In case you missed it, Rickie Weeks' first inning plunk last night was the 96th of his career, and by my count that makes him the most plunked batter in Brewers franchise history. Here's a slightly modified version of the Brewers career plunks list, to show how Weeks stacks up against the rest of the franchise:

Rickie Weeks - 96
Geoff Jenkins - 95
Geoff Jenkins + Von Joshua - 95
Prince Fielder + Nyjer Morgan + George Kotteras - 93
Prince Fielder + Nyjer Morgan - 93
All Brewers born in November - 92
All Brewers named Mike or Mark - 89
All Brewers Designated Hitters - 87
All the players who have 1 HBP as a Brewer - 84
Fernando Vina + All Brewers Pitchers - 81
Prince Fielder - 78
All Brewers with last names starting with A, E, I, O or U - 75
All 2012 Brewers other than Weeks and Braun - 74
All Brewers born in Wisconsin - 63
All Brewers Pinch Hitters - 59
Fernando Vina - 58

Ancient legend* tells that when County Stadium closed, a great treasure was sealed away in a secret vault. It was then agreed that the recipient of the County Stadium Treasure would be the last remaining major league player who got hit by a pitch at that park. And thus, the County Stadium HBP Tontine was born.

Sadly, it does not look as though a former Brewer will be the one to collect it, barring an unexpected comeback. In 2010, Ron Belliard was the only active player who got plunked for the Brewers at County stadium. He hasn't played since, but Robinson Cancel made a surprise 2 game come-back with the Astros in 2011, and he got hit once in a home game for the Brewers in 1999. He doesn't appear to be on anyone's spring training roster, so that finishes off the former Brewers who got plunked at County Stadium.

That only leaves 9 players in the tontine who were active in 2011. One of them has officially retired - Jorge Posada. Another of them is Ivan Rodriguez, who hasn't been able to find anyone interested in signing him this spring. The only players then that are expected to play in 2012 are the following seven: Omar Vizquel, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Andruw Jones, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton and Alex Rodriguez. Personally, I don't think Thome should be eligible because he already won the Cleveland Stadium HBP Tontine, which I assume exists, but I don't think that was included in the official rules. Also Ivan Rodriguez already won the Arlington Stadium HBP Tontine, but that's not important unless someone signs him.

(I think Todd Helton is going to win, but really only because I don't like the idea of Alex Rodriguez winning it. And the treasure is probably revolutionary war gold abandoned by the Red Coats when they evacuated Boston in 1776, and brought to Milwaukee when the Braves evacuated Boston in 1953. Or maybe some nice heirloom sausages.)

*-Stuff I just made up.

Hey, did you ever wonder how often the Brewers won their games when Geoff Jenkins started? Well, when Geoff Jenkins was in the starting lineup for the Brewers, the team won 45.8% of those games. That puts him 29th among players who started at least 500 games for the team. Below are all the rest of the players who started 500 times for the Brewers. Also included, is the number of times they got hit by a pitch, and if you're wondering what that has to do with anything - Hi, nice to meet you. And, the Brewers cumulative win percentage in games started by players who have be hit by at least 21 pitches for the Brewers is .522, and the win percentage for players with 20 or fewer plunks for the team is .494.

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This is Part 3 of a week-long series series looking at Prince Fielder's tenure as a Brewer from every possible angle. Today's guest poster is Plunk Everyone, who chronicles hit by pitches at a depth most of us can hardly imagine. - KL

Prince Fielder: A story of youth, resilience, and getting hit by a lot of pitches

On May 9, 1986, a little boy named Prince sat with his mother on his 2nd birthday, staying up late to watch his father, a young Designated Hitter for the Blue Jays, play against the Mariners.  It was the first Major League game that Cecil played on his son's birthday, and he promised his boy that he'd hit a home run for him.  Maybe even two.  (Or so I imagine.)  In the 2nd inning, Prince got his birthday wish - perhaps too young to really understand what was happening, but he saw his father swing that big bat and hit a towering fly ball right out of the park.  A home run! For his birthday!  Baby Prince Fielder must have been so excited.  But then he had to wait for the next time his father came up to bat, thinking for sure that his father could crush that baseball any time he felt like it.  Could Cecil hit another home run for his son's birthday?  Well no.  Cecil came to bat again in the 5th inning, and Seattle pitcher Mike Moore wasn't going to give the rookie slugger another chance to go deep - it was a plunk.  Cecil's first major league HBP on his son's 2nd birthday.  With Prince sitting with his mother watching, scared, wondering where it all went wrong.  Wondering if his father got hurt, but without the understanding that his father could be hurt.  Dad's are invincible, as Cecil showed with his earlier home run. 

That moment could have left Prince Fielder with a lifelong fear of baseballs...  but we know that didn't happen, don't we.  What I think happened is that Cecil brought home that baseball, and gave it to his son and said something like "It's just a baseball - it's hard, and it moves fast, but when you're big and strong, it doesn't hurt that much.  And look at it this way, Son - when you get hit by a pitch, you get to go to first base.  And that's the first step to coming home."  And Prince kept that baseball, and grew up to be big and strong, always knowing that sometimes you have to get hit by a few pitches to reach your goals, but that's nothing to be afraid of.

Okay, okay, I have no idea if any of that really happened, but Cecil Fielder really did get his first career HBP on Prince's 2nd birthday, and he did hit a home run earlier in the game.  But Prince Fielder has a superhuman talent for getting hit by pitches, and every superhuman talent needs an origin story.

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First off, I respect Chipper Jones' ability to hit the ball, but I find it very disappointing that he's been hit by fewer pitches in his entire career than Carlos Quentin has been hit by this season.  But I'm not hear to talk about Chipper's historic refusal to take a plunk for the team.  I am here to point out something a little obscure, but in my opinion very important.  Chipper Jones is 3 hits away from having the all time record for hits while playing in the National League East division.  With all the other stats and records and achievements chronicled by the baseball community, I'm not sure why no one but me seems to be keeping track of records by division, but I think having the most hits in the history of a division is a pretty major accomplishment. 

Here are the all time hit leaders in the NL East as of this morning:

Andre Dawson - 2578
Chipper Jones - 2576 (his two hits from 1993 don't count because the Braves were in the NL West at the time)
Mike Schmidt - 2234
Larry Bowa - 2191
Keith Hernandez - 2156
Ryne Sandberg - 2080
Gary Carter - 1969
Al Oliver - 1906
Jimmy Rollins - 1839
Lou Brock - 1812

So, please congratulate Chipper Jones, when he gets those last 3 hits to take the division hits record from Andre Dawson.  He'll be joining Cal Ripken, George Brett, and Tony Gwynn among the record holders for MLB's first 4 divisions established in 1969, and that's a pretty good club.  Craig Biggio and Magglio Ordonez hold the records in the two more recently established divisions.

As you're probably all aware, the Angels have had a total of 1,997 batters hit by a pitch in the regular season since the franchise was founded, as of this morning - June 24, 2011.  The historic milestone of the 2000th plunk in team history is tantalizingly close, yet the Angels seem to be approaching it extremely cautiously - like it might hurt or something.  They've only been hit 5 times this month, and not at all since last Sunday.  Meanwhile, I've been putting together a short list of historic dates in Angels HBP history to celebrate the milestone, and if they don't get those last three plunks soon I'm going to get to 2000 historic plunks on my list before they actually have 2000 plunks.  Anyway, in hopes that it might inspire them to stand in there and take those next 3 for the team to get to the One Ton of Plunks mark, the list is below.

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Normally I like to wait a while before I get too excited about a new player's ability to get hit by a lot of pitches.  There's a fine line between showing an exceptional willingness to not get out of the way of pitches, and a quick trip to the disabled list.  But for a select few, this is a skill, and one that can be used (almost) safely.  Craig Biggio, to use the most extreme example, got hit by 285 pitches, but was only pinch-run for after a plunk once, and never missed a game due to a plunk-related injury.  It's still early in Danny Espinosa's career... but we're seeing signs of greatness there.  Greatness at being hit by  pitches.

Yesterday, Espinosa took his 11th and 12th HBPs of the season.  That makes him the most plunked rookie in Nationals/Expos franchise history, breaking FP Santangelo's record of 11 set in 1996.  Here are the most plunked rookies in the history of the franchise:
Danny Espinosa (2011, 59 games) - 12
FP Santangelo (1996) - 11
Fernando Seguignol (1999) - 7
Vlad Guerrero (1997) - 7
Mark Grudzielanek (1995) - 7
Wil Cordero (1993) - 7

He's already tied for the the 16th highest single season total in franchise history, and while there's very little chance that he's going to come close to Ron Hunt's franchise record of 50, he's currently on a pace that would put him over the 30 plunk mark.  Since Hunt's 50 plunk year, only Don Baylor, Craig Biggio, Jason Kendall and Craig Wilson have cracked the 30 HBP mark.  However, HBPs don't usually take kindly to that kind of linear projection.  They're unpredictable - prone to show up in bunches, and disappear for long stretches... particularly when one of them sends a batter to the DL.

Since 1969 when the Expos came into existence, only 11 batters have been plunked 12 times in their team's first 59 games.  Espinosa makes 12.  Of the others, 3 were Montreal Expos.  7 were 2nd basemen.  Don Baylor, Ron Hunt, Craig Biggio and Jason Kendall account for 8 of those seasons, and those four guys have been plunked 1049 times.  They're 4 of the top 6 of all time, with Hunt being the least plunked among them at 243 career HBPs.  The other three batters to get hit 12 times in their first 59 games in recent history are Chase Utley (3 time league HBP champ), Fernando Vina (157 career HBPs, two time league HBP champ), and FP Santengelo (mitchell report alumnus, who had a couple of good HBP years).  Of those 11 previous batters who got hit 12 times in the first 59 games of their season, only once did that player fail to reach 24 HBPs for the season.

If Espinosa gets hit 11 more times, he can break the MLB (post-1900) rookie record for plunks - 22 by Charlie Babb in 1903.  If he only gets hit 10 more times he can break the 21st century rookie record (21 by David Eckstein in 2001) and the rookie record for teams in Washington DC (21 by Bucky Harris for the 1920 Senators).  If he gets hit 18 more times, he can break the all time rookie record, which stands at 29 HBPs, by Tommy Tucker in 1887 in the old American Association.

So because of all this, I'm not rooting for Espinosa to get hit by a pitch - I'm rooting for him to get hit by a lot of pitches.  That means he has to take each one safely - he's not going to break any records if he starts breaking bones.  Getting plunked in the face or the wrist tends to lead to a short career, and that's not the goal here.  The goal is a long and plunkful career.

As of this morning, there have been 997 HBPs recorded in regular season games at the White Sox home ballpark, U.S. Cellular Field.  Normally I like to bring these things up to the fanbases involved so you can play fun games like guessing who will be the recipient of the 1000th plunk in park history, but lets face it - picking anyone other than Carlos Quentin would be silly.  He's had nearly 24% of the plunks at U.S. Cellular Field this year.  But it's still an important milestone, and it will be the 10th active ballpark where 1000 batters have been hit by a pitch.

Below are a few interesting facts about the first 997 plunks.  (Although your idea of "interesting" may differ from mine.)

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Somebody in Saturday's game thread asked me about what Ryan Braun's OPS was the day after he got hit by a pitch.  Then I got distracted by Kevin Youkilis breaking the Red Sox hbp record and never got back to answer the question.  So, then it turned into a post on my site about offense the day after being plunked, which you can go read if you want, but here's the answer to the Ryan Braun question, in the form of the OPS of every Brewer from the beginning of 2005 to May 23, 2011, with a minimum of 10 plate appearances the day following an HBP:

 

J.J. Hardy - 1.250 (14 PA)
Prince Fielder - .955 (242 PA)
Geoff Jenkins - .906 (110 PA)
Ryan Braun - .877 (123 PA)
Rickie Weeks - .824 (278 PA)
Mike Cameron - .801 (26 PA)
Corey Hart - .681 (109 PA)
Alcides Escobar - .636 (11 PA)
Jason Kendall - .628 (76 PA)
Casey McGehee - .615 (13 PA)
Brady Clark - .612 (93 PA)
Craig Counsell - .607 (30 PA)
Carlos Lee - .583 (12 PA)
Damian Miller - .535 (20 PA)
Bill Hall - .411 (20 PA)
Tony Graffanino - .390 (21 PA)
Carlos Gomez - .258 (12 PA)

In that span of time Prince Fielder ranks 9th, and Braun ranks 19th in the league wide OPS standings for the day following a plunk, with minumum of 100 ABs on those days. And Rickie Weeks is the only player from 2005 to yesterday to get hit by 13 pitches on the day after he got hit by a pitch.

As you probably saw, Randy Wolf hit three batters in last night's game against the Cardinals, tying the Brewers single game record for plunking opposing batters. There have been 9 other games in Brewers history in which Milwaukee's starter hit three batters, but Wolf was the first to allow all three of his plunked batters to score runs after reaching base.  The outcome was about what you'd expect from reading that last sentence, and the Brewers are 3-7 in games when a single pitcher hits three batters, and no Brewers pitcher has ever hit 3 batters and been credited with a win.  However, most of the three plunk games in Brewers history were actually pretty good pitching performances.  Read on if you'd like to learn more about three plunk games in Brewers history.

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I'm sure you've all heard this already, and they've got the big numbers up on the warehouse with the count, and there's probably already a celebratory Duff Goldman cake in the works, with a motorized baseball flying toward a cartoonish cake-filled baseball player... but just in case you didn't know, there have been 998 HBPs recorded in major league games played in Orioles Park at Camden Yards.  I realize they're not home again until next Monday, but I wanted to give you a few things to think about, regard the history of Camden Yards HBPs, as the milestone approaches... and in case you still needed to put up the big numbers on the warehouse... and order the cake.

Below are several absolutely true, and occasionally interesting facts about the first 998 HBPs in Camden Yards history.

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with a side of deceptive marketing.  Perhaps you've heard of, or seen the commercial for Wheat Thins in which a Wheat Thins fan posts a twitter comment about Wheat Thins, and receives a pallet load of Wheat Thins in her driveway.  (I guess she can use them to re-shingle her roof).  Well, Teahenny Penny mentioned liking my BACON stat in yesterday's Links column, which means I shall now drop a pallet load of White Sox BACON stats on this website.

For those (most) of you unfamiliar with BACON, it is my attempt to come up with a simple way to measure batting consistency.  The notion is that a player who goes 1 for 4 in four straight games is more helpful than a player who goes 4 for 4 in one game, and then 0 for 4 in the next 3.  Both players have a .250 batting average over that span, but one is more consistent.  So I take total batting average and divide it by batting average in games in which the player got a hit - and then give it the delicious sounding name BACON, for batting consistency.

Below are the career BACON numbers for every White Sox player since 1919 (which is as far back as Retrosheet has the day by day stats to allow me to do this), who had at least 1000 ABs with the team.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: plunkeveryone has found a way to outdo himself once again. Enjoy. - KL

I've been working on thinking of something more obscure to do this off-season, and that's sort of hard because usually I'd be tracking HBPs in winter ball and improving my database of all things plunk related.  Those are pretty obscure things to do, but I thought I could do better, and I hit upon this idea.  Last year I made up a stat to measure batting consistency, which I call Bacon (for marketing purposes).  It's calculated by dividing total batting average by the player's batting average in just the games in which they got a hit.  The idea being basically if players have good days and bad days, I'd like to know how often they have those bad days when they just can't hit, and also how much they make up for that by being really good on the days when they can hit the ball.   It's simple, and the results seem to work out the way I think they ought to.  But since I made the stat up myself, it's hard to see how the players from this year and last year compare to others throughout baseball history, and that's one of the main points of having all these stats.

So this winter, I figured I'd work back through retrosheet's data and calculate Bacon for as many seasons as the data allows.  Since I'm back through 1969 at this point, that means I can share with you the complete history of Bacon for the Brewers franchise (including the '69 Pilots).  Because you probably need to know these sorts of things.  About obscure stats I made up that no one actually cares about, and which might not make any sense, but which I still kind of find interesting. 

Below are the career Bacon numbers for every player who has had at least 1000 at-bats for the Brewers franchise from 1969 to 2010, along with some lists of the best and worst Bacon seasons in franchise history.

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For those of you who are fans of the gritty art of being hit by a lot of pitches, you may already know how important it was when Carlos Quentin took a 5th inning plunking from Clay Buchholz last night.  First, it was the 79th HBP of the season for the White Sox, tying their single season record set in 2005.  Many people might consider the 2005 season the best in White Sox history, but the HBP numbers say 2010 is every bit as good.  In HBPs.  Second and more interestingly, that was Quentin's 20th plunk of the season, and since Juan Pierre already has 21 HBPs, the 2010 White Sox are the 2nd team in American League history, and the 7th overall to have 2 players get hit by 20 pitches.

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I've been noticing the reaction to Ichiro's 10th season of 200 hits is a little - un-amazed, including on the main page at Lookout Landing here where Jeff Sullivan said he feels bad about not being amazed anymore.  I'm still amazed by Ichiro, but I'll admit it takes a little more work.  It's not JUST because he holds the major league record for HBPs by a player born in Japan with 47, though that's usually the focus of my statistical work - it's really the hits.  I'm amazed because it's gotten so hard to compare him to anyone else who played the game.  One of the things we like, especially those of us who are sort of stat-enthusiast, is that the history of the game has given us such a detailed record of what other players have done so we can put current players in perspective to some extent - and then Ichiro comes along and blows everything away.  I would argue, in a phrase that may cause english majors to fall face first on their feather quills, that Ichiro isn't just better than everyone he's playing against now, but he's more better than anyone else has ever been against their competition.  Below are a couple of slightly obscure statistics you might not have seen anyplace else which might give you the idea of why I think that.

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When Shelley Duncan got plunked by Josh Beckett in the first inning last night, that was HBP number 4000 in the history of the Cleveland Indians franchise.  They're the 13th franchise to reach the 4000 HBP mark, and the 5th of the American League clubs to do so.  It's taken the Indians 17 years and 101 days to get their most recent 1000 plunks, since Felix Fermin got number 3000 on April 24, 1993.  That's the fastest plunk-millenium in club history, and of course included their amazing 103 plunk effort in 2008, for the post-1900 record.  Number 2000 was recorded by Pedro Ramos on May 5, 1962, and number 1000 for the Indians landed on Frank Brower on September 23, 1923 (thrown by Walter Johnson).  Numbers 2000 and 3000 were both thrown by the A's franchise, but they were in Kansas City in 1962.

To make the event even more interesting, just last Friday Adrian Beltre recorded the 4000th plunk in Red Sox team history.  So, in the 8th inning, as kind of a joint celebration of 4000 plunks by both clubs, Jensen Lewis and Beltre attempted to do a dramatic re-enactment of the Red Sox 4000th plunk.  Sadly, his pitch was a little off, but it led to both teams joyously taking to the field to celebrate the moment together, with good-natured taunting from the Red Sox side about having reached the milestone first.  What a nice way for the newest member of the 4000 plunk club to be welcomed in by the next newest member.  I'm pretty sure that's what happened anyway.

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Yes, Marlon Byrd.  There's a very good reason - let me explain.

• Marlon Byrd has been hit by a pitch 16 times for the Cubs this year.
• The last Cubs batter to get hit by at least 16 pitches was Frank Chance in 1904 (16) and 1905 (17).
• In 1905, the Cubs named Chance player/manager in mid-season.
• In 1907 and 1908 the Cubs won the World Series, with Frank Chance as player/manager.
• From 1909 to 2009, the Cubs never had a player get hit by 16 pitches, and never won a World Series (as you may know).

Now, I know everyone loves Ryne Sandberg - I walked among about 15,000 Ryne Sandberg jerseys in Cooperstown in 2005 for his Hall of Fame induction (and saw a total of 3 Wade Boggs jerseys all weekend).  But the fact is, Ryno never got hit by more than 7 pitches in a season.  But the Cubs have never won a World Series without being managed by a guy who had taken 16 plunks for the team.  Maybe it's just that grit and determination and willingness to sacrifice his body for the team that made Chance a winning manager, and that's just the ingredient that's been missing from every manager since 1908. 

 

Kevin Cash's leadoff HBP in the 6th inning of last night's game (7/20) was the 3,999th HBP in the history of the Boston Red Sox.  As you can probably guess, that means that the team is 1 plunk away from the historic 4000 HBP milestone.  If it happens tonight, the Red Sox will be the 4th American League team to cross the 4000 plunk barrier, and join 8 National League franchise in the 4000 plunk club.  However, the Indians are sitting at 3,995 HBPs, and do to the unpredictable nature of the plunk, they could easily get 5 HBPs before the Red Sox get hit again.  The race is on.

Whichever Red Sox batter it is who receives their next HBP will join the likes of Alex Rodriguez, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Lee, Jayson Werth, Marcus Giles, Jacque Jones, Doug Glanville, Sean Casey, Kevin Young, Tom Lampkin and Mike Benjamin as the only players who have been the 4000th batter to take one for their team. 

I assume you'll all want to plan celebrations for this momentous occasion, and organize friendly wagers to guess which player it will be, when it will occur, and how fast the pitch will be traveling.

As you may have noticed, Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder get hit by a lot of pitches.  There is no man alive, under the age of 30, who has been hit by more Major League pitches than Rickie Weeks.  There is no man alive under the age of 27 who has been hit by more pitches than Prince Fielder.  And somehow, you have them playing on the same team there in Milwaukee - coexisting on the same half of the same infield - and you haven't caused some kind of baseball vortex to be opened up where all the universe's baseballs are gradually accelerating toward a spot someplace on the infield grass at Miller Park.  As far as I know.  And that's the sort of thing I pay attention to.  For those of you not familiar with my work, I write a website called Plunk Everyone, and Kyle asked me to come write a guest post about the Brewers.  Of course I'm glad to, because I've been writing about the Brewers a lot anyway.  I write about batters who get hit by a lot pitches, and the Brewers have had several.

For most of you, the HBP is probably a footnote in the box score.  Unless it touches off a brawl, or an angry demand for plunkful vengeance, you brush by it while you're watching the game and wait for something more exciting to happen.  You may think it's just random chance when someone gets hit.  Or when one player gets hit a lot, you might think he's being targeted by opposing pitchers for some reason - like slow home run trots, or violating some other secret unwritten baseball rule.  But, the ability to take a large number of HBPs is a skill, and a rare one.  You can see this if you take a look at how the league's HBPs are concentrated around a few players.  Weeks and Fielder have taken 3.5% of all plunks recorded in 2010.  If you add in 5 more guys (Carlos Quentin, Juan Pierre, Travis Hafner, Marlon Byrd, and Jose Guillen), you get 7 guys who account for 10% of all league-wide HBPs.  They get hit because they're good at getting hit, and Fielder and Weeks have been particularly good at getting hit this year.

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On Saturday, AJ Pierzynski got hit by a pitch in the first inning, giving him 90 career HBPs, with 75 of them while playing for teams in the American League Central Division (41 with the White Sox, and 34 with the Twins).  That made him the first player ever to get hit by 75 pitches for AL Central teams, breaking the record originally set by Matt Lawton.  Lawton and Pierzynski had been tied with Paul Konerko for 1st place on the AL Central HBP list at 74, but Konerko didn't let Pierzynski have the record to himself for long.  Konerko got his 75th plunk as a White Sox batter in the 9th inning of the same game, tying Pierzynski again for the Division record.  But on Sunday, Pierzynski got hit one more time, re-taking the Division record for himself, at 76 HBPs. 

Here's how the AL Central HBP leaderboard looks now, with their career plunk rates for active players:

Player	AL Central HBPs	2010 HBPs	Career PA/HBP rate
A.J. Pierzynski	76	5	53.9
Paul Konerko	75	2	91.5
Matt Lawton	74
Damion Easley	70
David DeJesus	70	3	52.5
Travis Hafner	66	8	54.7
Mike Sweeney	66	1*	79.2
Frank Thomas	61
Chuck Knoblauch	60
Brandon Inge	60	1	75.6
Grady Sizemore	59	2	63.6
Ryan Garko	52	0*	31.9
Casey Blake	51	4*	69.2
Jim Thome	51	0	145.3
Angel Berroa	49
Torii Hunter	49	3*	102.8
Corey Koskie	49

*- HBPs outside the AL Central Division.

Based on career plunk rates, Pierzynski should pull away from Konerko and keep the record to himself for a while, but David Dejesus, Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore and probably Carlos Quentin could all be threats to Pierzynski's HBP record within the next few years.

Yesterday, Kevin Youkilis took an HBP from David Hernandez in the 10th inning against Baltimore, making that his 64 career plunk. That ties him with Jim Rice on the Red Sox career HBP list, and leaves him just 7 plunks shy of Mo Vaughn's record total of 71. Since Youk got hit a career high 16 times last season, there's every reason to expect that 2010 will end with Kevin Youkilis as the most plunked batter in Red Sox franchise history. In order to see how Youk has stacked up against Vaughn in the art of HBPs, below is a side by side comparison of Youk's career HBP splits against Mo Vaughn's Red Sox totals (Not including Mo's work with other teams). It's worth mentioning that Mo Vaughn frequently wore a very large arm protector, which would not have been legal in any of the seasons since Youk joined the league. The league banned the use of giant arm protectors in 2000, although some players (Barry Bonds) used a grandfather clause to continue using them. This is where I'm obliged to mention that Craig Biggio, the modern master of the plunk and Seton Hall teammate of Vaughns, conformed to the new arm guard rule after 2000, even though he could have used the grandfather clause and kept the huge police-dog-training-sleeve style guard.

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Probably.

Before last night's game, no known pair of teammates with a combined HBP total of 387 have been plunked in the same game.  Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio got hit by pitches on August 6, 2004, giving Biggio 254 and Bagwell 126, for a total of 380.  The only pair that could possibly have put up a better total is Bill Dahlen and Hughie Jennings for the 1903 Brooklyn Superbas (Dodgers).  Jennings got hit once that year - his 287th, and Dahlen got his 104th and 105th that year.  It's unlikely that they would have done it in the same game, but Retrosheet doesn't have game logs for that year so we can't prove it didn't happen.

So, Kendall getting his 251st plunk and Guillen getting his 136th is some kind of hard to explain record.  Probably.

I've been pretty impatient for Jason Kendall to get his HBP game going this season, and yesterday he finally got his 250th career plunk (contributed by Fausto Carmona).  But, given that only 5 people have ever made that milestone, and only 3 of them were born since the Rutherford B Hayes administration, I should probably cut him some slack.  Because getting hit by 250 pitches is hard.

Here are a few assorted groups of people who never managed to get hit by 250 plunks.

• Every major league pitcher from 1996 to today.  Since Kendall joined the league in 1996, pitchers have been hit 233 times.  Put another way, since 1996, major league pitchers have plunked Jason Kendall 250 times, but they've only hit the opposing pitcher 233 times.  Pitchers have had approximately 10 times more plate appearance than Kendall in which to get plunked.
• The 1980s Baltimore Orioles.  The Orioles only got hit 240 times during the 10 seasons from 1980 to 1989.  And there were actually ahead of the Braves, Reds, Pirates, Cubs, Cardinals, Astros and Padres in total plunks for the decade.
• 99.99% of any two randomly selected active major leaguers this year.  If you were to invent a game in which you had to randomly select two active players among those who have batted this season, who aren't Jason Kendall, but have to have their total HBPs add up to at least 250, your odds of winning that game would be about 1 in 9,179, or 0.011%.  There have been 591 different players to bat this year, other than Kendall, but only 38 possible combinations of 2 players whose career totals add up to 250 or more - and one of the two would have to be either Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter or David Eckstein.
• Every Kansas City Royal prior to May 4, 1977.  The Royals made it through their first 8 seasons before breaking the 250 plunk barrier.  The 250th plunk in franchise history was recorded by Tom Poquette on May 4, 1977 - thrown by Jamie Moyer.  (Not really - it was White Sox pitcher Steve Stone).
• Everyone born in 1932.  Partly due to a low birth rate in the early 30s, and possibly as a rebellion against their parents depression-era grittiness, major league players born in 1932 were only hit by 243 pitches.  There were only 73 of them, which is low, but they only got hit by an average of 3.3 pitches each - which is really low.  There were only 86 major league batters born in 1934, but they managed to get hit 857 times - nearly 10 times each.  Players born in 1974, when Kendall was born, have been hit 1,990 times and even excluding Kendall they've been plunked an impressive 9.4 times each.
• Everyone who has played this year for the Rays, Braves, Astros, Angels, Twins, Marlins, A's, Pirates or Diamondbacks.  If you add up the career totals of every guy who's played for the Rays this season, it comes to 249 plunks.  And they're only 22nd in the league in that category.  The members of the 2010 Pirates have been hit a total of 154 times, which is 23 fewer plunks than Kendall had as a Pirate.
• Every player in major league history born on January 25th, February 19th, June 13th, and September 8th - combined.  The combined total plunks for everyone born on those for dates is 227.  Somehow players born in September 8th have only been hit 35 times, while players born on February 29th have been hit 50 times.  There are 186 different birthdays (more than half the possibilities) on which the combined plunk total for players born on that date is less than 250.  (However, there are 481 plunks attributed to players whose birthdays are unknown).  The 41 players born on January 15th, and the 44 players born on December 17th have been hit exactly as many times as Jason Kendall.
• People born in Delaware.  Delaware has produced 48 major league batters who have been hit 245 times.  They're the closest of 12 US states who haven't been hit by 250 pitches in total.  Put another way, if Jason Kendall was his own state... or at least he was born in a state where he was the only person ever born - that state would be 39th in total plunks by state of birth.
• People whose last name starts with Q.  Despite Carlos Quentin's best efforts, players in the Q section of the baseball encyclopedia have only been hit by 201 pitches.

I just wanted to stop by Royals Review to congratulate the Royals on signing Jason Kendall.  Lots of teams go out and bring in the hired gun - a veteran pitcher or accomplished batter late in his career.  Lots of teams go out looking for a veteran catcher - the one they think will bring out the full potential of a young pitching staff.  That's what the Royals say they got in Kendall.  But what you've really got is the Hired Target.  Not a professional hitter, but a professional at getting hit with a career total of 248.  With the professional target, you also get his pursuit of the all time major league HBP record - one of the longest standing records in baseball.  That chase is going to put fans in the seats, and draw the national spotlight to Kansas City just as it did in Houston a few years back when Craig Biggio fell just short.  But ask the Astros how many tickets they sold to fans who were just there for that record chase - ask them how many fans were in the seats sporting tshirts saying "Plunk 288" or "HBP:BGO".  Just ask them.  (The correct answer, I think, is 2.)

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This is the all time leaderboard for hitting Derek Jeter with pitches:

John Lackey - 4

Mike Timlin - 3

Dustin McGowan - 3

Daisuke Matsuzaka, Matt Clement, Bronson Arroyo, Casey Fossum, Rich Garces, Kevin Appier, Denny Bautista, Erik Bedard, Chris Carpenter, Scott Downs, Kelvim Escobar, Chuck Finley, Danny Haren, Scott Kazmir, Rodrigo Lopez, Chuck McElroy, Aaron Myette, Joel Pineiro, David Riske  - 2

 

Lackey hasn't hit anyone else more than twice, though he did become the Angels franchise leader in career plunks last season, with 73 - passing Chuck Finley.

I'm sure that's not the only reason for the signing though.

 

Along with being the first HBP in Mark Teixeira's postseason career, and the first HBP recorded by a Yankee in a World Series game against the Phillies since Joe Dimaggio got hit by Jim Konstanty in 1950, Teixeira's 8th inning HBP Thursday night was the 100th postseason plunk in Yankees franchise history.  That's particularly impressive because no other team has been hit by more than 44 pitches in the postseason.

The Yankees have been hit 49 times in the World Series, 26 times in the LCS and 25 times in the Division Series.  Of the 100 baserunners they've earned from their plunkings, only 16 of them actually came around to score a run.  They've also been hit 3 times with the bases loaded in the postseason, most recently by Mike Stanley in the '97 ALDS.

The Yankees have won 53 postseason games in which they were plunked at least once and lost 31.  They've won 34 postseason series in which they were plunked at least once, and lost 16.  In series in which they don't get hit by a pitch, they're 11-5. 

The all time leader in plunking Yankees in the postseason is, of course, Pedro Martinez with 4 - although he didn't add to that total when he had the chance Thursday night.  No other pitcher has hit the same team that many times in postseason history.  The Dodgers lead all teams in hitting the Yankees in the postseason, with 16, and the only teams that haven't hit the Yankees in the postseason are the Rays, Blue Jays, Royals, White Sox, Astros, Rockies, Nationals and Breweres. 

To learn more about Yankees being hit by pitches in the postseason, go browse over to plunkeveryone.com

Here's the full list of Yankee leaders in postseason HBPs, after the jump:

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Kevin Kouzmanoff's 3rd inning HBP from Matt Cain was the 36th of his career - making him the first Padre ever to be hit by 36 pitches in his career.  The previous record was 35 by Gene Tenace, from 1977 to 1980.   Kouzmanoff has now been hit 6 times by the Giants, 8 times on Saturdays, twice by Matt Cain, 4 times by pitchers named Matt, 7 times when he scored a run after reaching base on the plunk, 6 times in the 8th inning, 4 times with two outs in the 8th inning, 10 times in May, and 21 times on even numbered days of the month, but he's never been hit by a pitcher born in Pennsylvania.

Here's how the Padres top ten HBP list looks as of yesterday:

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I just thought I'd point out that Kevin Kouzmanoff tied the Padres career record for HBPs when Manny Acosta hit him in the 8th inning on Wednesday.  He's now tied with Gene Tenace at 35.  Kouzmanoff also became the first Padre ever to have three seasons with 10 or more HBPs, and you probably remember that he broke the single season franchise record last year with 15. 

If you're reading this and saying "Really? The Padres plunk record is only 35?  Don Baylor got hit that many times in 1986."  you're right.  The Padres are tied with the Rays for the lowest franchise plunk record among current MLB teams.  Along with the Padres and Rays, the Mets are the only other team which hasn't had at least one player take 50 plunks for them.

I usually assume people who are fans of a given team know these things, but this might be a little off the beaten path so I thought I would bring it to the attention of you Marlins fans.  The Florida Marlins have been plunked 997 times in franchise history, and could pass the historic milestone of 1000 HBPs any day now.  So, I was wondering if anyone was planning a big celebration or if maybe the players would celebrate with a bench-clearing hug on the pitchers mound, possibly on top of the opposing pitcher.  Or, if the celebration might take shape more like a gasp and a quick prayer that no one is hurt, and then moving on as though nothing important just happened.  Any predictions on which Marlin will be the (un)lucky recipient of the 1000th free pass the painful way?

Personally, I think it is an important milestone in a team's history, and notable just because the Marlins will beat the Rockies to that mark, and be the quickest to 1000 plunks of any of the modern MLB teams.  And, if they time it right by getting hit twice in Atlanta this weekend, and make sure they don't hit anyone before they get hit at home against the Mets next weekend, they can have the 1000th HBP for a Marlins batter coincide with the 1000th plunk in the history of Land Shark Stadium.

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This doesn't appear to have been mentioned anywhere in the media, but I thought some Angels fans might be interested to hear that when John Lackey hit Victor Martinez in the first inning of Wednesday's game, he broke the Angels franchise record in hitting batters.  Lackey has hit 72 batters in his career, eclipsing the previous record of 71 by Chuck Finley.

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