Today in The Journal News
-
-
- March
- 14
-
Billy Crystal had fun but Mike Mussina was perfect yesterday.
Joe Girardi and Shelley Duncan talked it over. This notebook also has some medical updates, Godzilla’s return to left, plans for the Virginia Tech game and other news.
————
There’s a popular stat going around now that shows the Yankees were hit by a pitch 223 times the last three seasons, the most in the majors.
This supposedly shows that the Yankees were a bunch of pansies, I guess.
However, further research shows that Yankees pitchers have hit opposing batters 203 times in the last three years. Only seven teams in the majors (one in the American League) have hit more batters.
To put it in some perspective, Yankee batters have been hit 20 more times in the last 486 games than their pitchers have hit somebody. That’s once every 24.3 games, about once a month. Factor in that Jeter and Giambi (and Posada and A-Rod to a lesser degree) “dive in” when the hit, and it’s easily explained.
Invariably, Jeter and Giambi get hit on the wrist, hand or forearm because of their hitting style. If the Yankees retaliated every time that happened, they’d get half the pitching staff suspended.
Another pesky fact: Since 1996, the Yankees are the only team in the majors to have had at least one pitcher suspended each year for intentionally throwing at a batter.
It’s like anything else. Every fan is convinced that their team doesn’t retaliate enough, that the announcers are biased against them and that beer costs the most in their stadium. You react to what you see every day. But in the end, it’s about the same for everybody.
This entry was posted
on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 7:20 am by Peter Abraham.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Josh Thomson
Come on Pete. We are fans. We don’t need facts! They don’t retaliate enough!
Joba’s suspension last season is an indication of what that stat is worth.
Since 1996, the Yankees are the only team in the majors to have had at least one pitcher suspended each year for intentionally throwing at a batter.
OK, the Yankees are number one being hit and number 8 hitting batters.
Wait a minute… are you saying there are stadiums where they charge more for beer than the Yankees do? That, I find hard to believe. Let’s start a campaign to get Shelley to retaliate against the vendors!
Baja ;
Absolutely anything baseball related costs more in Boston. The highest in the country. All that for poor sightlines and a small Sardine Can.
Maybe the Yankees never retaliate. Maybe Yankees pitchers hit the first batter and the other team retaliates, and that’s why the numbers are so even. These are just statistics that you can take to mean anything you want. Just saying they were hit 223 times doesn’t mean anyhing unless you know the league average, etc.
When I heard the stat that the Yankees were hit the most, and I thought about other pitchers throwing at Yankees, not whether they retaliate. In general, I think retaliation is a stupid move. You get to feel good because you retaliated, but now you have your pitcher and manager thrown out.
“Only seven teams in the majors (one in the American League) have hit more batters.”
and that other American leauge team is?
saucy-the 64,000 dollar question, the first to come to my mind too.
“All that for poor sightlines and a small Sardine Can.”
Ba…ja!!!!
Well, at least Scott Proctor was good for something
I think the difference is we had a lot of garbage pitchers hitting batters, it wasn’t intentional.
We were hit intentionally espically by that number one team!!
http://www.nydailynews.com/spo.....tml?page=0
this is total bs!!
So, wait, it’s not a vast, Red Sox conspiracy?
Jennifer – I just read that article you linked to about Joe’s potential suspension. You’re right, total bs. I hope Joe is right–how could he be suspended if he wasn’t tossed out of the game. And Reggie Jackson not being allowed to sit in the dugout during games? It is a conspiracy!
Hey folks,
I have tickets to Saturday’s game. Naturally I’m disappointed that this is going to be a split-split-split squad day.
Anyone know about this game against a minor league team Saturday in Tampa? Against who and where?
Those stats are meaningless. Last year Dice K threw at Jeter and ARod and they didn’t suspend him. Watching the games tells you the whole story. Those stats also don’t take into consideration which HBPs were intentional and which ones were a result of poor command. There are a lot of other factors, too- like when the pitch doesn’t actually hit the batter but was a purpose pitch or when the pitch really just grazes the batter’s shirt or when the batter steps into it.
2 issues i’d need resolved before i could consider this stat meaningful:
1. the stat does not distinguish between mere wildness and deliberate beanballs. For example, if Felix Heredia hit someone, it probably was just his horrible control. If Pedro hit a Yankee….The stat would mean more if it accounted for wildness.
2. the key point of contention is Yankees-Red Sox. The last time I heard the stat, there was a huge difference between the # of Yankees hit by a red Sox pitcher versus the opposite. It seems David Ortiz never gets pitched inside by most Yankee pitchers, and the Red Sox always throw near Jeter.
pete,
haven’t you learned that logic does not go over well here?
Yea… but if you cut out the number of hits by Igawa and the other minor leaguers we’ve had to toss out there lol
just got back from a golf trip to ocean city and wanted to pass on this observation about the brawl from an O’s fan i golfed with:
“i hate the yankees but i secretly admired them as the classiest organization in baseball, i see that left with Joe Torre”
bush league plays like duncan’s are nothing to be proud of. reading through the comments from the past few days, i cant believe how many yankee fans applauded such a dirty play by a yankee. i like shelley and hope he makes the team but that was inexcusable.
Y’s Guy,
I think Pete did a pretty good job explaining that Shelley’s actions weren’t representative of the Yankees organization. I’m as big a Shelley fan as anyone, and I love the intensity he brings, but I don’t think he’s really at the point in his game where his actions represent the team, and certainly not in spring training. I imagine that was what Joe G. was talking to him about. So, if you see that O’s fan again, remind him of that.
Pete,
Thanks for this article – I love it when something comes up in the comments section and you weigh in on the issue (and more often than not with some serious facts on your side). The fact that you’re in touch with your readers is why I love this blog so much. Good job on Sports Center the other night, too.
I’m not really sure what point Pete is making here – is he saying that the Yankees aren’t actually being intentionally thrown at more often because their pitchers are also hitting batters? That doesn’t seem to follow for me. I think a more telling statistic would be to see what percentage of the beanballs dealt by Yankee pitchers were retaliatory (however difficult that may be to measure objectively). The fact that Yankee pitchers hit batters more frequently than average does not, in my view, explain away the fact that Yanks are getting hit most often in the league. It may well be that part of the reason Yankee pitchers are beaning batters a lot is because they’re forced to engage in a lot of retaliation. No doubt, however, that Jeter and Giambi lean in a lot, and that this skews the stats.
As for Pete’s “pesky” fact, my biased/subjective recollection is that a substantial number of suspensions of Yankee pitchers in recent years have been for retaliations. That is, some other team does something dirty, the Yanks retaliate, and it’s OUR pitcher that gets the suspension.
I’m not necessarily saying that the Yanks are being targeted, as I don’t have the facts to back it up. But it doesn’t strike me as out of the realm of possibility, and I don’t think Pete’s post disproves it. They are the Yankees, after all.
pitchers rarely get thrown out for hitting a batter, they get thrown out for what’s percieved as retaliation…
Who cares what other fans think of the Yankees?
That shouldn’t enter into any equation.
If somebody has a problem with the slide, fine.
This need for some to have other fans like the Yankees is a bunch of nonsense.
Nobody likes Goliath. The Yankees are Goliath.
To take one play and determine it no longer makes the Yankees the “classiest organization in baseball” in one fans eyes, tells me he never felt that way in the first place.
Its not like the Yankees never retaliated or fought in the Joe Torre Era. They just stopped doing it with regularity since 2004.
Go back and check out the Yankees from 1996-2000. They weren’t exactly “classy” (to some) when it came to retaliation.
Pete – on the HBP, this may interest you:
http://www.waswatching.com/arc.....s_bat.html
Personally, I found it shocking.
i dont care what others think of the yankees, but when you talk about the class of an organizationl, this reflects on that. i dont think less of my team because of what shelley did, i was just passing on the observation of a neutral observer.
it was a class-less play and it reflects badly on duncan, girardi and the yankees
Perception is reality. Unscientifically, the Cervelli play and Duncan’s slide are (generally) perceived as hard nosed/excessive and “borderline criminal”/justifiable retaliation, respectively. Therefore, two realities exist. One where Tampa is David bringing it hard to Goliath, and one where (as nomaas puts it) there’s a new sheriff in town.
Both are, essentially, equally valid & have numerous supporters who are certain their reality is the obviously superior one. In the end, the only reality that matters is the W/L reality, which perennially relegates Tampa to doormat status. I’ll take that over meaningless HBP numbers anyday.
There’s a real division growing in the fanbase and Pete is exploiting it wonderfully of late.
You have the holier than thou Yankee fan who thinks this organization is above backing it’s players up and we shouldn’t be bothered with such cavemen antics. “We’re better than that” they’ll decree.
They show up in these threads and tell Pete, “good boy”.
Then you have the rest of us who missed having a team with some cojones.
Who see the fact that even though we’ve won a lot of games recently, this team has never had a consistent fire and there never was a unified team attitude.
Sadly, I blame Jeter (and Torre posthumously) for that. They threw a wet blanket over this team and called it “being professional”.
Somehow I think winning a lot made them think they were obligated to act a certain way, rather than just be ballplayers.
Exactly, which team out of the 4 that won the series under Torre were choir boys?
When did being successful get equated with being aloof, professional and workmanlike?
It’s the wrong attitude to have in sports.
The teams that win championships have fire and passion, not professionalism and class.
How professionalism and class somehow got equated to being the best in sports is beyond me.
The worst thing that happened toward the end of the Torre era was this impression that our guys played the game right and did eveything the “right” way. The supposed Yankee way.
Give me a break.
When did that become the Yankee way.
I mean, yeah, the Yankees have to keep their hair cut and faces shaved, but outside of that, this team has always been comprised of many guys who you wouldn’t exactly call model citizens. That includes many of the Yankee greats enshrined in monument park.
I’d rather my favorite team be a lot more human and play with passion and unity and not try to be white knight robots and ambassadors of the game.
I’d rather see them make mistakes, say the wrong things and defend their teammates in the pursuit of their ultimate goal.
Often in life, the people who seem to be above reproach and have the cleanest records take the biggest falls when they are proven to be human and flawed like the rest of us.
I want a human, flawed team. I don’t want a team that has a false image of being above the game.
I’m hoping that Girardi’s era brings some humanity back to this team.
We don’t want wrestlers. We just want to see they care about each other and most importantly about winning.
“Yankee batters have been hit 20 more times in the last 486 games than their pitchers have hit somebody.”
The Yanks led MLB in OBP last year, which means we had the most opportunities to get HBP. I think that nearly explains away the delta.
I see the HBP stats, but how about how many times a pitcher has thrown a BAT at a hitter… I think that issue requires some attention. On my recollection alone, Yankee pitchers beat out all other teams by about 100%. Or maybe 50%, since it was only about half of the bat…
K.Huiz
HA, TOO FUNNY!
enrique johnson’s( play was hard-nosed, possibly a little too hard nosed for ST) but not that egregious. hurting cervelli was not the runner’s intent and cervelli blocking the plate (a little too well according to john flaherty) contributed to it.
duncan’s play was bush league all the way. he inteded to spike the guy, apparently in the crotch, without having any chance of being safe on the play.
They sell beer at the Stadium?????
Come on Pete, you call that a statistic? That’s like saying the pitcher with more wins is the best. Maybe, or maybe his team scores four+ runs every night.
You need to correct for plate appearances, then weight for control (BB/9) to distinguish between wildness and intimidation then we can begin to talk about HBP. An even better metric would add a weight for the quality of the hit batsman since as Varitek implied, the Red Sox concentrate on throwing at good hitters.