that don’t hit him.  He’s been thrown 14,394 pitches since 2005, in 3,567 plate appearances.  If Carlos Quentin had seen that many pitches, and maintained his current rate of plunks per pitch, he’d have been hit 148 times.

Quentin leads all active players (with at least 5 hbps)  in plunks per plate, but he’s also very efficient in his HBPs, only needing 97.4 pitches to find one to get hit by.  Among batters with at least 5 hbps in the last 5 years, only 3 have gotten hit more often than once every 100 pitches – Quentin, Carlos Baerga (8 plunks, 78.9 pitches per plunk), and Luis Terrero (16 HBPs, 85 pitches per plunk).

Here are the top 25 major leaguers in HBPs since the 2005 season:

Here’s the same group, sorted by total pitches per plunk:

(Note: in situations where the third out of an inning is recorded by a baserunner after the batter has been pitched to at least once, I’m not counting that as a plate appearance for the batter, but I AM counting those pitches. Pitches in those situations might not be counted on baseball reference’s pitch count stats.)

On average, since the beginning of 2005, about one out of every 417 pitches ends up being an HBP.

HBPs of note: May 26, 2010

Jose Guillen moved up to 29th place on the all time HBP list on a 1st inning plunk from Scott Feldman, and then Feldman hit him again the 6th moving Guillen into a tie with Larry Walker at 28th place in HBP history.  Guillen now has 7 plunks this season, which is just one short of the league lead.  Those were Feldman’s first two plunks of the season, and his Rangers lead the majors, having hit 22 batters.  For some reason, over a third of those plunks (8), have been thrown on Wednesdays.

Mike Fontenot got plunked with the bases loaded for the Cubs yesterday, making that the 999th HBP recorded by a batter born in Louisianna.

Jerry Hairston Jr. got his 70th career plunk, and Tim Lincecum threw his 15th.

HBPs of Note: May 24, 2010

Only 1260 major league pitches were thrown yesterday, and 544 of those were swung at by a batter.  Another 237 of them were called strikes, so that only left 479 outside the strike zone for someone to get hit by.  Only one pitch hit a batter yesterday, and it was thrown by Javier Lopez and landed on Ryan Hannigan.

Hannigan’s plunk was the 7th of his career and the 431st plunk by a batter born in Washington DC.  It was also the 482nd plunk at Great American Ballpark and the 925th thrown by a pitcher from Puerto Rico.  And, it was the 70th plunk by a catcher this season.  Catchers lead all positions in 2010 HBPs, 17 ahead of 2nd basemen.

HBPs of note: May 23, 2010

Dan Meyer hit AJ Pierzynski with a pitch yesterday, giving Pierzynski a career total of 89 plunks, and puts him in a tie for 100th place on the all time list.  Pierzynski has now been hit 74 times for AL Central teams, and that ties the division record.  Matt Lawton and Paul Konerko have also been hit 74 times for teams in the American League’s central division.  Lawton reached that total first, in 2004, and Konerko tied his mark earlier this year.  That was also Pierzynski’s 20th plunk at US Cellular Field, and his 40th for the White Sox.

Prince Fielder took an HBP from Carl Pavano, putting him back in the Major League lead with 8 plunks this year.  That was Fielder’s first plunking since April 26th.  Also, that was the 10th plunk ever recorded at Target Field.

Jason Bay got hit for the Mets for his 51st career plunk, but that was also the 1800th HBP in Mets team history.

Also yesterday, Josh Willingham broke the Nationals Park HBP record, getting his 10th plunk their, from Kevin Millwood.  Willingham takes the record away from Nick Johnson, who got hit 9 times at Nationals Park.

In all, 14 batters were hit yesterday, making it the most plunk-filled day since April 28th.