Biggio vs Kendall - plunk to plunk

Craig Biggio and Jason Kendall are by far the top two get-hitters in todays game, and while their careers have many similarities, there are also important differences in the way they've gone about collecting a combine 495 HBPs. Both entered the league at age as catchers with he ability to steal bases, at about age 22 (Kendall started a couple of months before his 22nd birthday). But, while Biggio eventually switched to second base, outfield and back to second, Kendall has stayed behind the plate, although he did experiment with the outfield in Pittsburgh in 2001. And, Kendall jumped right into the HBP race his rookie year with a 15 plunk season, followed by back to back 31 plunk years in 1997 and 1998, while Biggio didn't record his 15th plunk until part way through his 5th major league season.

Biggio's relatively slow start in the HBP category means that over their careers, Kendall has been hit 34.4% more often per plate appearance. Biggio has about 80% more plate appearances overall, and has been hit about once per 43 plate appearances as a career average. Kendall has been hit about once every 32 plate appearances. But, if you compare Biggio's numbers since Kendall has been in the league, beginning in 1996, you'll see that Biggio has been hit 13 more times in total, and only slightly less frequently, at once per 34 plate appearances.

While the two have combined for 27 HBPs in games against each other, they have never been plunked in the same game. Although, on July 28, 2001, Kendall was hit in the first game of a double-header, and Biggio was plunked in the 2nd game.

Kendall has been plunked more often in road games, 118 to 94, while most of Biggio's plunks have been at home, 146 to 127. And, while Biggio's plunk numbers have tended to peak in May and trail off toward season's end, Kendall has been more consistent distributing plunks across all months.

Plunks by month:

Month	Biggio	Kendall
April/Mar	44	36
May	60	36
June	54	40
July	48	24
August	40	40
Sept/Oct	37	36

Both Biggio and Kendall have been plunked in every spot in the batting order except the cleanup spot, but Biggio has been plunked significantly more often at the top of the order. Kendall, although still plunked most often batting leadoff, has been hit by pitches much more often in a variety of spots in the batting order.

Plunks by batting order position:

Batting	Biggio	Kendall
1st	180	52
2nd	81	39
3rd	11	49
4th	0	0
5th	3	18
6th	1	26
7th	3	1
8th	3	25
9th	1	2

Kendall holds the lead 10 to 7 in the category of plunks with the bases loaded, and he's also been hit more times in the 8th inning than Biggio. The 8th is Kendall's second most plunked-in inning, but they've both been hit most frequently in the 1st.

Plunks by inning:

Inning	Biggio	Kendall
1	56	35
2	16	14
3	41	29
4	27	26
5	37	18
6	22	21
7	37	19
8	27	31
9	14	13
10+	6	6

And, while Biggio has been plunked most often on Saturday, Kendall has chosen Friday as his favorite weekday to get plunked on. Thursday is the only day of the week on which Kendall has been plunked more often than Biggio. Both have recorded 2 plunk games on every day of the week, but Biggio has more 2 plunk games on Friday and Saturday combined than Kendall has for his career.

Total plunks by weekday:

	Biggio	Kendall
Sunday	45	31
Monday	32	20
Tuesday	47	35
Wednesday	43	26
Thursday	25	27
Friday	38	37
Saturday	53	36

Multi-plunk games by weekday:

Expr1	biggio	kendall
Sunday	4	1
Monday	1	1
Tuesday	1	1
Wednesday	3	1
Thursday	1	1
Friday	5	2
Saturday	5	2

For more HBP splits for both Biggio and Kendall, check out their splits pages on baseball-reference.com here and here.

Tomorrow and Thursday we'll look at relative effects of plunks on batting stats for Biggio and Kendall, and get into pitchers who have plunked them both and other related topics.

victor z is theirs

Victor Zambrano takes the hill for the Mets today. He has never hit Craig Biggio with a pitch, but has hit 6 batters this year. That puts him in a 13 way tie for 4th in the majors, 1 plunk behind the three leaders. In 2003, Zambrano hit 20 batters as part of the Devil Rays team which set the modern record for hit batters in a season. That was the first team since 1899 to hit 95 batters.

Biggio has been hit twice on June 8th, first in 1993 by Jose Deleon, and more recently in 2000 by Alan Mills.

Reader Rastronomicals emailed Plunk Biggio to point out that Craig Biggio's HBPs contribute more of his on base percentage than any other player with more than 10,000 plate appearances. Through 2004, Biggio's HBPs contributed 6.47% of his OBP, and his ratio of times reaching base to HBPs was 15.45. This means that for every 15.45 times he reaches base, 1 of those is going to be via the plunk. Taking a look at the other end of this stat, Harold Baines only got hit by a pitch once out of every 281.57 times he reached base. And, just to prove that it's not always about extremes, Fred McGriff got hit once per 98.31 times reaching base, making him the player closest to the category average. Ted Williams, the all time leader in On Base Percentage, got hit by a pitch only once every 120.87 times he reached base, but he took time off to defend the country in 2 wars so he only had 9789 plate appearances.

Rastronomicals' email also asked how Biggio ranked if the plate appearance cut off were dropped to 5000, so here it is. Hughie Jennings is the all time leader with 1 plunk in every 7.53 times reaching base. Sandy Alomar Jr has reach base 491 times for every HBP.
Top ten OBP to HBP% ratios among players with 5000 plate appearances

Hughie Jennings	7.53
Ron Hunt	9.16
Jason Kendall	11.53
Don Baylor	12.01
Damion Easley	15.09
Craig Biggio	15.45
Minnie Minoso	15.46
Andres Galarraga	17.38
Brady Anderson	18.02
Chet Lemon	18.38

And the bottom ten:

Sandy Alomar Sr.	491
Jerry Mumphrey	481
Jose Cruz	450.86
Vern Stephens	426.17
Garret Anderson	410.2
Otis Nixon	393.8
Ruben Sierra	387.43
Jim Hegan	386.75
Mickey Mantle	320.08
Granny Hamner	314.33