Calandrillo taught my Law and Economics class last year and is my advisor for my advanced writing project. I grilled him on this article for hours, and the numbers are pretty tight. Still, there are several alternative causes that seem almost impossible to explore and get chalked up to other sources that might not account for them.

Just from TFA (perhaps not in the original research, though), the missing element is the batter. TFA makes it seem as if batters are just passively there to be hit. Batters can certainly influence HBP rates a lot by their behavior. (I have no idea whether batter strategies wrt the HBP have changed in recent years, but batters are not just immobile targets.)

Watching mostly AL baseball, I've always wondered - do pitchers in the NL really get hit in retaliation very often? I can't say I've ever heard of that actually happening. It seems like given how often players get pissed off about being disrespected or something that it would happen pretty frequently, or does it actually just happen so often that nobody really comments on it?

do pitchers in the NL really get hit in retaliation very often?

Nope. They almost never get hit for any reason.

HBP totals for NL pitchers (as batters):
2010: 20
2009: 20
2008: 6 (!)
2007: 18
2006: 14
2005: 17

HBP totals for NL pitchers (as batters):
2010: 20
2009: 20
2008: 6 (!)
2007: 18
2006: 14
2005: 17

In theory this could be because a given pitcher knows he's going to be thrown at and is prepared to get out of the way if need be. But it seems like when bean balls start flying around it's directed at the other team's star player and not the pitcher in question. Course, these day if you throw at someone you are kicked out of the game and suspended instantly, so it's kinda impossible to throw at an offender anyway.

Didn't JC Bradbury already reach this conclusion?

HBP totals for NL pitchers (as batters):

What's the total for NL pitchers (as pitchers) ?

Pitchers never get plunked because they're so terrible at the plate that pitching them in is pure downside; they aren't good enough to punish someone for going away-away-away exclusively, so taking the risk of putting them on base would be senseless.

The authors basically just follow Bradbury and Drinen's analysis. But unfortunately for them, I think Bradbury and Drinen got it wrong. The claim is that the AL HBP rate exceeded the NL's "after the DH was introduced." In fact, the AL advantage was about as large in the 5 years before 1973 as in the next 5 years. The higher AL rate must have had a cause other than "moral hazard."

Most likely, it was just a function of random changes in personnel. What B&D miss is that HBP rates are largely driven by a few extreme players. They argue that the DH increases the HBP rate by 8%. That's a very small number. For example, two 1970s-80s players -- Don Baylor and Chet Lemon -- themselves raised the AL rate by 4%, half of the entire effect claimed.

The AL edge disappeared in the mid-1990s, posing a problem for the moral hazard thesis. B&D have a convoluted theory that the umpire warning system lowered HBP in the AL, while simultaneously raising HBP in the NL. But again a simpler explanation is a few high-HBP players, this time in the NL. Biggio and Jason Kendall arrived and started putting up huge HBP numbers -- in 1997, these two alone accounted for 8% of all HBP in the NL! (Pedro arriving helped a bit too, although pitchers are less extreme than hitters.)

So yes, the AL had a higher HBP rate in the 1970s and 80s. But the gap preceded the introduction of the DH. The gap depends on which league a handful of high-HBP hitters happen to play in (and Bradbury and Drinen's tests of statistical significance don't even factor in this highly skewed distribution). And the gap disappeared in the 1990s. There's just nothing here, and the theory should be given a decent burial, not taken out for another ride.

There's just nothing here, and the theory should be given a decent burial, not taken out for another ride.

Absolutely right.

How many retaliation HBPs occur in the AL in a single season to begin with?

I'm against the DH for a simple reason? It upsets my sense of the basic rules of baseball. Baseball is a game where a team of 9 players faces another team of 9 players. With the DH it becomes 10 vs 10. YMMV.

MMDV. The DH is an imperfect and unsatisfactory solution in some absolute universal sense, but I look at it comparatively. The pitcher hitting is a greater outrage, as the pitcher as a hitter through the years has deteriorated to the point of being cartoonish. This brutalizes my basic sense of aesthetics. It's like an at-bat has been given to some Ronald McDonald right out of the stands, oversize clown shoes and all.

Having pitchers try (and fail) to hit major league pitching is one of the dumbest exercises in the history of mankind.

But at least it's boring to watch.

Having pitchers try (and fail) to hit major league pitching is one of the dumbest exercises in the history of mankind.

This makes sense.

If you have no joy in your heart.

From years of watching the AL.

Heh. I just think that watching someone try to do something that they can't is beyond silly.

But I get that I will never understand it. Kind of like how I will never understand why people choose to have animals living with them.

Pitchers hitting is the MLB equivalent of the Special Olympics One-Yard Dash. It can be touching; it can be amusing. But it ain't athletics.

Baseball is a game where a team of 9 players faces another team of 9 players. With the DH it becomes 10 vs 10. YMMV.

This is essentially my objection as well, although I see it more as 9 + .5 + .5 in actuality. What strikes me as flawed is that should we accept the P+DH combo as a valid construct to make a whole baseball player, then why is the starting DH allowed to participate after the starting pitcher for whom he bats is removed from the game?

A team should either forfeit the DH once the starting pitcher comes out of the game, or be required to change the DH if the pitcher has changed since the last time that DH batted.

Hooray, another DH argument where no one will change their mind!

Heh. I just think that watching someone try to do something that they can't is beyond silly.
Pitchers hitting is the MLB equivalent of the Special Olympics One-Yard Dash. It can be touching; it can be amusing. But it ain't athletics.

Tim Hudson - 85 PA, .442 OPS

Jeremy Hermida - 171(!) PA, .605 OPS
Jacoby Ellsbury - 83 PA, .485 OPS
Kevin Cash - 68 PA, .374 OPS
Josh Reddick - 63 PA, .529 OPS
Yamaico Navarro - 46 PA, .371 OPS

I know I'm obviously cheating by taking Hudson, but if you want to whine about watching people who can't hit, there are plenty more PA than pitchers' to do so about. At least they pitch.

The authors reviewed empirical research conducted by John Charles Bradbury and Doug Drinen and found that moral hazard explains about half the difference in the number of hit batsmen between the leagues.
Interestingly, in recent years the number of hit batsmen has dramatically increased in both leagues, and the disparity in hit batsmen between the leagues has narrowed. Buehler and Calandrillo conclude that this is a result of both leagues’ adoption of the “double-warning rule” in 1994.

The article implies these authors have done actual research, when all they do is quote Bradbury and Drinen copiously. There doesn't appear to be any new research. Hard to know if this is the authors' fault, but the newspaper writer certainly gives them more credit than they are due. It should say "...research conducted by John Charles Bradbury and Doug Drinen WHO found that moral hazard explains..." and "Buehler and Calandrillo ACCEPT BRADBURY and DRINEN'S CONCLUSION that this is a result of both leagues’ adoption of the double-warning rule.”

BTW, Dan Fox did a series of three great articles on this at B-Pro a few years ago. Among other things, he knocked down the theory that expansion explained the rise in HBP rates starting in 1993.

Tim Hudson - 85 PA, .442 OPS

Jeremy Hermida - 171(!) PA, .605 OPS

You know that this is an awful argument, so why trot it out?

At least they pitch.

And the DH Higher Power saith verily unto them, behold, I say, let my people pitch, let them that Throw in Honor of Me an in Glory of the Pitch go forth and multiply, let them Pitch in ecstasy beyond all peradventure for the Glory of the Lord, for the Lord (that's me) saith it is good, it giveth Me pleasure, but to bat, He further expatiated, is an anathema to Mine eyes (that's still me, the DHHP, that is), and a curse be on he and all his children that spills his seed in feckless at-bats to the End of Time unto the day of most High Judgment at mine Feet. Beyond all peradventure. Henna hackles, halt!

I know I'm obviously cheating by taking Hudson,

Yes. And you're also obviously cheating by using stats like a drunk uses a lamp post. But it's all in fun.

You know that this is an awful argument, so why trot it out?

And we see what it got Hermida: released.

But Hudson could strike out every time up and never get released.

Oh, wah wah wah. The attitude that it offends your higher athletic sensibilities to watch pitchers hitting is no less ridiculous than my trotting out worse non-pitching hitters than Hudson.

It would be in fun if any of you had a sense of humor.

Yes. And you're also obviously cheating by using stats like a drunk uses a lamp post. But it's all in fun.

I don't see the part where he urinated on the statistics, tried to have sex with them, then punched them in the face when they wouldn't respond to him.

I like watching pitchers hit and love it when they succeed. Contrary to popular belief, they don't all carry .000/.000/.000 lines. Are they weak? Obviously. Are they zero? Never. Pitchers hit. Anybody notice Cliff Lee the other night?

As for the athleticsm line tossed out above, a guy who can pitch in the big leagues AND hit .140 is a helluva star athlete, in many ways better than a DH who puts up league avg. OPS with no glove. Hearing that they aren't athletic is pretty damn funny; I doubt there is a single Primate who could foul off a major league pitch.

<insert lawn comment here>

I like watching pitchers hit and love it when they succeed.

Same here. It makes me night when a pitcher gets a hit. Way more fun than watching David Ortiz play defense.

Heh. I just think that watching someone try to do something that they can't is beyond silly.

Yet, we routinely watch middle infielders or teams like the Mariners who struggle nearly as much.

But I get that I will never understand it. Kind of like how I will never understand why people choose to have animals living with them.

You're Mr. Warmth, you are.

Yet, we routinely watch middle infielders or teams like the Mariners who struggle nearly as much.

I thought we were talking about major league teams here?

Well, there's no accounting for taste. Some, I'm sure, also see nothing amiss in casting Krusty the Clown as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It's being openminded--to the point of having your brain fall out.