If you come for the king, you best not miss?
As I sat to write this post, it was one of my closest friends in the entire world’s birthday. Well, it was yesterday, technically. It is after midnight — my typical writing hours. Earlier in the evening, as in a maybe an hour ago, because I must truly be a creature of the night in all facets, I baked her a cake from scratch. Modern cake mixes are really good — so good, in fact, that the effort to make a cake from scratch is not always worth committing to compared to the finished products. There is something to making something yourself, though, isn’t there? Carefully selecting each ingredient, meticulously measuring, and scraping down the bowl, every bit of effort a testament to your love and care. It is just a nice thing, I think. Sometimes the extra effort makes the results all the more satisfying.
If I had to guess the highest effort play to get on base, I’d probably say something like running out an infield single. That just seems exhausting. The most sacrificial though has to be getting hit by a pitch — I personally would be much more willing to do the former. Often times a hit by pitch is a mere accident, the slip of the fingers from a pitcher attempting a motion that requires perfection in every detail. Sometimes though, it seems to be a skill of the batter, someone with an uncanny ability to attract baseballs to his person in such a way as to avoid injury. Some batters turned “taking one for the team” into a philosophy.
It was not always this way either, though it was a rule that was quickly adopted. Prior to 1887 a hit batsman was not granted a free base, the pitch was simply considered a ball. In 1887 rule 5.05(b) was established, stating that a batter becomes a baserunner and is awarded first base when he or his equipment (except for his bat):
is touched by a pitched ball outside the strike zone,
and he attempts to avoid it (or had no opportunity to avoid it),
and he did not swing at the pitch.
I spent a lot of time trying to find the first instance of a player being awarded first base after being hit by a pitch, but found nothing. Microsoft Copilot seems to insist it was Charlie Bennett of the Detroit Wolverines on June 7, 1887, but I cannot confirm that anywhere. I only mentioned it now because I have spent an hour reading about Charlie Bennett and his contributions to baseball, such as the implementation of the chest protector for catchers, and the tragic train accident that cost him his legs and ended his career. If you are interested in baseball history, give his story a read — it’s good.
But back to the question at hand, with the information we have in front of us: which member of the St. Louis Cardinals has put his body on the line the most? Who is the St. Louis Cardinals Hit By Pitch King? There are a few ways to look at this. We could look at who has been hit the most by pitches during their time wearing the Birds on the Bat. That, of course, would be Albert Pujols tied with, you guessed it, Steve Evans* at 87 plunks.
*Steven Evans was an outfielder for the Cardinals from 1909 through 1913
That doesn’t truly seem to capture getting hit by a pitch as a possible skill though or the intention that the player might have when he sees a pitch coming at him. Pujols was plunked 87 times, yes, but he had a lot of opportunities to be plunked — 7,784 of them to be precise. To truly crown our HBP king, we have to account for the chances to be HBP as well as how often he was struck with a baseball. Here is our leaderboard with that consideration:
There were a few players I am not surprised to see. I thought Jon Jay might have a chance at the title. Kolten Wong certainly made a run for the crown. Brendan Donovan might just end up dethroning our current champion, but as of right now, none other than Fernando Viña sits at the top of the leader board, getting hit by a pitch in 3.56% of plate appearances as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. In fact, looking at this stat among players all time, Viña is sixth (I only did the calculation on the top 30 players in HBP — I am not downloading every qualified Major Leaguer. I feel confident in Viña’s placing.)
The last thing I wanted to look at was the Cardinals leader in hit by pitch RBI. This is harder to find, but I was able to run a query on Baseball Savant and found the leader since 2008. The Cardinals player that’s been hit by a pitch with the bases loaded the most (since 2008) is Yadier Molina, who has earned a HBP RBI four times. By percentage, the leader is Andrew Knizner, who has been plunked with the bases loaded 3 times in just 3,233 plate appearances.
And that is all I have for you on this Sunday: a meaningless fact that doesn’t really prove or change anything, but was something I thought was neat. I think the cake has cooled enough to cover it up and in a few hours it will be ready for buttercream. Happy Sunday!