Brewers notes
Readers of last week's posting about pitchers who had plunked Craig Biggio for two different teams may have noticed that only one of them, Jay Witasick, has done so for both an American League and a National League team. Today's opponents, the Milwaukee Brewers, hold the distinction of being the only franchise to hit Craig Biggio with a pitch as a member of each league. Biggio was hit once in 13 career plate appearances against the Brewers when they were an AL team, but since the Brewers moved to the NL Central (including yesterday), they have hit him 15 times in 494 plate appearances - about once every 33 plate appearances. Overall, Brewers pitchers have increased there rate of hitting batters since moving to the NL. From 1970 to 1997, they faced 168,866 and hit 978 of them, plunking one out of every 172.7 batters on average. Since moving to the National League, from 1998 to 2005, they hit 468 of 50,847 batters, for an average of 1 plunk every 108.6 batters. Facing Craig Biggio so much more often can't quite account for all of this increase in the Brewers plunking frequency - taking him out of the equation, the Brewers have still hit 1 batter per 111.2 faced. Other factors might include the overall increase in hit batters league wide over the last decade, and the overall decrease in the Brewers talent level since they've been in the National League (though they do appear to be turning things around), but it's still very tempting to conclude that the presence of Craig Biggio on their schedule since moving to the National League somehow causes this increase in ways that stats can't fully explain.
(and yes, I've excluded the stats from the 1969 Seattle Pilots, mostly for my own convenience)
4 Comments:
PBR - you are my hero, but I was just wondering ... Did you ever play baseball and get hit by a pitch?, Maybe in the head? and therefore have this kind-a Freudian/Jungian thing about getting hit?
As for the complex on Bijj or the King Killer Bee, KKB for short - I just created that for those of us in the know - now that Bagwell's wounded wing has dethroned him ... Where did that fixation come from? Did you ever raise bees? Or are you a fan of honey or the monarchy?
Now if you ask me, and plenty folk do now and again, I should have made the prediction that the media lemmings would trip over themselves to report that the Houston ball club is now at 500 for the first time since early in the 1962 season. Them scutters are all reporting that the franchise is now 3,507-3,507. This is typical media hogwash.
Here is why the journalists with their patented herd mentality are attempting to steer us all wrong; they done forgot about the four tie games: 25 April, 1962 against Saint Louis, 9 September, 1962 against Philadelphia, 16 July, 1966 against Atlanta, and 25 August 1975 against Saint Louis. Four times in franchise history the team has kissed their proverbial sister. Four times they were forced by circumstances (or lazy officials) to wrap things up and accept a tie.
Therefore, today when you look at the press reports and see the lemmings write that the Astros franchise now has a record of 3,507-3,507, be aware that them scalawags are cutting and pasting from wire reports and didn’t actually do their own homework. They will point out that the Houston franchise fell below 500 against the Milwaukee organization, and now at last the Houston franchise has risen above the 500 mark against the Milwaukee organization. All fine and good, but they will inevitably fail to account for them four games where there was some sister kissin’ transpiring.
Cletus, I'm not sure the media will take kindly to being called "scutters" or "scalawags", and you can bet that if one of them takes offense and writes about it, it will suddenly become the opinion of everyone else who cuts and pastes it off a wire report. But, at least we live in a world where people can get all the news that agrees with the opinion they've already formed from carefully selected websites, and where vigilante commenters like yourself can set straight such oversites.
And George, to answer your questions in order,
briefly but poorly and no; no; probably not; mostly just amusement; no; and the kind in the little squeezable bear is fun, and I prefer representative democracy in theory. But enough about me, lets talk about Craig Biggio.
I'd like to jump in now with a premptive denial of ever having "plunked" pbr with anything larger or more solid than a wiffle ball!
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