Next Up: The Arizona Diamondbacks

This could get interesting.

The last time the Pirates played the Diamondbacks it was last August 3. Pittsburgh lost, 3-2, in ten innings. But the game was notable because Andrew McCutchen left the game after tying the game with a sacrifice fly, 2-2, in the eighth inning. That was the last time he played until over two weeks later, on August 19.

The reason for his exit on August 3 was this play on August 2:

The day before, Ernesto Frieri hit Diamondbacks star Paul Goldschmidt in the hand with a pitch, breaking a bone and ending Goldschmidt's season. I don't think Frieri hit Goldschmidt intentionally--at the time, he had only a vague sense of where the ball was going once it left his hand--but there's no doubt that Goldschmidt was (and remains) the big star on a weak Diamondbacks team. So by baseball's childish you-hit-my-star-I'll-hit-yours ethos, McCutchen was due to be hit, I suppose.

Hit, maybe, but not drilled in the back by a 95 mph fastball. A pitch like that can, and did, cause injury. As I pointed out, the Pirates lost the next game as McCutchen left early. Including that game, they were 5-10 until McCutchen returned to the lineup on August 19. Five of those losses were by just a run. Remember, the Pirates finished two games behind the Cardinals. Three more wins and they'd have started a best-of-five Divisional Series with a well-rested Gerrit Cole in Los Angeles instead of starting Edinson Volquez, who got shelled, against the San Francisco Giants and their bionic lefty, Madison Bumgarner, in the wild card game. So, yeah, it's not likely, but it's possible that Randall Delgado's fastball to McCutchen's ribs wrecked the Bucs' postseason.

(Incidentally, this is why I really disliked Arquimedes Caminero hitting Ryan Braun with a pitch last Saturday after McCutchen was hit earlier in the game. Tell me how that was any different from what Delgado did to McCutchen last year, other than the resulting injury.)

Anyway, this could give the series more weight than your typical late April series between an 8-8 team (Pittsburgh) and an 8-7 team (Arizona).

The Diamondbacks had the worst record in the National League last year. So far this year, their hitting's been middle of the pack: In the 15-team National League, they're sixth in batting average, seventh in slugging percentage, and eighth in on-base percentage. Goldschmidt has led the way, batting .296 and pacing the club in homers (5), runs (13), RBI (16), and slugging (.611). Center fielder A.J. Pollock leads the club with a .358 batting average and .417 on base percentage, and outfielder Ender Inciarte has hit .310, though without much else in the way of walks or power. At the other end of the spectrum, four regulars are batting .220 or worse: second baseman Chris Owings (.220), catcher Tuffy Gosewich (.191), 2B/3B Aaron Hill (.158), and shortstop Nick Ahmed (.136). One of the more intriguing position players is Yasmany Tomas, signed to a six-year, $68.5 million contract over the winter and apparently before anybody determined whether he could catch baseballs. He was sent to the minors during spring training but called up on April 15. He's had three singles in seven plate appearances, appearing in one game as a third baseman and four as a pinch hitter. 

On the mound, they're seventh in starting pitcher ERA but 13th (4.20) in reliever ERA, with more blown saves (2) than saves (1). The best starter has been 22-year-old rookie Archie Bradley, who has a 2-0 record and a 1.45 ERA. The Bucs will miss him. They'll go against Josh Collmenter (1-2, 3.38 ERA) tonight, Rubby De La Rosa (2-1, 6.00 ERA, acquired via trade from Boston over the winter) tomorrow, and Jeremy Hellickson (1-2, 4.58 ERA, acquired via trade from Tampa Bay over the winter) on Sunday.

Odds and Ends - April 19

In about a month, I'll restart my weekly Trailing 30 report, which lists league leaders over the prior 30 days. There's no sense in doing it until then, though. If you want to know who's leading the league over the past few weeks, just look up the current standings. Once we get into May, seeing who's hot (and not) of late becomes interesting. At this point, it's just current events. 

Breaking the Brewers Curse?

This chart shows the Pirates' winning percentage against Milwaukee, at home and on the road, over the past 15 years. The pattern is pretty clear.

The Brewers used to absolutely own the Pirates, particularly at Miller Park. From 2006 to 2011, the Pirates went 6-48 in Milwaukee--a .111 winning percentage. After Pittsburgh's three-game sweep at home over the weekend, they're 3-0 at home, 2-1 on the road against a Milwaukee team that, to put it nicely, didn't look particularly sharp.

Ryan Braun--Star or No?

As I pointed out last Thursday, Brewers right fielder Ryan Braun had no extra-base hits entering the series against the Pirates. He exits the series the same: eleven games played, 38 at bats, nine hits, all singles. That's not much of a start for a player considered to be the team's biggest star and, at $13 million, its highest-paid player. This is Braun's ninth year in the majors, and this is only the second time he's gone over ten games straight in a season without an extra-base hit. That's not good. However, the one other time it occurred was in 2011, when Braun had a 12-game, 7-for-44 (.159) streak to start May. That was also the year he was the National League's Most Valuable Player, so it's not like he can't overcome his slow start. On the other hand, he wasn't 31, coming off two disappointing seasons, back in 2011.

This raises a question as to whether Braun is, in fact, the Brewers' biggest star. I'd make a case for center fielder Carlos Gomez or catcher Jonathan Lucroy. Gomez is on the disabled list with a strained hamstring, and Lucroy's started the year batting .132, which, combined with Braun's light hitting, helps explain Milwaukee's 2-10 start, the worst record in the majors.

But apparently the Pirates still view Braun as the team's star. In Saturday night's game, Brewers reliever Tyler Thornburg hit Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen with a high and inside pitch in the bottom of the seventh. I cannot fathom any reason for Thornburg to have hit McCutchen intentionally. The Brewers were losing, 6-1 at the time. There were two outs, nobody on. One of the stupid reasons that pitchers throw at batters is the prior batter hitting a home run. That wasn't the case; right fielder Gregory Polanco preceded McCutchen by grounding to second. Another stupid reason pitchers throw at batters is if the batter's having a big night; McCutchen had walked in the first, fouled out in the third, and walked in the fifth. So, as I said, Thornburg didn't have any justification for hitting McCutchen. Here's a plot of his pitches from Saturday night.

The pitch that hit McCutchen is the green square up and to the left, with the number 1 next to it. That's not the most inside pitch Thornburg threw. The second pitch he threw to leadoff batter Josh Harrison, the green square farthest to the left, with the number 2 next to it, was more inside. He didn't hit Harrison. Was he trying to hit McCutchen? I doubt it.

The point is, McCutchen is, unquestionably, the Pirates' biggest star. The code of baseball says that if you hit my star, I'm going to hit yours. McCutchen was hit in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Brewers went down 1-2-3 in the top of the eighth, with lesser lights (15 total plate appearances among them this season entering the inning) Martin Maldonado, Jason Rogers, and Luis Jimenez retired without incident. In the top of the ninth, Braun led up, and Pirates reliever Arquimedes Caminero promptly nailed him with a 98.6 mph fastball. Pirates fans cheered, the umpires warned both benches, and, a single and a run scored later, the Pirates had a 6-2 victory.

I'm sorry, but I really find Caminero's action objectionable, for two reasons. First, this eye-for-an-eye macho stuff serves no purpose I can see. Yes, I get it, McCutchen shouldn't have gotten hit. And if there were any reason to believe that Thornburg had done it on purpose, I could see the logic behind retaliation. But that really doesn't seem to be the case--Thornburg just threw too far inside, and McCutchen was unable to get away from the pitch, unlike Harrison, who was able to avoid an even closer pitch. Why is it necessary to retaliate for an accident?

Second, if you're going to retaliate, why do you need to do it with a 99 mph fastball? I don't refer to a hit batter as "getting plunked," because plunked conjures up an image of something soft and gentle, like getting hit by a pine cone falling from a tree. A baseball's hard to begin with, and throwing one nearly 100 miles per hour at somebody would be called assault, not plunk, away from a baseball diamond. 

You know what this whole thing reminded me of? Last summer, when Diamondbacks reliever Randall Delgado threw a 96 mph into McCutchen's back, ostensibly in retaliation for Arizona's star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt getting hit by a pitch the prior day. McCutchen was hurt, missing several games, and a number of commentators called for Delgado to be suspended. What's the difference here, except that Braun didn't suffer an injury? Same casus belli, same action by the pitcher, same type of pitch thrown. I could do without all of it.

I suppose, though, that Braun can take solace in, apparently, still being the Brewers' big star despite his .237 slugging percentage.

Phillip Hughes, 1988-2014

No, not that Phil Hughes. This Phillip Hughes played cricket, a sport about which we hear next to nothing in the U.S. But on Thanksgiving, the news broke that he died, three days short of his 26th birthday. He suffered head injuries from the cricket equivalent of being hit by a pitch two days earlier.

When I link to other articles here, I'm generally linking to writers at analytically-oriented websites rather than the mainstream media. It's not because I have anything against the traditional journalists, it's just that they don't generally cover the aspects of baseball I'm exploring. Buster Olney of ESPN is one of the best, and he wrote a spot-on piece about Hughes on Friday. You have to be an ESPN Insider to read it (note that if you play an ESPN fantasy game, you're an Insider), but it links what happened to Hughes, a cricketer in Australia, to what goes on in baseball in the U.S.: 

Maybe it's time to evolve to this: Intentionally hitting a batter for any reason is just wrong, and stupid, and dangerous. And if all the players begin to believe this, rather than thinking there is a proper way to retaliate, then progress will be made for all of them.

What happened to Phillip Hughes was an accident. What happens when a baseball player's hit by a pitch often isn't. Think of the game in June when Diamondbacks pitcher Evan Marshall intentionally hit Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun, an idiotic move that resulted in the next Brewers hitter, Jonathan Lucroy, hitting a go-ahead grand slam. Or last August when another Diamondbacks pitcher, Randall Delgado, purposely hit Pirates star Andrew McCutchen. Both times, the batter was hit in retaliation for an Arizona batter being hit earlier in the game. Braun took a pitch to his rear end, but McCutchen was nailed in the back by a 95 mph fastball that put him out of play for 14 games. As Olney points out in his article, major league pitchers can't place a ball perfectly from 60 feet and 6 inches away, and a fastball that's supposed to hit a player in the back could easily hit him in the head instead.

Look, I've written a lot about batters being hit by pitches (here, here, and here), because the rate's been rising and nobody seems to have noticed, much less done anything about it. My conclusion, in the last piece to which I linked, is that rising hit by pitch rates are a consequence of rising strikeouts, because batters are more likely to be hit when the pitcher's ahead on the count. (The most dangerous counts for batters, in terms of the risk of being hit by a pitch), are 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, and 0-1, and those are all paths to strikeouts.) But I never talk about hit batters as "plunking" or something innocuous sounding like that. A baseball is a hard object, thrown at high speed from a short distance to a player who's pretty much defenseless. Phillip Hughes was wearing a helmet much more extensive than a baseball batting helmet, and he was killed, accidentally, by a ball that bounced before it came to him. Why should we allow pitchers to throw straight at a batter? Yes, I know, they've done it for over a century and it's part of the game and all that, but tripping baserunners and lacerating fielders with sharpened spikes used to be part of the game too. That sort of thing was legislated out of the game. So should, as Olney suggests, intentionally throwing at batters. 

Flyover: Arizona Diamondbacks

This blog has been subject to fits and starts. In order to generate more consistent content, I'm going to give quick reviews of recent performance by all 30 major league teams. I'll do it alphabetically, starting with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

How Are They Doing? The Diamondbacks are one of the more disappointing teams in baseball this season. After two straight years of winning exactly half their games (81-81), the Diamondbacks stumbled badly out of the gate, losing 22 of their first 30 games. They never really recovered. They were one game over .500 in May (14-13) and July (13-12), but over the past 30 days they're 11-17. Despite that record, things could be worse. They're 23-22 in one-run games and 10-5 in extra innings, suggesting that they may have been a bit lucky.

Recently, they've been pretty bad. Only the Rockies have a worse record over the past 30 days. Their 4.00 ERA is the third worst in the league, and they've scored just 100 runs, one more than the league-worst Cubs. Losing their best player, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, with a broken hand on August 1, didn't help the team, of course. 

What's Going RIght? Despite playing in a hitter's park, only 9.6% of the fly balls allowed by Diamondbacks pitchers have left the park over the past 30 days, better than the league average of 9.7%. They've struck out 21.4% of batters, third most. In fact, based on just strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed, Arizona's pitchers are the seventh-best in the league at preventing runs. 

Finding bright spots on offense is a bit more of a challenge. They've struck out the second-least frequently in the league over the past 30 days. Other than that...Well, they've probably been a bit unlucky. Their batting average on balls in play is .265 over the past 30 days, lowest in the league, compared to the league average of .299. That kind of outlier is usually indicative of bad luck (just as a high batting average on balls in play is indicative of good luck). On the year, Arizona's batting average on balls in play is .293, again suggesting that they've been hitting the ball at fielders a lot recently.

What's Going Wrong? Remember the On The Field of Play pitching mantra: Throwing strikes is good, getting strikes is better. Diamondback pitchers have failed on both accounts. Over the past 30 days, they've thrown 45.9% of pitches for strikes, second fewest in the league, and gotten batters to swing at 28.9% of pitches outside the strike zone, also second worst. As a result, they've given up a .309 batting average on balls in play, also second worst. Granted, batting average on balls in play is partly reflective of luck, but when you're not hitting the zone and not getting hitters to chase, batted balls are more likely to be crushed. They pitchers aren't being helped by their defense: The team's Defensive Efficiency Rating, which measures the number of balls in play that get turned into outs, is last in the league. 

The offense has been pretty bad. They're batting .229 over the past 30 days, worst in the league. Their on base percentage is .289 (third worst) and their slugging percentage .353 (second worst). And again, they play in a park that favors hitters. 

Who's Hot? Arizona's hottest hitter of late has been shortstop Cliff Pennington, who's hit .320 over the past month, with two homers, 11 RBIs, and walking more than he's struck out, all in just 14 games. Given that he's a 30-year-old with a lifetime batting average of .249, that screams "temporary hot streak." Catcher Miguel Montero's been decent as well. 

Starters Trevor Cahill (2.73 ERA) and Vidal Nuno (3.44) have had strong months, as has setup man Evan Marshall (1.64 ERA, striking out 31% of the batters he's faced) and closer Addison Reed (2.53 ERA, six saves, 16 strikeouts and one walk in 10.2 innings). Then there's Brandon McCarthy, who's totally turned his season around, rebounding from a 3-10, 5.01 ERA start to go 5-2 with a 1.90 ERA...Oh, wait. The first part was his year with the Diamondbacks, and the second part was after he got traded to the Yankees on July 6. Never mind.

Who's Not? The competition for worst Diamondbacks hitter over the past 30 days is fierce. Is it shortstop Didi Gregorius, with a .193/.247/.349 slash line? How about outfielder Alfredo Marte (.170/.228/.264)? Corner infielder Jordan Pacheco (.178/.196/.222)? I cast my vote for second baseman Aaron Hill, whose .182/.247/.273 slash line comes with an $11 million salary, highest on the team. 

Remember Randall Delgado, who purposely hit Pirates star Andrew McCutchen? Karma's a bitch; he's allowed 12 earned runs over 10.1 innings in the past 30 days. 

What's the Outlook? At this point in the season, bad teams are just playing out the string. The Diamondbacks, along with the Rangers, Rockies, Astros, and Red Sox, are in the running for the worst record/top draft pick this year, so there's little incentive for them to get better. The offense has been unlucky and will probably improve. However, this really isn't a very good team, and they don't have the excuse of up-and-coming youth (their hitters are 0.5 years younger than the league average, their pitchers 0.3).

Headhunting

In probably the most controversial case of hit-by-pitch retribution this year, the Diamondbacks responded to Pirates reliever Ernesto Frieri hitting their star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, breaking his hand and ending his season, by hitting the Pirates' defending MVP, Andrew McCutchen, the next day, maybe or maybe not directly or indirectly causing a rib injury that may or may not put him on the disabled list. The absence of McCutchen could be devastating to the Pirates, who currently trail the Brewers by 1.5 games in the NL Central and lead the Cardinals and Giants by half a game in the National League Wild Card race. Frieri, who has had problems with his command all season (3.0 walks and 2.4 homers per nine innings, 7.34 ERA), fairly obviously hit Goldschmidt accidentally. Diamondbacks reliever Randall Delgado fairly obviously hit McCutchen on purpose.

Arizona has a reputation for hitting opposing batters, after their GM, Kevin Towers, lamented during the offseason that the team doesn't do it enough. Memorably, Diamondbacks pitcher Evan Marshall obviously intentionally hit Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun June 17 to the cheers of Arizona teammates and fans. The problem was, he loaded the bases for Milwaukee catcher Jonathan Lucroy in a game Arizona was leading 4-3. On the first pitch from reliever Brad Ziegler (Marshall was ejected), Lucroy blasted a grand slam to give the Brewers a 7-4 lead in a game they went on to win 7-5. The Diamondbacks' headhunting in that game may have cost them a victory.


This has led to all sorts of discussion about unwritten you-hit-my-guy-I-hit-yours rules, which teams' batters stand too close to the plate, and which teams' pitchers pitch inside the most. My friend David wondered which teams are the most notorious for hitting batters and for getting hit. That's easy enough to find out.

Here are the ten major league teams that have had the most batters hit by pitches this season: 
   1. Pittsburgh    60
   2. St. Louis     58
   3. Milwaukee     52
   4. Boston        46
   5. Tampa Bay     44
   6. Baltimore     43
      Seattle       43
      Texas         43
   9. White Sox     41
  10. Hou, LAA, Was 40

Makes you wonder about the NL Central, where the three top teams have been hit the most in baseball, doesn't it? 

And here are the pitching staffs that have hit the most batters:
   1. Pittsburgh    61
   2. White Sox     52
   3. Baltimore     50
   4. Yankees       49
   5. St. Louis     48
   6. Angels        47
      Philadelphia  47
   8. Houston       44
      Kansas City   44
  10. Cin, TB       43

Well, well. Pirates games certainly feature a lot of hit batsmen, don't they? Same with several of the other teams on the list.

This made me think: Who are the biggest victims and victimizers? Whose batters get hit more often than their pitchers hit batters, and vice-versa? Here are the victims, the teams with highest number of batters' HBP minus pitchers' HBP:
   1. Milwaukee     23
   2. Boston        20
   3. Minnesota     15
   4. St. Louis     10
   5. Seattle        8
   6. Atlanta        7
   7. Texas          6
      Washington     6
   9. Arizona        5
  10. Dodgers        4

I wouldn't read much into those figures once you get past the top three or four - we're 114 games into the season, so Atlanta's difference of 7, for example, means that an Atlanta batter gets hit without an opposing batter getting hit once every 16+ games. That's not much of a trend. But I wouldn't have expected the Diamondbacks to be on this list, not with their headhunting reputation.

And who are the victimizers, who hit other teams' batters in excess of their hitter getting plunked?
   1. Miami         13
      Philadelphia  13
   3. White Sox     11
      Kansas City   11
      Yankees       11
   6. Toronto        9
   7. Colorado       8
   8. Baltimore      7
      Angels         7
      Padres         7

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing: Huh? This is not exactly a rogues' gallery of teams with a reputation for playing dirty.

What can we learn from this? Not a lot. We don't know how many times a pitcher hits a batter accidentally or purposely from looking at the raw numbers, nor how often a batter bails out on an inside pitch or stands in there, taking his base. We don't know how many times a batter's hit in act of retaliation, and how many of those are the teams' stars. But I think we can say three things with certainty:

1. For the most part, teams' pitchers hit batters about as often as its batters get hit.
2. Contrary to what sportswriters may say about Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson throwing at batters (I discussed Gibson's somewhat undeserved reputation last fall), we are not living in an era during which pitchers are unwilling to hit batters. Batters are getting hit once every 17.5 games this year. That's the 18th most in history (since 1901). The top 25 are all from the years 1901-1913 and 2001-2014. 
3. Despite their reputation, the Diamondbacks have hit 34 batters this year, tying for the eighth fewest in baseball. Go figure.