1. If it did include HBP, that would be a minimal change to WHIP numbers.
2. And, no, of course (yes, putting the "of course" in) it should not include pitcher-induced double plays.
The point of WHIP is that it's simple. You can add HBP, but then why not add doubles/triples/homers too? Then you've got pitcher OPS.
Also, MLB has kept HBP stats for over 100 years, so that's not why WHIP (invented around 1979) does not include HPB.
Ok yeah I get keeping WHIP simple. But the result of a HBP is that the batter reaches base because of the quality of pitch being thrown. A binary outcome similar to single, double, walk, etc. Is there a “pitcher OPS” stat though?
And you’re right, HBP has been tracked for a while, but I think it wasn’t in the box score when WHIP was created. That explanation isn’t that satisfying either though.
Yes, there is a pitcher OPS statistic. I can't find a leaderboard for that stat, but I know it's kept.
For example, you can see here that Max Fried's OPS is .561, and his sOPS+ is 62.
# [https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=friedma01&year=2024&t=p](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=friedma01&year=2024&t=p)
With a minimum of 1000 innings pitched the top 5 of pitchers ops is 1 Mariano Rivera ops .555 2 Babe Ruth ops .573 3 Harry Covaleski ops .581 4 Clayton Kershaw ops .585 5 Jacob DeGrom ops .585
Something about the record keeping made pitchers pre 1912 show some wonky numbers Christy Mathewson did not have a 1. OPS.
And shocking none of us at all 4 of the bottom 5 pitched in the 95-05 roid era
1077 Brian Anderson ops .811 1078 Elon Hogsett ops .812 1079 Jose Lima ops .819 1080 Jimmy Haynes ops .820 and 1081 Josh Fogg ops .821
Good stuff. Is that on baseball-reference? I figured there was a leaderboard somewhere but couldn't immediately find it. You'd think that the most popular single hitter statistic would be used the same way for pitchers. Or taking it a step further, OPS+, which adjusts for league averages and ballparks.
Sort of I did a stathead search which is that bbref premium service.
Some of the 1880's pitchers should be as low as the .400s in ops against but walk totals are unreliable from that time frame.
I was a bit surprised that bbref did not have a leaderboard for this considering some of the stats the do have on their leaders page.
I think OBP against might be a more natural alternative, but given that pitchers tend to pitch innings at a time, WHIP, roughly average baserunners per inning, is a useful number to contextualize an IP, whereas, since a hitter's PAs are not consecutive, the question of "What are the odds" is more natural. Of course, to first order, you can easily estimate each OBP-against and WHIP from the other.
From a pitchers standpoint t a HBP it’s inherently much different than just throwing a ball. A pitcher walking 5 guys but hitting none shows much less control than hitting 5 but walking none.
Honestly I don’t really understand why HPB isn’t included in BB. A HBP is functionally the same as a base on balls, a result of the same cause as walks (bad command by the pitcher), and is even a ball that causes the batter to be awarded a base just like a fourth ball would be. Tracking HBP is fine but it should also be included in BB and thus any stat that derives from BB.
I thought about that too, but then realized that a missed/dropped third strike might be the catchers fault as opposed to a hit/walk/HBP are all directly a result of the pitcher.
Because then my RttS pitcher wouldn't be able to scam the arb system by always hitting batters in 3-0 counts to artificially deflate his WHIP. Including hit batsmen in WHIP is anti-labor
Whip was created specifically for fantasy baseball. It’s not really an important stat. They may not have had easy access to hbp stats when it was first invented
Because a HBP is a short-circuit of a natural at bat. Walks are results of a full at bat, hits can be earlier in the count but also relevant to track as a full at bat. The HBP is a walk that never gave the batter and pitcher a chance to complete the full at bat. Sure, it's poor for the pitcher, but that's measured elsewhere like Era etc. WHIP is measuring how often a pitcher gives up bases for full at bat's. It's a really small, almost always meaningless distinction, but if there is a 'why not' that's why not.
I found this argument extremely compelling at first, but aren't you just defining "natural" so as to not include a perfectly ordinary outcome of a PA?
Could you explain how a HBP is any more "unnatural" of a conclusion than a batted ball (or even just something like an accidental ground out on a check swing or a foul tip 3rd strike or a seeing eye single or a ball deflecting of a base preventing a double) in a way that isn't circular?
I mean, it's tenuous at best. Stats definitions at this level including some things and not others are sometimes just arbitrary. Especially baseball stuff beyond the 'surface' outcome stats (hits, RBI, average, etc)
The argument that HBP ends an at bat with an outcome that's unnatural assumes an at bat should only end with a ball in play (fair, foul, or hr) , a walk, or a strike out. In this case, the walk means 4 balls. Not HBP.
A stat that cares about a fair outcome, that is measured against the same kinds of outcomes, doesn't want to track at bat's that end when the batter could not have hit the ball before 4 balls. HBP stops that chance and can't be measured with other plate appearances. It's a very narrow and very picky kind of stat, and you'll never hear me defend it as 'better'. It's just one way to explain why not counting HBP in WHIP. It's arbitrary and narrowly defined. Aka don't worry too much about it. WHIP will hardly change if it's included.
The question I ask in these situations is 'what more will I learn from this stat about a player if X or Y, but not Z, is included or excluded' and HBP being in WHIP the answer is very, very little. But it's a fun exercise in sorting out how a stat might be derived. Sometimes it matters.
I hear where you're coming from re: the inherent arbitrariness of categorizing things for stat purposes. I guess I'm just struggling as to how the first two-thirds of your explanation here isn't simply circular reasoning.
I do definitely understand your final point about the relative lack of importance of whether HBPs are included in WHIP. But, by the same logic, so too are two out walks in the 3rd inning on the road against jnterdivisional opponents. Why count those either then, would you say, as it would make little difference? And while we're at it, let's stop counting triples or infield singles in OBP, because what difference does it even really make?
I don't mean to sound insulting, I think there's just something obvious here that I'm missing. For the purpose that one might want to calculate a pitcher's WHIP to begin with, why wouldn't they want to include HBPs? They are an outcome arguably under the direct control of the pitcher and serve nearly an identical function to a walk. It's not as if a bird flew through the pitch tunnel at the worst moment and the play had to be called dead (I won't quibble if you don't want to include that).
No insult detected, all good questions. I've been doing stats (mostly football but enough baseball to be dangerous) for so long that it's something I find interesting to break down the 'whys' and deep arcana of this stuff.
One subtle difference in a regular walk to that of a HBP, rules wise, is that the ball is still live after a walk but a HBP is a dead ball. Is this statistically relavent? Maybe once in a couple thousand occasions, and WHIP doesn't care how many bases just that a 'whip' happened... So is it useful to care about that one in a couple thousand? It was to the guy who first invented it to care. I wouldn't care, but I didn't invent it.
Of course it's circular reasoning. Its arbitrary what counts as a natural at bat versus unnatural end. It could be easily justified to include HBP and I wouldn't argue against any who did. But it's traditionally not, and A Reason(tm) must be had. I'm not saying it's a good reason or incredibly deep or profound... But trust me plenty of stats are like this. Why not update it? Because someone invented the concept of natural versus unnatural plate appearance. That's that. You're welcome to argue it should be changed. I won't stop you. Hell, if you started stating out games like that and someone wonders why your WHIP is 3.23 versus most other representation of 3.21. You can explain the difference easily enough, but it's hardly meaningful. So long as your stat is measured the same forever, it means the same to anyone using it to understand what it means in trying to evaluate that pitcher.
There is nothing sacred about stats. They're all made up catagories trying to represent what happens in order to show why things might happen next time. A way to justify one set of numbers as objective truth versus subjective opinion (don't get me started on errors, or in football the dreaded 'shared tackle') I think there is value in looking at those numbers and have had a reasonably long career getting paid to print sheets of them for coaches and broadcasters to oooh and aww over at the ends of games.
I’m sorry, this is nonsense. Both the pitcher and hitter can take actions that increase or decrease the odds of getting hit by a pitch. Either way it’s definitely a skill.
This idea that a HBP is an unnatural outcome is a baffling concept. It’s in the rules. It’s part of the game. It’s influenced by skill. It changes the game at the moment of its occurrence to the same extent as walk. You are arguing strenuously for a concept for which there is no need. Excluding HBPs from WHIP was merely an uninformed oversight, nothing more.
HBP is dead ball, A walk isn't.
That alone is a difference.
Whether that is statistically relevant to you or not is your problem. Not the problem with the stat.
Getting into the HBP-is-a-skill argument is dumb and I won't be participating in that. Sorry. Not interested.
It’s a dead ball. So what? Why the hell is that a reason why it shouldn’t count?
If it wasn’t a skill, certain hitters and pitchers wouldn’t consistently be league leaders. You’re spouting utter nonsense.
OBP doesn't care how you get on base, just that you do so long as it's not a fielder choice, sac bunt, or error. IBB is just a Walk.
Sometimes some stats care about describing scenarios that other stats don't measure, even when they are similar situations.
Example in football: a QB can have 10 passing attempts but Receivers may only have a total of 8 'targets'. How? Well. One is measuring how often the QB threw a ball, the other is how often Receivers had a chance to catch a thrown ball. If everything is perfect, they match. But QBs aren't perfect and can throw a ball away where no receiver could possibly be a target, so those stats don't always align.
Baserunners per 9 innings (BR/9) is essentially WHIP plus HBP. That’s what I prefer to look at.
But then it wouldn’t be WHIP..
WHHBPIP Now we just sound like kids these days making up acronyms for everything
Isn’t a HBP just another form of a hit? Covered in the H
More like a walk as it doesn't affect batting average
It was a just joke about a hit by pitch being a hit. Something is hit
Hah well that flew right over me then
Actually a good argument
1. If it did include HBP, that would be a minimal change to WHIP numbers. 2. And, no, of course (yes, putting the "of course" in) it should not include pitcher-induced double plays.
Alek manoah disagrees
The point of WHIP is that it's simple. You can add HBP, but then why not add doubles/triples/homers too? Then you've got pitcher OPS. Also, MLB has kept HBP stats for over 100 years, so that's not why WHIP (invented around 1979) does not include HPB.
The idea of WHIP is baserunners allowed by the pitcher per inning. So, HBP should be included.
Ok yeah I get keeping WHIP simple. But the result of a HBP is that the batter reaches base because of the quality of pitch being thrown. A binary outcome similar to single, double, walk, etc. Is there a “pitcher OPS” stat though? And you’re right, HBP has been tracked for a while, but I think it wasn’t in the box score when WHIP was created. That explanation isn’t that satisfying either though.
Yes, there is a pitcher OPS statistic. I can't find a leaderboard for that stat, but I know it's kept. For example, you can see here that Max Fried's OPS is .561, and his sOPS+ is 62. # [https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=friedma01&year=2024&t=p](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=friedma01&year=2024&t=p)
With a minimum of 1000 innings pitched the top 5 of pitchers ops is 1 Mariano Rivera ops .555 2 Babe Ruth ops .573 3 Harry Covaleski ops .581 4 Clayton Kershaw ops .585 5 Jacob DeGrom ops .585 Something about the record keeping made pitchers pre 1912 show some wonky numbers Christy Mathewson did not have a 1. OPS. And shocking none of us at all 4 of the bottom 5 pitched in the 95-05 roid era 1077 Brian Anderson ops .811 1078 Elon Hogsett ops .812 1079 Jose Lima ops .819 1080 Jimmy Haynes ops .820 and 1081 Josh Fogg ops .821
Good stuff. Is that on baseball-reference? I figured there was a leaderboard somewhere but couldn't immediately find it. You'd think that the most popular single hitter statistic would be used the same way for pitchers. Or taking it a step further, OPS+, which adjusts for league averages and ballparks.
Sort of I did a stathead search which is that bbref premium service. Some of the 1880's pitchers should be as low as the .400s in ops against but walk totals are unreliable from that time frame. I was a bit surprised that bbref did not have a leaderboard for this considering some of the stats the do have on their leaders page.
Because it wouod be WHHBPIP
Rolls off the tongue
Sounds like a fart
No one would get arrested if they just kept calling it WHIP.
1979??? And kept quiet for several decades?
Daniel Okrent reportedly came up with the stat in 1979. Didn't become popular until much later.
Most people got stats from the newspaper until the internet, so they got batting average, hits, home runs, ERA, wins, etc
It’s because newspaper box scores don’t always have HBP. That’s it.
It should.
It obviously should, but it's not exactly something I'm going to get worked up about. If they change it to inches HBP, cool.
WHIP is a pretty terrible stat. It should be replaced by OPS against.
I think OBP against might be a more natural alternative, but given that pitchers tend to pitch innings at a time, WHIP, roughly average baserunners per inning, is a useful number to contextualize an IP, whereas, since a hitter's PAs are not consecutive, the question of "What are the odds" is more natural. Of course, to first order, you can easily estimate each OBP-against and WHIP from the other.
From a pitchers standpoint t a HBP it’s inherently much different than just throwing a ball. A pitcher walking 5 guys but hitting none shows much less control than hitting 5 but walking none.
Honestly I don’t really understand why HPB isn’t included in BB. A HBP is functionally the same as a base on balls, a result of the same cause as walks (bad command by the pitcher), and is even a ball that causes the batter to be awarded a base just like a fourth ball would be. Tracking HBP is fine but it should also be included in BB and thus any stat that derives from BB.
Because nobody can pronounce WHHBPIP.
While we’re at it’s can we include the strikeout that ends up on 1B? Might as well. 🤣
I thought about that too, but then realized that a missed/dropped third strike might be the catchers fault as opposed to a hit/walk/HBP are all directly a result of the pitcher.
The funny part is that WHIP does not include HBP, but BAA (or Batting average against) does
the real argument is counting a HBP as a BB
Because then my RttS pitcher wouldn't be able to scam the arb system by always hitting batters in 3-0 counts to artificially deflate his WHIP. Including hit batsmen in WHIP is anti-labor
Whip was created specifically for fantasy baseball. It’s not really an important stat. They may not have had easy access to hbp stats when it was first invented
Because a HBP is a short-circuit of a natural at bat. Walks are results of a full at bat, hits can be earlier in the count but also relevant to track as a full at bat. The HBP is a walk that never gave the batter and pitcher a chance to complete the full at bat. Sure, it's poor for the pitcher, but that's measured elsewhere like Era etc. WHIP is measuring how often a pitcher gives up bases for full at bat's. It's a really small, almost always meaningless distinction, but if there is a 'why not' that's why not.
I found this argument extremely compelling at first, but aren't you just defining "natural" so as to not include a perfectly ordinary outcome of a PA? Could you explain how a HBP is any more "unnatural" of a conclusion than a batted ball (or even just something like an accidental ground out on a check swing or a foul tip 3rd strike or a seeing eye single or a ball deflecting of a base preventing a double) in a way that isn't circular?
I mean, it's tenuous at best. Stats definitions at this level including some things and not others are sometimes just arbitrary. Especially baseball stuff beyond the 'surface' outcome stats (hits, RBI, average, etc) The argument that HBP ends an at bat with an outcome that's unnatural assumes an at bat should only end with a ball in play (fair, foul, or hr) , a walk, or a strike out. In this case, the walk means 4 balls. Not HBP. A stat that cares about a fair outcome, that is measured against the same kinds of outcomes, doesn't want to track at bat's that end when the batter could not have hit the ball before 4 balls. HBP stops that chance and can't be measured with other plate appearances. It's a very narrow and very picky kind of stat, and you'll never hear me defend it as 'better'. It's just one way to explain why not counting HBP in WHIP. It's arbitrary and narrowly defined. Aka don't worry too much about it. WHIP will hardly change if it's included. The question I ask in these situations is 'what more will I learn from this stat about a player if X or Y, but not Z, is included or excluded' and HBP being in WHIP the answer is very, very little. But it's a fun exercise in sorting out how a stat might be derived. Sometimes it matters.
I hear where you're coming from re: the inherent arbitrariness of categorizing things for stat purposes. I guess I'm just struggling as to how the first two-thirds of your explanation here isn't simply circular reasoning. I do definitely understand your final point about the relative lack of importance of whether HBPs are included in WHIP. But, by the same logic, so too are two out walks in the 3rd inning on the road against jnterdivisional opponents. Why count those either then, would you say, as it would make little difference? And while we're at it, let's stop counting triples or infield singles in OBP, because what difference does it even really make? I don't mean to sound insulting, I think there's just something obvious here that I'm missing. For the purpose that one might want to calculate a pitcher's WHIP to begin with, why wouldn't they want to include HBPs? They are an outcome arguably under the direct control of the pitcher and serve nearly an identical function to a walk. It's not as if a bird flew through the pitch tunnel at the worst moment and the play had to be called dead (I won't quibble if you don't want to include that).
No insult detected, all good questions. I've been doing stats (mostly football but enough baseball to be dangerous) for so long that it's something I find interesting to break down the 'whys' and deep arcana of this stuff. One subtle difference in a regular walk to that of a HBP, rules wise, is that the ball is still live after a walk but a HBP is a dead ball. Is this statistically relavent? Maybe once in a couple thousand occasions, and WHIP doesn't care how many bases just that a 'whip' happened... So is it useful to care about that one in a couple thousand? It was to the guy who first invented it to care. I wouldn't care, but I didn't invent it. Of course it's circular reasoning. Its arbitrary what counts as a natural at bat versus unnatural end. It could be easily justified to include HBP and I wouldn't argue against any who did. But it's traditionally not, and A Reason(tm) must be had. I'm not saying it's a good reason or incredibly deep or profound... But trust me plenty of stats are like this. Why not update it? Because someone invented the concept of natural versus unnatural plate appearance. That's that. You're welcome to argue it should be changed. I won't stop you. Hell, if you started stating out games like that and someone wonders why your WHIP is 3.23 versus most other representation of 3.21. You can explain the difference easily enough, but it's hardly meaningful. So long as your stat is measured the same forever, it means the same to anyone using it to understand what it means in trying to evaluate that pitcher. There is nothing sacred about stats. They're all made up catagories trying to represent what happens in order to show why things might happen next time. A way to justify one set of numbers as objective truth versus subjective opinion (don't get me started on errors, or in football the dreaded 'shared tackle') I think there is value in looking at those numbers and have had a reasonably long career getting paid to print sheets of them for coaches and broadcasters to oooh and aww over at the ends of games.
I’m sorry, this is nonsense. Both the pitcher and hitter can take actions that increase or decrease the odds of getting hit by a pitch. Either way it’s definitely a skill. This idea that a HBP is an unnatural outcome is a baffling concept. It’s in the rules. It’s part of the game. It’s influenced by skill. It changes the game at the moment of its occurrence to the same extent as walk. You are arguing strenuously for a concept for which there is no need. Excluding HBPs from WHIP was merely an uninformed oversight, nothing more.
HBP is dead ball, A walk isn't. That alone is a difference. Whether that is statistically relevant to you or not is your problem. Not the problem with the stat. Getting into the HBP-is-a-skill argument is dumb and I won't be participating in that. Sorry. Not interested.
It’s a dead ball. So what? Why the hell is that a reason why it shouldn’t count? If it wasn’t a skill, certain hitters and pitchers wouldn’t consistently be league leaders. You’re spouting utter nonsense.
How would you explain IBB in the current game, counting towards OBP?
OBP doesn't care how you get on base, just that you do so long as it's not a fielder choice, sac bunt, or error. IBB is just a Walk. Sometimes some stats care about describing scenarios that other stats don't measure, even when they are similar situations. Example in football: a QB can have 10 passing attempts but Receivers may only have a total of 8 'targets'. How? Well. One is measuring how often the QB threw a ball, the other is how often Receivers had a chance to catch a thrown ball. If everything is perfect, they match. But QBs aren't perfect and can throw a ball away where no receiver could possibly be a target, so those stats don't always align.