Num | Player | HBP | From Year | To Year | PA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Cliff Floyd | 37 | 2003 | 2006 | 1884 |
2 | Carlos Delgado | 33 | 2006 | 2009 | 2023 |
3 | David Wright | 28 | 2004 | 2009 | 3665 |
4 | Vance Wilson | 20 | 2000 | 2004 | 713 |
5 | Jason Phillips | 19 | 2001 | 2004 | 894 |
6 | Joe McEwing | 17 | 2000 | 2004 | 1169 |
7 | Edgardo Alfonzo | 17 | 2000 | 2002 | 1731 |
8 | Mike Piazza | 14 | 2000 | 2005 | 2902 |
9 | Jeromy Burnitz | 14 | 2002 | 2003 | 809 |
10 | Fernando Tatis | 12 | 2008 | 2009 | 685 |
Hits-by-pitch have long intrigued me because they're often overlooked when considering the skill sets of particular hitters. While a lot of HBPs are just happenstance, some players get hit often enough to register as some kind of offensive trait. While getting beaned by a baseball may not be a true skill per se, some players, likely due to batting stance or movement in the batter's box, are just more susceptible to the hit-batsman. An HBP is basically the same as a walk value-wise, with some adjustment made for pain incurred.
Cliff Floyd was hit once every 51 plate appearances with the Mets, more than four times as often as Mike Piazza. Vance Wilson was hit once every 35 times to the plate, which is more often than Craig Biggio (once every 44). Amazingly, Wilson was hit even more often after he left the Mets, and has a career HBP% of 2.8% in 1,054 plate appearances (versus Biggio's 2.3% in a much larger sample of 12.503 plate appearances).