THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

My first inclination would be to increase the penalty associated with a beanball - award the batter 2nd base? Or maybe make the penalty greater (1st base the first time a batter is hit, 2nd base the next time, 3rd base to the third guy who’s hit, and then an automatic run after that, or something like that) with every subsequent HBP?

But, at some point, the reward would become great enough that, I’m sure, some batters will start *looking* to get hit. So I’d pair the incrementally increasing penalties with a more stringent application of the ‘batter must make an effort to avoid the pitch’ rule. (The guys who turn their shoulder and, in so doing, actually lean in to the pitch? No more of that.)

The Pascual Perez example is from 1984 (I think). It seems to me that the almost automatic warnings and ejections have ended the notion of a beanball war - most now seem to involve one player being hit by a pitch, and then a warning. Is there a more recent example that fits what we are trying to stop?

If you hit a batter, you lead off the next inning. (And no pinch hitting. And this goes for the DH league too.)

The first thing we have to be able to prove is whether a HBP was intentional.

If we can prove that, then longer suspensions is the way to go.

Given the velocity of the projectile, awarding the batter an extra base seems insignificant.

The pitcher is drilling the guy because he wants to instill pain/fear, retaliate, earn respect, etc. All of that trumps the extra base or anything other than a longer suspension.

But, everything is contingent that we can usually determine whether a guy was HBP intentionally, and not just the “second shot”, because then we enable all of the punks that happen to be pitchers.

That seems to be the issues with the warning is that one team gets a free one, and then the warnings are issued without the other team getting to defend their batter (using their terminology).

I pitched, and I threw at guys intentionally, because I was a bit of an instigator ... but really throwing at a batter should always result in a longer suspension (like missing 1-2 starts, or 5-8 relief appearances).

I have no idea how to balance this with allowing pitchers to pitch inside. Pitching inside is mandatory, and when i say pitching inside, I mean inside corner to the batter’s belt buckle. Pitchers have to keep the batter’s body from titled over the plate or from them being able to crush outside corner pitches.

However, since we often cannot identify intentional or accidental HBP, I saw we pretty much keep it as it is. We don’t need basebrawl like we had in the late 70s through the early 90s, but we also don;t need it where pitchers will avoid the inside entirely.

Having said that, Armando Benitez’s beaning of Tino martinez is about as good as it gets, major heat right between the shoulder blades. That had to hurt ... a lot.

"If you hit a batter, you lead off the next inning. (And no pinch hitting. And this goes for the DH league too.)”

Wow, I love this!

CircleChange/4 wrote: “Given the velocity of the projectile, awarding the batter an extra base seems insignificant.”

If the game’s a blowout, I suppose. But if the penalty increases incrementally - and if it forces any baserunners to advance the same number of bases - then I could see that being pretty damaging. (Not just to the team, but to the pitcher’s line, too.) I think you’d be weighing the cost of “sending a message” very differently if, say, it would force home a run or two, wouldn’t you?

“However, since we often cannot identify intentional or accidental HBP, I saw we pretty much keep it as it is.”

I don’t get it. Why did you bother with the preceding paragraphs if you were just going to admit that it’s impossible to discern intention?

Automatic 50 game suspension for any pitcher who hits a batter in the head or neck. All other penalties remain as is.

The way I see it, the onus is to prevent potentially injurious bean balls, not to prevent bean balls in and of themselves. As someone who’s intentionally hit his fair share of batters, I can say from experience that bean balls are an important ace in the hole.

Draw a wider box and immediately eject any pitcher who throws outside of that box on the batter side. Sure we may get false positives, but it shouldn’t be too bad as we are discouraging in accuracy as well as bean balls.

I like the idea that there’s a certain DMZ, and if you venture outside the neutral zone and hit the batter there, then you give the automatic ejection.

Great idea.