In the event you have been on the lookout for variations between collegiate {and professional} baseball, you wouldn’t must strive very onerous to seek out them. One among my favorites is the worth and frequency of the hit-by-pitch.
School hitters get plunked extra usually than massive leaguers for 3 causes: First, faculty pitchers have worse command, as a rule, than their skilled counterparts. Second, whereas the standard of play is excessive in faculty baseball, it’s not fairly excessive sufficient to weed out all of the weirdos. So that you’ll get guys with no nerve endings in considered one of their arms who’re fairly glad to commerce a welt for a free journey to first base.
Third, there’s a refined distinction within the hit-by-pitch rule between faculty {and professional} baseball. MLB Rule 5.05(b)(2) states:
“The batter turns into a runner and is entitled to first base with out legal responsibility to be put out (supplied he advances to and touches first base) when: He’s touched by a pitched ball which he isn’t making an attempt to hit until (A) The ball is within the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (B) The batter makes no try to keep away from being touched by the ball;”
So a batter has to make an try to keep away from getting hit by a pitch. Enforcement is, and to a point needs to be, spotty. Often, turning to current a much less painful impression zone — such because the again as an alternative of the ribs or the elbow — counts as making an effort to keep away from the ball.
Right here’s Rule 8, Part 2.d. of the NCAA baseball rulebook:
The batter turns into a base runner: When hit by a pitched ball at which the person shouldn’t be making an attempt to strike, the ball is straight away useless;
1) A batter might not make a motion to deliberately get hit by the pitch, whatever the location of the pitch. The batter should additionally keep away from being hit each time potential, until the pitch is throughout the batter’s field occupied by the batter. If the batter’s motion is deemed intentional, then:
a) If the ball is within the strike zone when it touches the batter, or if the batter strikes to deliberately get hit or freezes to permit a pitch that isn’t throughout the batter’s field to hit them, the ball is useless, it shall be referred to as a strike and the batter shouldn’t be awarded first base.
b) If the ball is throughout the batter’s field occupied by the batter and the batter makes no motion to deliberately get hit by the pitch, the batter is awarded first base. In different phrases, a batter who freezes contained in the batter’s field and who’s hit by the pitch shall be awarded first base.
So if the pitch is throughout the batter’s field, the batter can simply let it hit him. So long as he doesn’t transfer into the pitch deliberately, he will get to go to first, whether or not he tries to get out of the way in which or not.
Individuals whose baseball-watching eating regimen skews principally towards the professional recreation may fairly moderately marvel 1) if interpretation and enforcement of this rule ever turns into a contentious challenge and a couple of) how continuously this refined rule distinction will get taken benefit of. The reply to each questions is “nearly consistently.”
Longtime readers of my work (or Ben Lindbergh podcast completists) could be conversant in former College of Buffalo outfielder Nick Sinay, who obtained plunked 48 occasions in 541 collegiate plate appearances, and since he was a 70-grade runner, took benefit of these alternatives to steal 73 bases and rating 93 runs within the equal of 1 main league season.
Sinay obtained drafted by the Blue Jays and didn’t final too lengthy within the minors. He hit .229 and amassed solely 18 extra-base hits in 171 minor league video games, however he retired with 87 walks and 70 HBPs in that point, together with 38 plunkings in simply 293 plate appearances his ultimate yr. Due to all of that, Sinay retired with the next profession skilled OBP — .412 throughout all ranges — than Joey Votto or Rickey Henderson.
Does this work on a crew degree? You guess. In 2023, Jake Mintz wrote concerning the Misericordia College Cougars, who wore a mean of three pitches a recreation en path to a berth within the Division III World Collection. (As an apart, there have been a number of jokes just lately about having the ability to inform which articles I wrote simply from the headline. I simply need everybody to acknowledge that I’ve by no means descended as far into self-parody as Jake doing an enormous function on some bizarre DIII grinder nonsense.)
We’re getting into the fourth week of the 2025 Division I common season, and with groups taking part in 4 or 5 occasions per week, meaning most beginning place gamers have appeared in between 12 and 15 particular person video games. Would you wish to know who leads the nation in being hit by pitches?
4 gamers are tied for the lead at 11. 4 others have been hit 10 occasions. In the event you performed 15 video games and obtained hit as many occasions per recreation as single-season main league record-holder Ron Hunt, who obtained plunked 50 occasions in 1971, you’d solely have been hit 5 occasions. (My editor Matt Martell mentioned truly Hughie Jennings obtained hit 51 occasions in 1896, however I instructed that nerd to get misplaced. Who cares what occurred in 1896? You may as properly inform me what number of pitches Methuselah obtained hit by.)
With the intention to work out how they’re doing it, I’ve plucked — not plunked, plucked — three recidivist pitch-wearers from at or close to the highest of the leaderboard.
Let’s begin with Jesse Herrera, the senior designated hitter at Texas Southern. TSU is an attention-grabbing program, an HBCU situated in Houston, which signifies that it’s obtained entry to a number of the finest beginner expertise within the nation however will get swamped by greater applications close by: Rice, Houston, and Texas A&M are proper in TSU’s yard; TCU, LSU, and Texas are inside half a day’s drive.
However underneath longtime head coach Michael Robertson, the Tigers are normally fairly aggressive. That’s as a result of they’re good at discovering artistic methods to attain runs. In 2022, in a 53-game season, 5 totally different Tigers gamers stole 20 or extra bases, led by Johnathon Thomas, who stole 62.
This yr, they’ve been main off Herrera, who stands simply 5-foot-8 however has an exquisitely manicured mustache.
Right here’s Herrera’s batting stance.
You’ll discover he’s mainly proper on prime of the plate. And even when he doesn’t discover a tailing fastball to lean into or a back-foot breaking ball to freeze on, he’s completely prepared to only stick a leg out and dare the umpire to tug him again residence.
Right here he’s in the intervening time of impression. You’ll discover that whereas he’s turned his again to the pitch in a regular freeze-and/or-avoid maneuver, his entrance foot is now on the chalk of the batter’s field, and he’s wanting the ball into his calf.
That’s the way you get hit 11 occasions in 51 plate appearances. You may’ve seen within the first screenshot that Herrera, along with being a brief man, hits from a crouched stance. In the event you thought faculty pitchers may need hassle hitting a strike zone that small, you’d be appropriate. Herrera, along with his 11 HBPs, has 12 walks on the season in opposition to solely eight hits. That leads to two hilarious ratios: First, Herrera is presently rocking a .608 OBP. Simply on that foundation alone he’s obtained to be the most effective leadoff hitters within the nation.
Second, Herrera has 51 plate appearances however solely 28 at-bats thus far this season. Out of two,337 certified hitters, Herrera has the second-lowest ratio of at-bats to plate appearances (54.9%) in your complete nation.
However he doesn’t have the very best ratio of HBPs to video games performed. That honor goes to Michigan State outfielder JT Sokolove, who’s gotten hit 11 occasions in 11 video games. He, too, has extra HBPs than hits (11 to 10).
Sokolove has a barely open stance that he closes on his stride. That brings him nearer to the plate and permits him to execute a refined drop of his elbow into the trail of a pitch on the within nook. As seen right here, in opposition to Harvard righty Truman Pauley.
After which once more, in opposition to the identical pitcher, one inning later.
To be honest, Pauley didn’t want a lot assist. He hit three batters and walked 5 in 4 innings pitched. In actual fact, Harvard pitchers mixed to hit 5 batters in simply seven innings that evening. Elite assaults on public training proceed on all fronts, it appears.
Sokolove’s elbow lean is efficient, however it’s nearly brazen. So I’d like to shut with Arizona outfielder Aaron Walton, who’s not on the prime of the nationwide HBP leaderboard, however he does lead the Large 12 with eight plunkings in simply 11 video games at 50 plate appearances.
Walton is a junior who transferred in from Samford over the winter. Good faculty gamers don’t all develop the identical manner. Really, the highest three picks within the 2023 draft present an honest sampling. Some gamers present up for his or her first day of fall apply freshman yr and are already the most effective participant on the crew (Dylan Crews). Others wrestle or trip the bench for some time, then one thing clicks out of nowhere and so they turn into in a single day stars (Wyatt Langford).
Others develop steadily over the course of a number of seasons: Good as a freshman, excellent as a sophomore, elite as a junior (Paul Skenes). Walton is that, however for getting hit by pitches.
Walton obtained plunked as soon as in 90 plate appearances as a freshman, then obtained hit 12 occasions in 226 PA as a sophomore — which doesn’t sound like quite a bit in comparison with the blokes we have been simply speaking about, however that’s the equal of a 30-HBP main league season, and is price 53 factors of OBP.
This yr, he’s worn it eight occasions in simply 11 video games. I noticed that and regarded up some recreation tape, anticipating to seek out him standing proper on prime of the plate like Herrera.
Not so. He’s not manner within the again nook of the field or something, however along with his open stance, Walton’s entrance foot is sort of within the useless middle of the batter’s field. It’s solely unremarkable.
So look how far he strides towards the plate when Andrew Mosiello of San Diego comes inside.
And he’s not simply doing it as a result of he’s discovered a pitch he can throw his elbow at. I discovered one other HBP of his in opposition to Rice (which I’m not utilizing as a result of the video high quality was so poor) the place he ended up along with his toes on the chalk in opposition to a pitch that just about hit him within the neck.
We obtained ice.
I might like to see MLB undertake the faculty hit-by-pitch rule. It’d provide a artistic manner for gamers to generate offense, it’d diversify the fashion of play, and it could punish the 30-command one-inning fastball-slider relievers who I consider are on the core of all the pieces that ails this nice recreation of ours.
Perhaps it wouldn’t change a lot. Perhaps absorbing errant pitches is just enticing in case you’re a younger man with no idea of your personal mortality. Perhaps it’s bush league. However you’ll be able to’t deny this: These guys wish to win greater than you do.