Imagine if he pitched for the Cardinals, or Cubs !

Imagine if he pitched for the Cardinals, or Cubs !

What is that imagining supposed to do?

You have to imagine this guy is headed for a brawl. 1 HPB every 2 IP is a menace.

You have to imagine this guy is headed for a brawl. 1 HPB every 2 IP is a menace.

Looking at a montage, they seem to come in two camps. Sliders that don't slide and clip righthanders on the hip. And sliders that slide too much and clip them on the legs.

Imagine if he pitched for the Cardinals, or Cubs !

What is that imagining supposed to do?

Both teams are on pace to break the all-time MLB record for hit batsmen in a season (currently 95, by the 2003 Devil Rays).

The Cubs are on pace for 99 HBP, the Cardinals for 96 (actually, 95.6, and their pace has slowed dramatically; heading into August they were on pace for around 110, but they've stopped hitting batters since then). In June the Cardinals were on pace for over 120 HBP.

Despite little name recognition, [RELIEVER] is one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball.

Baseball 2021 Mad Libs!

Both teams are on pace to break the all-time MLB record for hit batsmen in a season (currently 95, by the 2003 Devil Rays).

Thank you. I hadn't heard that.

Through July 28, the Cardinals had 75 hit batsmen in 102 games (0.74/game, a pace of 121 hbp); since then they've only hit 7 in 37 games (0.19/game).

EDIT: The Cardinals have now gone 18 straight games without hitting a batter, something that earlier in the year I would have thought was impossible.

Despite little name recognition, Austin Adams is one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. Among all pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched in 2021, the Padres’ right-handed reliever is allowing the lowest slugging percentage (.201) and the third-lowest batting average (.149), behind only Jacob deGrom and Josh Hader.

This guy's not actually dominant at all, at least not as I'd use that term. Because he hits so many batters, Adams has put more than one runner per inning on first via walk or HBP. He's allowing an OBP of .357, well above the league OBP of .317. His ERA is a decidedly non-dominant 3.28.

Rotisserie baseball dings pitchers for hits and walks but NOT HBP. so Adams is useful on that front, at least.

check that - he has allowed a weird 23 H/31 BB in 47 IP, which is a merely respectable 1.157 WHIP for a reliever.

you didn't even quote the funniest part:

How is Adams managing this extraordinary feat? He essentially subsists on a one-pitch diet, throwing his high-spin slider 88 percent of the time against batters of both handedness. All 20 of his HBPs have naturally come on sliders; notably, he’s allowed only 20 actual hits off his slider all year long, per Statcast tracking.

This guy's not actually dominant at all, at least not as I'd use that term. Because he hits so many batters, Adams has put more than one runner per inning on first via walk or HBP. He's allowing an OBP of .357, well above the league OBP of .317. His ERA is a decidedly non-dominant 3.28.

a .357 OBP with a .202 SLG% still adds up to a godawful .559 OPS.

so, this guy has 51 BB+HBP. 19 are with the bases empty. of the remaining 32:
9 occurred with first base unoccupied while other runners were on 2nd and/or 3rd base.
23 of these events caused a runner on first base to advance
and of those 23, 3 occurred with the bases loaded, thus forcing in a run.


that is not nearly as terrible as it could be.

I think they should enforce the rule that players need to attempt to get out of the way and/or eliminate the free pass if your get hit on the protective elbow pad

I think they should enforce the rule that players need to attempt to get out of the way and/or eliminate the free pass if your get hit on the protective elbow pad

I think they should abandon the rule that players need to get out of the way. Why should it be on the hitter to bail the pitcher out? (Now, I also believe that if you are hit by a pitch anywhere outside the batter's box, then you shouldn't get first base at all, but it's merely a ball/strike depending on location).

Watch out for Alek Manoah - Jays rookie starter who has 11 HBP in 85 IP over 16 starts. A 120 ERA+ so he is a very good pitcher, just when he loses it for a pitch he really loses it. Yet no wild pitches - go figure. He takes after an old Jays pitcher - Dave Stieb - who lead the league in HBP 5 times with a peak of 15 in 1986. Fun seeing the one game when he got booted after hitting a guy and he yelled at the umps about it with basically the argument that he does that all the time.

Fun seeing the one game when he got booted after hitting a guy and he yelled at the umps about it with basically the argument that he does that all the time.

Yelling at someone was also something he did all the time.

Fun seeing the one game when he got booted after hitting a guy and he yelled at the umps about it with basically the argument that he does that all the time.

When you hit batters frequently, eventually intent doesn’t really matter, your team is ‘liable’ on a negligence theory for putting a guy without major league control on the mound. There’ll be retaliation and the team has to decide whether to run the risk to its own batters.

whats the current rule on body armor? Are they allowed all the stuff that Bonds used to wear?

Q2: does anyone think that disallowing all body armor would lead to less HRs?

I'm not sure what the team record is, but the 1899 Spiders hit 109 batters:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1899.shtml

I'm not sure what the team record is, but the 1899 Spiders hit 109 batters:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1899.shtml

That may well be the pre-1900 record.

But since 1900, the Devil Rays' 95 is the MLB team record.

EDIT: 109 is the "all-time" record, and second is the Washington AA club in 1891 (before the current pitching distance) with 105.

After that it's the 2003 Devil Rays (95), and almost every post-1900 team that follows all-time is from post-2000 as well. You have to go all the way down to 20th place on the post-1900 list to find a PRE-2000 team, and even then it's the 1996 Angels, with 84.

Of the top 85 team seasons on the all-time hit batsmen list, 78 are post-2000, and only two are from before 1996.

The first season between 1923 and 1993 (69 years) is 194th on the list, the 1968 White Sox, with 66 hit batsmen.

Yet the most fascinating part of Adams’s otherwise stellar season has nothing to do with batting average or home runs or any sort of bat-to-ball contact at all. No, the weirdest, wildest, most wonderful wrinkle is that Adams, a reliever with all of 46 2/3 innings, also leads the league by hitting 20 batters; nobody else—not more frequently used relievers, not any of the qualified starters on pace for 200-plus innings—has hit more than 15. And with three weeks remaining in the season, Adams has a chance at the liveball era record.

Hmmmm, I'm not sure I'd use "wonderful" to describe a record for hitting batters.

Although "Chicks Dig The Beanball" does have kind of an edgy ring.

Manoah is an excellent pitcher - 121 ERA+ so far - but he has an odd habit of hitting guys. He did it in the minors too in his short time down there (6 HBP in 9 games, 134 batters faced vs 11 against 357 in the majors). IIRC most of the time he hits them with his lower speed pitches, not his fastball so most hitters just accept the base and move on - just not in the game he was ejected. He is far too mouthy at times, but that is part of his personality - he is super active on the bench even when not pitching. A fun guy to have on your team, but someone other teams must get annoyed with. I get the feeling the Jays will be great fun here but hated by others over the next 5+ years while the kids develop. From the offense with Vlad Jr, Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernandez, etc. to the pitching with Manoah and a pitching coach who seems to have a magic touch. It is a great time to be a Jays fan.