Hit By Pitch Records and Details
What is Hit By Pitch ?
Hit batsman is the total number of times a pitcher or team's pitchers hits a player, or player equipment excluding his bat, with an errant non-strike pitch where the batter made sufficient effort to avoid being hit and is awarded first base. It's measured over a given time period such as a season or career. Generally, for Hit By Pitch, lower is better. (Source)
What is a good Hit By Pitch?
What does good Hit By Pitch mean? "Good" baseball stats can be very subjective and mean different things to different people.
I have attempted to quantify good and bad by taking season and career stats for MLB pitchers with a minimum number
of pitched outs. In this case 100 for career and 50 for a season. To find good and bad within this cohort of players I calculated the first and third quartiles,
anything between these quartiles I consider average. This makes up the middle 50% of players. In an example
where higher is better for a stat, below the first quartile (bottom 25% of players) would be bad and above the 3rd
quartile (top 25% of players) would be good. For stats where lower is better, flip around good and bad.
Career, Season, and Season Average Hit By Pitch Records
For my hot take on Hit By Pitch records most of the same rules apply from the first section. To be considered for my
prestigious lists the player must meet a certain threshold of pitched outs. Since this is a Pitching stat to be considered
for the career list the player must have over 100 pitched outs, for a season consideration the player must have
had 75 pitched outs. Additionally, the player's final game must have been after 1899.
Distribution of Career Hit By Pitch by Player Generation
Distribution of Season Hit By Pitch by Player Generation
Distribution of Career Hit By Pitch by Player Position
Distribution of Season Hit By Pitch by Player Position