youth gone wild part 2
Last week, I tried to take a look at the connection between pitchers age and hitting batters in response to a commenter question regarding youth and wildness in pitchers, but I didn't go into the question of whether or not Craig Biggio getting hit by a pitch actually had anything to do with a pitcher being wild.
The pitchers who have plunked Biggio 270 times have a total of just 55 wild pitches in those outings when they hit Biggio with a pitch, and they hit only 63 other batters in those games. At 0.046 wild pitches per inning pitched, they are somewhat more wild than the total pitchers data pool from 1988-2004, which averaged 0.036. There have been only 6 games in which a pitcher hit Biggio and was charged with more than 1 wild pitch, and only Tom Candiotti got up to 3.
The younger pitchers throwing more wild pitches theory does seem to hold up, but the connection between wildness and hitting batters, particularly Biggio, doesn't seem to be very strong. He's been hit in 202 games when the pitcher did not throw a wild pitch, but I don't have a complete count on how many pitchers have thrown a wild pitch against the Astros and not plunked Biggio.
Wild pitches in Biggio plunk outings by pitcher's age
| Age | WP |
| 24 | 13 |
| 27 | 9 |
| 31 | 6 |
| 32 | 5 |
| 25 | 4 |
| 37 | 3 |
| 28 | 3 |
| 26 | 2 |
| 33 | 2 |
| 30 | 2 |
| 29 | 2 |
| 39 | 1 |
| 22 | 1 |
| 23 | 1 |
| 21 | 1 |
Wild Pitches per Inning by pitcher's age - all time
| Age | WP | Innings | Pitchers | WPperIP |
| 21 | 2544 | 64241.3333333333 | 913 | 0.0396 |
| 19 | 387 | 10774.6666666667 | 182 | 0.035916 |
| 22 | 3879 | 112615.333333333 | 1508 | 0.034443 |
| 23 | 5848 | 176658.666666667 | 2188 | 0.033102 |
| 20 | 872 | 26493.6666666667 | 474 | 0.032913 |
| 44 | 77 | 2343.33333333333 | 29 | 0.032859 |
| 18 | 132 | 4034 | 79 | 0.032721 |
| 24 | 7830 | 240260.666666667 | 2829 | 0.032589 |
| 25 | 9050 | 282210.666666667 | 3324 | 0.032067 |
| 26 | 9450 | 312569.666666667 | 3458 | 0.030231 |
| 27 | 9462 | 320845 | 3402 | 0.02949 |
| 28 | 8424 | 299400.666666667 | 3113 | 0.028134 |
| 43 | 112 | 4025 | 56 | 0.027825 |
| 29 | 7367 | 270813.333333333 | 2749 | 0.027201 |
| 30 | 6177 | 235942.333333333 | 2354 | 0.026178 |
| 31 | 5236 | 201612.333333333 | 2045 | 0.025968 |
| 42 | 179 | 7138.33333333333 | 83 | 0.025074 |
| 32 | 4237 | 169280 | 1712 | 0.025029 |
| 33 | 3466 | 139863.333333333 | 1414 | 0.02478 |
| 40 | 418 | 17252 | 179 | 0.024228 |
| 38 | 776 | 33378.3333333333 | 384 | 0.023247 |
| 34 | 2596 | 111944.333333333 | 1135 | 0.02319 |
| 41 | 258 | 11310 | 131 | 0.022809 |
| 35 | 1949 | 85737.6666666667 | 898 | 0.022731 |
| 36 | 1412 | 64464 | 688 | 0.021903 |
| 37 | 997 | 45976.6666666667 | 498 | 0.021684 |
| 39 | 482 | 22606.6666666667 | 249 | 0.021321 |
Wild Pitches per Inning by pitcher's age 1988-2004
| Age | WP | Innings | Pitchers | WPperIP |
| 21 | 150 | 3549.33333333333 | 78 | 0.042261 |
| 25 | 2242 | 55925 | 888 | 0.040089 |
| 24 | 1754 | 45506 | 652 | 0.038544 |
| 26 | 2526 | 65548.6666666667 | 952 | 0.038535 |
| 27 | 2580 | 67122.6666666667 | 961 | 0.038436 |
| 28 | 2344 | 62709.3333333333 | 840 | 0.037377 |
| 31 | 1699 | 46510.6666666667 | 557 | 0.036528 |
| 23 | 1024 | 28073.3333333333 | 425 | 0.036474 |
| 29 | 2068 | 58910.3333333333 | 755 | 0.035103 |
| 32 | 1401 | 40308 | 482 | 0.034755 |
| 33 | 1158 | 33550 | 391 | 0.034515 |
| 30 | 1777 | 51760.6666666667 | 631 | 0.034329 |
| 22 | 464 | 13696.6666666667 | 228 | 0.033876 |
| 34 | 902 | 27897.6666666667 | 319 | 0.032331 |
| 35 | 668 | 21502 | 260 | 0.031065 |
| 36 | 509 | 16761 | 207 | 0.030366 |
| 38 | 279 | 9217.66666666667 | 99 | 0.030267 |
| 37 | 363 | 12471.3333333333 | 146 | 0.029106 |
| 39 | 150 | 5487.33333333333 | 65 | 0.027333 |
| 40 | 104 | 3868.66666666667 | 44 | 0.02688 |
| 41 | 78 | 3141 | 34 | 0.024831 |
(ages with less than 20 pitchers have been excluded)
5 Comments:
Nice stat breakdown. I'm a bit surprised at the lack of correlation between wild pitches and HBP, but, as they say, statistics never lie...
I was also curious about Biggio's inning-by-inning breakdown of the HBP numbers. I think somebody may have asked this question before, and I know you don't have access to the full stats for this because of missing play-by-play data for the games early in his career. But for the data you DO have, what inning is he most likely to be plunked in? How about plunks in extra innings?
Does game time temperature have any correlation to Craig's HBP?
You may have to normalize for all the indoor games that were played.
Maybe walk rates would give better picture? Wild pitches are somewhat rare, might not be enough of a sample.
How many pitchers have been ejected after hitting the Beege?
DM, the extra inning plunk count is either 5 or 6. If anybody was actually one of those people "scoring at home" announcers sometime mention, and they still have their score sheets from 1993-1999 for games when Biggio got hit by a pitch, please let me know. I can provide dates if someone wants to send them to me. (But other than the one person I've actually seen scoring at home, I think folks scoring at home are a myth).
X, game time temps only seem to be available going back to 2000 (on espn.com - retrosheet doesn't list them), but maybe someday I'll cross reference historical weather data for the cities where Biggio was plunked. Then I'd just have to find out whether or not the retractable roofs were open, and what standard closed dome temperatures are. But, since weather is about the only thing I can think of that tracks historical stats more insanely than baseball, why stop at temperature when I could do atmospheric pressure and relative humidity? Or incidents of El Nino?
Andrew, I was planning on looking at walks for "youth gone wild part 3" sometime soon. As for ejections, I don't know of any, but I'll look. Once again I probably won't be able to find anything between '93 and '99 because standard box scores without play by play summaries don't seem to list ejections. My guess is that if there are any, it will be a low number since Biggio has never charged the mound, but there could be cases when both benches have been previously warned or something.
As Andrew implied, wild pitches are only charged if they allow a runner to advance. There must certainly have been a lot of bases-empty pitches ending up at the backstop that only showed up in the boxscores as balls...
I agree that correlating walks to HBPs might be a bit more insightful than WPs (though no less inane!)
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