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Brett Carroll: Getting Hit at a Historic Rate

Posted by Raphy on March 1, 2011

Despite only coming to the plate 90 times in 2010, the Marlin's Brett Carroll managed to get  hit by 7 pitches.  In MLB history not too many players have managed to be hit by a pitch at least once every 13 trips to the plate.  Here are the leaders in HBP since 1901 to be hit at that rate.

Rk Player HBP PA Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Ron Hunt 50 638 1971 30 MON NL 152 520 89 145 20 3 5 38 58 1 41 8 2 1 5 7 .279 .402 .358 .759 *45
2 Mike Kinkade 16 191 2003 30 LAD NL 88 162 25 35 7 0 5 14 13 2 38 0 0 8 1 3 .216 .335 .352 .687 73/95D
3 Fernando Vina 12 150 1994 25 NYM NL 79 124 20 31 6 0 0 6 12 0 11 2 0 4 3 1 .250 .372 .298 .670 45/67
4 Brett Carroll 7 90 2010 27 FLA NL 32 76 13 15 4 0 2 7 6 3 29 0 1 2 2 1 .197 .311 .329 .640 *9/7
5 Sal Fasano 7 75 1999 27 KCR AL 23 60 11 14 2 0 5 16 7 0 17 0 1 1 0 1 .233 .373 .517 .890 *2
6 Mike Kinkade 6 60 2002 29 LAD NL 37 50 7 19 5 0 2 11 4 0 10 0 0 2 1 0 .380 .483 .600 1.083 3/7
7 Chad Meyers 4 23 2001 25 CHC NL 18 17 1 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 1 .118 .348 .118 .465 /4875
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/1/2011.

Hunt is the modern-day single-season HBP record holder.  His BR Bullpen page has an interesting story on the all-time record.

"Hunt's 50 hit-by-pitches in 1971 are the highest season total in the 20th Century, only trailing Hughie Jennings' 51 in 1896 on the all-time list. When Hunt posted his total, Jennings was credited with only 49 hit-by-pitches that season, meaning that Hunt was celebrated for a while as the all-time record holder. Years later, further research credited Jennings with two more instances in 1896, giving him back the record. But if Hunt had known the record would eventually be 51, he doubtless would have found a way to step into the path of a couple more curve balls to pass Jennings."

Not only did Carroll get hit a lot, he also rarely walked.  Here are the players since 1901 with at least 6 walks and more HBP than BB.

Rk Player BB ▾ HBP Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI IBB SO SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Dan McGann 16 23 1901 29 STL NL 103 469 423 73 115 15 9 6 56 0 0 7 0 0 17 0 .272 .333 .392 .726 *3
2 Mike Kinkade 13 16 2003 30 LAD NL 88 191 162 25 35 7 0 5 14 2 38 0 0 8 1 3 .216 .335 .352 .687 73/95D
3 Art Fletcher 13 14 1916 31 NYG NL 133 542 500 53 143 23 8 3 66 0 36 15 0 0 15 0 .286 .323 .382 .705 *6
4 Ryan Doumit 11 13 2005 24 PIT NL 75 257 231 25 59 13 1 6 35 1 48 1 1 5 2 1 .255 .324 .398 .722 *2/D9
5 Sal Fasano 10 16 1998 26 KCR AL 74 247 216 21 49 10 0 8 31 1 56 3 2 4 1 0 .227 .307 .384 .692 *2/35
6 Einar Diaz 9 10 2003 30 TEX AL 101 361 334 30 86 14 1 4 35 0 32 4 4 12 3 1 .257 .294 .341 .635 *2
7 Fred Crolius 9 10 1901 24 BSN NL 49 222 200 22 48 4 1 1 13 0 0 3 0 0 6 0 .240 .306 .285 .591 *9/8
8 Jack O'Neill 8 11 1905 32 CHC NL 53 197 172 16 34 4 2 0 12 0 0 6 0 0 6 0 .198 .277 .244 .522 *2
9 Ollie O'Mara 7 10 1918 27 BRO NL 121 489 450 29 96 8 1 1 24 0 18 22 0 0 11 0 .213 .242 .242 .484 *5
10 Alex Cora 7 9 2007 31 BOS AL 83 232 207 30 51 10 5 3 18 2 23 7 2 5 1 1 .246 .298 .386 .684 *46/3
11 Jack Warner 7 9 1903 30 NYG NL 89 309 285 38 81 8 5 0 34 0 0 8 0 0 5 0 .284 .322 .347 .670 *2
12 Carlos Baerga 7 8 2005 36 WSN NL 93 174 158 18 40 7 0 2 19 0 17 1 0 4 0 0 .253 .318 .335 .653 53/4D
13 Billy Maloney 7 8 1901 23 MLA AL 86 314 290 42 85 3 4 0 22 0 0 9 0 0 11 0 .293 .328 .331 .659 *2/8
14 Art Fletcher 6 14 1915 30 NYG NL 149 599 562 59 143 17 7 3 74 0 36 17 0 0 12 18 .254 .280 .326 .606 *6
15 Whitey Alperman 6 14 1906 26 BRO NL 128 487 441 38 111 15 7 3 46 0 0 26 0 0 13 0 .252 .284 .338 .622 *46/5
16 Brett Carroll 6 7 2010 27 FLA NL 32 90 76 13 15 4 0 2 7 3 29 0 1 2 2 1 .197 .311 .329 .640 *9/7
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/1/2011.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

18 Responses to “Brett Carroll: Getting Hit at a Historic Rate”

  1. Tom Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    I remember noticing that a while back and wondering if Carroll had a bad reputation or was a trash-talker. I had no idea Sal Fasano walked so rarely, though, or that he got hit so often.

  2. Frank Clingenpeel Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 9:17 pm

    Gee, Ron Hunt made this list over a whole season; color me SO surprised...

    NOT !!!

  3. kenh Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 9:53 pm

    Isn't this list missing Don Baylor?

  4. Whiz Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 10:23 pm

    Even though Baylor lead the league in HBP 8 times (!), his most frequent rate was once every 16.7 PA in 1987, less than the 1 in 13 requirement in Raphy's search.

  5. Doug Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 10:30 pm

    Strange sequence of years.

    6 guys in the 1900s (incl. 3 in 1901 alone), 4 more in the 1910s, and then nothing for 80 years until 1998. After '98 we get another decade (2001-2010) with 6 guys.

  6. John Autin Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    Seeing Mike Kinkade's name twice on the first list intrigued me, so I checked out his player page, then ran a few searches:

    1. Mike Kinkade was hit by a pitch 28 times in 491 career PAs. There were 5 seasons in which he batted more than twice; he got hit at least once in all 5 seasons.

    2. Kinkade's career HBP rate -- 5.7% of PAs -- is easily the highest of any player with at least 200 PAs. Hughie Jennings is 2nd at 5.1%.

    3. Brett Carroll has been hit in 3.4% of his career PAs (11 HBP in 319 PAs), which is very high, indeed. But Kinkade's HBP rate is 65% higher than Carroll's.

    4. Despite the high rate, Kinkade was never hit by a pitch in consecutive games, and had only 1 game in which he was hit twice. This is likely due to the fact that he got exactly 1 PA in almost half of his career games (103 of 222).

    5. On the flip side of this picture ... The record for most career PAs without ever being hit by a pitch is held by Mark Lemke -- 3,664 PAs (plus another 257 PAs in the postseason).

  7. BalBurgh Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    At least some mention of Jason Kendall has to be made in this thread. Ha ha, maybe it was all those HBPs and not that horrible compound fracture that slowed him down. That and catching a lot of games. Guess he won't get much past 5th all time, though...

  8. John Autin Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    P.S. In the minors, Mike Kinkade had 174 HBP in 4,390 PAs, a rate of 4.0%, with a season high of 32 HBP at Class A Beloit in 1996.

    In '97, Kinkade batted .385 to lead the AA Texas League by 24 points; he also led the league with a .455 OBP and 1.042 OPS, and had 17 SB in 21 tries. Unfortunately, he also made 60 errors in 106 games at 3B, giving him 98 errors in 2 years at that position (after converting from catcher). The organizations that had him never did really decide where to play him; despite the high BA and gap power, teams felt he didn't hit enough HRs to play 1B or LF. Kinkade batted .326 in over 1,000 minor-league games (.308 in 573 games at AAA) -- but he never got even 200 PAs in a season in the majors.

  9. John Autin Says:
    March 1st, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    Even more surprising than Brett Carroll's 7 HBP in 90 PAs is the fact that Florida brought up a 27-year-old corner outfielder who was hitting .221/.299/.385 with 8 HRs in 70 games at AAA....

  10. Tim H Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 3:18 am

    @John Autin: They didn't. He was on the opening day roster and was sent down. Moreover, he can play center as well; they kept him around here for his glove more than his bat, in fact, and he's made some highlight reel plays over the past few years. There's a lot those stats don't tell you.

  11. Doug Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 3:21 am

    I was intrigued by Art Fletcher. Showed up twice on the second list (more HBP than BB) and, with Whitey Alperman, was the only one to do so as an everyday or nearly everyday player.

    From his player page, Fletcher seems like a very serviceable Giants shortstop (his #2 similarity score of 918 is Phil Rizzuto). He turned in season after season of remarkably similar results, mostly a singles hitter with vey few walks (about half as many as Ichiro) and not a lot of runs scored, but with more RBI (in the 70s in his peak years) than you might expect for a 100 OPS+ guy in the deadball era.

    In addition to the two seasons on the list, Fletcher came close to turning this trick in 4 other seasons. Fletcher led the league 5 times in HBP, but his high total was only 19. Ron Hunt, by way of comparison, was league leader 7 times, but had more than 20 HBP in six of those seasons.

    Doesn't appear Fletcher was much of a base stealer (maybe why his runs scored are low). Caught stealing was only recorded intermittently, so not sure how accurate the numbers are, but he has steal marks like 32 for 50, 12 for 30 (ouch), 7 for 15, etc. Although, he did post one season of 15 for 15 in stolen bases (that one looks suspicious).

  12. Tmckelv Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 8:40 am

    I think for the second table, we might want to see players with at least 6 HBP (rather than the current 6 BB minimum). It would include all of the players on the current list plus any with extremely high HBP/BB ratios (like a theoretical line of 20 HBP/5 BB, which would not make the second list as it is currently defined)

  13. aweb Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 9:56 am

    The second list is purely a HBP>BB list, not a ratio-driven list.

  14. Atom Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 10:34 am

    It was always fun to watch Fernando Vina. Any pitch anywhere near the inside corner and he would turn, or try to turn into it.

  15. Tmckelv Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 10:40 am

    @13,

    Yes, but the list cutoff is 6 BB minimum.

    My point was that the list should be for 6 HBP minimum. I would be interested in seeing a player with (theoretically) 20 HBP and 5 BB on the second list, whereas, right now, they would not make it because of not having enough BB (less than 6). It is not a big deal really (and not my intention to turn it into one), but I just wanted to clarify my point.

  16. John Autin Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 12:59 pm

    @10, Tim H. -- Thanks for the correction re: Carroll's time with Florida last year. I made a false assumption.

    As for his position ... I admit that I haven't seen him play. But just from the record -- no games in CF last year with the Marlins; 83 defensive innings in CF in his MLB career (only 2 since 2007); 11 minor-league games in CF over the past 2 years -- I still say he is a corner OF.

  17. Tim H Says:
    March 2nd, 2011 at 2:47 pm

    I did notice that he didn't play there last year; Perhaps saying that he *has* played CF would have been better phrasing. I seem to remember seeing more of him there, but I've been wrong before, and I'll doubtless be wrong again. All the same, good glove, good arm, and that's what's gotten him most of his MLB playing time.

  18. fabio Says:
    March 4th, 2011 at 6:35 am

    I had to check out Run Hunt's 1971 season game by game to see how his chase unfolded. There was barely any clustering that I could tell. He got hit on a very regular basis. He was one short of the known record (49) with 8 games to go and he went 5 games without getting hit. Then in the final 3 games series of the season he got hit in game 160, and then again in game 161 to break the record.

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