This is third article in the series looking at the distributions of run-costly events, from a defensive standpoint.  An incidental consequence of this research is that we have to identify the best and worst teams in each run-costing or run-saving event, which has to be done so that we know where to set the floor from which success can be measured.   We’ve done strikeouts and walks; today we’ll do Hit Batsmen, same method as before.

            HB are called "HB"—hit batsmen—from the pitcher’s standpoint, but "Hit By Pitch" from the batter’s standpoint.  I believe that is the only category in the traditional batting/pitching record that has a different name from one side than the other.  In other words, Home Run are "HR" for the batter and "HR" for the pitcher, walks are "BB" for the batter, BB against the pitcher.   Everything that has the same definition has the same name from both standpoints, I think, except HB/HBP.  Don’t know why that is. 

            Anyway, the 1991 San Diego Padres faced 6,092 opposing batters.   The period norm for Hit Batsmen was .00721 of opposing hitters, so the Padres could have been expected to hit 44 batters with pitches, or some number kind of like that.   In fact, they hit only 13 batters with pitches, which was 2.5 Standard Deviations below the period norm.   Being 2.5 standard deviations better than the league norm we will state as 125.  These are best don’t-hit-‘em teams since 1900:

            1991 San Diego Padres     13       125

            1960 Pittsburgh Pirates     11       125

            2004 Atlanta Braves         27       125

            1961 White Sox                12       124

            1945 St. Louis Browns        5        124

            1907 White Sox                22       124

            2010 San Diego Padres      28       124

            1960 Cardinals                  12       124

            1990 Baltimore Orioles       16       123

            1978 San Diego Padres       12       122

            All of those teams except the 1990 Orioles had winning records, by the way; the Orioles were 76-85.   And these are the teams that had the WORST records for Plunking People with Pitches:

            1922 Detroit Tigers           84       54

            The 1922 Tigers were managed by Ty Cobb.  Might be relevant.   The Tigers hit 84 batters with pitches, which was 4.6 Standard Deviations worse than the norm for that era.  100-46 is 54, so we list that as "54".  The second-worst team was managed by John McGraw, also an aggressive gentleman.   Not always a gentleman.  The bottom ten:

            1922 Detroit Tigers            84       54

            1900 New York Giants        94       64

            1988 Blue Jays                  59       65

            1911 Philadelphia A’s          81       65

            1971 Houston Astros          60       66

            1977 Seattle Mariners        61       97

            1923 Boston Red Sox         68       67

            1968 White Sox                 66       68

            1935 Phillies                      47       68

            1988 Texas Rangers           56       69

            The 1911 Philadelphia A’s won 101 games despite hitting 81 batters with pitches, and the 1988 Blue Jays and 1922 Detroit Tigers also had better-than-.500 records; the rest of these teams had losing records.    A good HB record correlates with team success at some level, as reflected in this chart:

            The top 510 teams in the study had an average of 26 Hit Batsmen, and an average record of 82-74.  The bottom 510 teams had an average of 55 Hit Batsmen, and an average record of 75-82.   But this happened not simply because hitting batters leads directly to runs being scored, but also because teams which hit more batters with pitches also walked more hitters.  They hit batters with pitches not always because they were mean or were pitching inside, but also because they were a little wild:

            The teams which hit the fewest batters with pitches walked an average of 485 batters, while the teams which hit the most batters with pitches walked an average of 530.   Hit Batsmen and Walks are fellow travelers. 

            Let me put on record the HB/HBP average for each decade, and the standard deviation on a team basis: