Tom Brennan - PITCHERS WHO PLUNK AND PITCHERS WHO DON'T

(We need Steve and Sandy to “plunk” down some REAL dough on a few more high quality pitchers. Now on to my article).

Pitchers can plunk opposing hitters accidentally.

Or they can plunk them on purpose.

Some coffee drinkers like to dunk their donuts, while others do not.  Likewise, some pitchers are more prone to plunk than others.

These days, pitchers can get tossed by an ump pretty quickly if there is any indication of maliciousness in said plunkings.

In the old days, not so much.

A 264 game winner you likely never heard of, Gus Weyhing, who pitched from 1887 to 1901, plunked an all time record 277 hitters.  

Remarkably, in his first 3 seasons, he nailed 113 hitters.  Of course, you have to factor in that in those 3 seasons, he averaged 440 innings.

Walter "Big Train" Johnson plunked 205 dudes (did they call men dudes back then?) in his 5,914 innings.  Lots of HBP, LOTS of innings.

More to the present, the guy who threw one of the most notable bean balls to Mike Piazza, one Roger Clemens, nailed 159 guys in 4,917 innings.  Considering his elite control, he clearly used the HBP as a weapon of war against hitters.

Wild, woolly, and tough, Nolan Ryan hit 158 batters, one less than Clemens, in 5,316 inning over 27 years - hey, you pitch 27 years, you're bound to hit a bunch of people.

A Clemens predecessor, who weaponized the HBP, was Don Drysdale, who nailed an amazing 154 in just 3,432 innings. Doubt that would have been allowed to happen in this day and age.

Bob Gibson hit a lot, too, but not at Drysdale's rate, leaving seam imprints on 102 hitters in 3,884 innings - along with a very dangerous 1968 spring training beaning of Tommie Agee in his first-ever Mets plate appearance.  Nice greeting card.  Agee wishes Gibson had used Hallmark instead.

Seaver and Koosman were much lower than the last two, with Tom Terrific hitting a mere 76 in 4,783 innings, and Koosman plunking at a slightly higher rate at 71 in 3,839 innings.

At the extreme other end of the spectrum, back in the times when you could get away with a lot more plunking, were three lefty Hall of Famers, Whitey Ford, Steve Carlton, and Sandy Koufax.

Ford?  Just 28 HBP in 3,170 innings.  A true gentleman.

Carleton?  A mere 53 HBP in 5,217 IP.  Shocking to me.

Koufax, Drysdale's contemporary and teammate?  A miniscule 18 in 2,324 career innings, about 1/7th the rate of Nasty Donnie.  Koufax's good cop to Drysdale's bad cop. 

Two more recent Hall of Famers are interesting:

Randy Johnson nailed 190 hitters in 4,135 innings, a huge rate.  Yes, he had early control problems, but as his control greatly improved, this Hall of Famer still hit plenty of guys.  He weaponized that to his advantage.

Pedro Martinez, a fine control pitcher, clunked 141 in 2,827 innings, a higher rate than Johnson!  No doubt that this Hall of Famer used the HBP as a weapon at times.  Pedro was fearless.

In this day and age, two higher plunkers-per-inning were Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, but both hit a lot less guys after their first few seasons of taming their fastballs.

Trevor Bauer is a repeat offender, with 63 in just 1,190 innings.  Clearly part of his modus operandi.  We could see some Mets brawls if he gets signed to pitch for the good guys.

Another prime free agent, Marcus Stroman, is much less dangerous than Bauer, klunking just 17 in 849 IP.

2020 METS STARTERS:

Steve Matz has been kind of on the wild side, with 26 HBP in 580 innings.  In 2015 and 2016 in the minors, he hit 1 guy in 122 innings, by comparison.

Thor?  Significantly lower than Matz, at 19 in 716 innings.

Jake?  A lower rate still, with a mere 20 plunks in 1,170 innings.   I wonder if Gentleman Jake might want to add a little "Nasty Drysdale" to his repertoire to make hitters even more uncomfortable with him.  After all, when hitters are uncomfortable hitters?  They hit worse.  

Jake may not want to go to "HBPville", but maybe he ought to.  Guys in the Hall of Fame named Drysdale, Gibson, Johnson, and Martinez used the HBP as part of their weaponry to make them feared and uncomfortable to face.  So did Clemens, who'd be in the Hall except for...well, you know.  They all had a much greater win-loss percentage than Jake the Great.  

If you asked them, I think they'd have said it was in fact part of what made them successful.  I also think that if you asked them, if they were pitching as well as Jake with so few wins to show for it, if they'd start plunking more guys to shake the other team up, I think the answer would be "darn right!"

Also, the Mets hitters in 2019 and 2020 were hit by pitches 140 times, while the Mets' pitchers hit opposing batters just 89 times, so Mets' hitters were hit 57% more often.  If that ratio were evened up, would the Mets have won some more games?  Hard to say, but my gut tells me "yes".  Simply, most players don't want to get hit because it can cause injuries.  Hit more of the opposition, and you may find that opposing pitchers hit your guys fewer times.  Perhaps leading to fatter pitches to hit.

I hope this article was a hit.  

Otherwise, pitch me other ideas, will ya?