(*) MASTER NOTES: The HBP of HBP

If you’re like me… Well, tough luck for you, I guess, but I bet something we have in common is an interest in quirky stats.

The other day, I was surfing around the web, doing preliminary research on Pirates’ OF Starling Marte, just clicking from one article to another, when I spotted this little nugget: Marte has been in the big leagues since 2012. For his short career (he played just 47 games in his first year) he is second among all MLB batters in getting hit by pitches. Only Shin-Soo Choo is ahead of Marte in getting nailed, drilled, and other carpentry terms meaning hit by pitch.

The thing that popped about of this odd little factoid is that Choo and Marte have been pretty good offensive players and very useful fantasy players. That surprised me. In my baseball upbringing, the face of the HBP was the Expos’ second baseman Ron Hunt, who was, to be charitable, not a tremendous offensive force.

So I looked up the rest of the 2012-2015 combined leaderboard for HBP, and whaddya know? The other names at the top are also pretty darned good. After Choo and Marte, the top-10 includes Jon Jay in third, then Anthony Rizzo, Carlos Gómez, Matt Holliday, Adam Jones, Chase Utley, Prince Fielder and Russell Martin. Not a bad fantasy lineup. Numbers 11-20 are likewise solid fantasy assets, except for Daniel Nava. The second ten includes Alex Gordon, Lucas Duda, Andrew McCutchen, and Mike Trout.

This got me thinking whether I might have stumbled into that most welcome of fantasy finds—a weird indicator of possible unappreciated value. I started thinking that “HBP” might have a second meaning: “Hidden Batter Potential.”

A Brief History of Plunk

One of the things we do here at BaseballHQ.com is convert counting stats to rate stats, so I converted HBP to HBP per 600 PA (HBP600). Using that metric, the history of the HBP has been something of a roller coaster. Back in the handlebar-mustache days at the turn of the last century, the HB600 was around seven. This was probably because many games were played in the dark, and nobody cared about hitting batters because the ball was stuffed with feathers or something. A beanball war, if they had one, would have been more like a pillow fight.

By 1941, the HBP600 had sunk below two, then and still the lowest point ever. Maybe with the war on, it seemed unpatriotic to bean guys. The rate climbed steadily to around three in the early fifties, and rattled around between three and four until the early ’90s. Then it started climbing again, to a peak of 6.1 in 2001, led by Craig Biggio, who led the majors five different seasons. Some analysis suggests HBPs were more common because pitchers were hitting batters to avoid steroid-aided homers. Or because they were ticked off.

From 2006-2012, there was another steady decline, to the low fives HBP600. The last three seasons have been 5.0, 5.4 and 5.2.

A little off the topic, but my favorite result from the research: In 1966, Don Drysdale, a famously nasty guy who didn’t mind beaning hitters, hit 17 guys in 273.2 IP. His teammate, the glorious Sandy Koufax, pitched almost 50 more innings than Drysdale… and didn’t hit a single hitter. The active pitching leader, if you’re scoring at home, is John Lackey. If he hits his usual eight or nine guys this year, he’ll climb into the top 50, passing such luminaries as Phil Niekro and Ice Box Chamberlain.

The HBP of HBP

Back to batters. The next obvious step was to compare hitters to see if HBP helped them contribute in other ways. Obviously, since HBP is part of OBP, the big benefit is in OBP leagues. Looking at all the batters with 100+ PA in 2015. Keep in mind that the overall HBP600 for this player cohort was 5.4:

• Players with no HBPs had a poor .294 aggregate OBP
• Players under the 5.4 average HBP600 had a .321 aggregate OBP
• Batters at or over that 5.4 average had an aggregate .327 OBP, and
• Batters with double the average (10.8 or higher) had a .336 OBP

What was more surprising was the connection between HBP and Slg:

• Players with no HBPs had a .375 aggregate Slg
• Players under the 5.4 average HBP600 had a .413 aggregate Slg
• Batters at or over that 5.4 average had an aggregate .420 Slg, and
• Batters with double the average (10.8 or higher) had a .426 Slg

The OPS jump is from .676 for the no-HBP batters to .762 for the 10.8+ HBP600s.

There are some possible reasons for the Slg connection. Let’s point out right away that there was no correlation with skills: ct% was consistent at around 78% regardless of HBP level, and bb% was likewise consistent at 8%.

So why the Slg connection? It could be that a batter willing to stand closer to the plate has better coverage, and is able to drive the away pitch with authority. It could be that the connection actually works backwards—that many players get hit because they are good hitters and pitchers feel the need to “challenge” them with inside pitches.

However it works, it also pays off in HRs:

• Players with no HBPs hit an aggregate 13 HR per 600 PA (HR600)
• Players under the 5.4 average HBP600 hit 16 aggregate HR600
• Batters at or over that 5.4 average hit 19 aggregate HR600, and
• Batters with double the average (10.8 or higher) hit 18 aggregate HR600

There’s one other advantage to hitters in the higher-HBP cohort: They score more runs:

• Players with no HBPs scored an aggregate 59 runs per 600 PA (R600)
• Players under the 5.4 average HBP600 scored 68 aggregate R600
• Batters at or over that 5.4 average scored 70 aggregate R600, and
• Batters with double the average (10.8 or higher) scored 73 aggregate R600

Runs are the redheaded stepchild in fantasy baseball, and picking up five or more runs per player per season could mean big standings gains.

CONCLUSION

Needless to say, this is all very preliminary. Proper research will need to take more care with controls, larger samples, and less drinking. Someone will take that on some day. Maybe it will even be me.

In the meantime, I’m going to file this away as a small but potentially useful decision factor in rating hitters. I’m not going to boost a hitter solely because he has mastered the art of letting a baseball hit him. It reminds me a little too much of those scam artists who walk in front of moving cars hoping to get run over and score an insurance payout. And while most HBP artistes know how to turn into a pitch to take it on the back or the behind, I worry about pitches that hit a batter in the hand, wrist or elbow. Or the head, of course.

So I’ll put a RotoLab flag on players with well above-average HBPs, and if they appear in a tier of batters, that willingness to be plunked could be a reason to pick a guy or go a buck extra over a xero- HBP guy. Here are a few names of guys I’ll be flagging—the batters who led MLB in 2015 in HBP600.

That said, here are your top ten HBP600 guys from last season:

Name              Tm    HBP  HBP600
===================================
Brandon Guyer    TAM     24    37.4
Derek Dietrich   MIA     13    27.0
Jon Jay          STL     11    26.9
Anthony Rizzo    CHC     30    25.7
Jung Ho Kang     PIT     17    21.8
Alex Gordon       KC     14    19.9
Carlos Corporan  TEX      4    19.8
Aaron Altherr    PHI      5    18.6
Daniel Nava      2TM      5    18.1
Eury Pérez       ATL      4    18.0

Other names to watch from 2015’s HBP specialists: Marte, Rougned Odor, Domingo Santana, Mikie Mahtook, Kolten Wong and José Abreu.

So take one for the team in 2016—but remember that any rate stat like HBP600 is no use unless the batter is likely to get enough PAs for the stat to pay off in actual numbers.

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