Tampa Bay Rays’ Brandon Guyer Getting Beaned at Historic Pace
Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Brandon Guyer was hit for the 20th time on Sunday. He’s on pace to get hit the second-most times in a season in modern baseball history.
In a season in which Ichiro Suzuki will get his 3,000th hit and Alex Rodriguez will hit his 700th home run, there’s a guy in Tampa Bay who is currently the best player in MLB history at one specific thing: getting beaned. The Tampa Bay Rays’ Brandon Guyer was hit twice today by the Red Sox’s David Price, running his season total to 20 plunkings.
In his career, Guyer has now been hit 55 times in 940 plate appearances. That comes out to 32 HBP per 550 plate appearances, a rate unmatched by any other player in the history of the game. Hughie Jennings, who’s nickname was “Ee-Yah” according to Baseball-Reference.com, is the career leader in HBP, with 287. Jennings’ career stretches back to 1891. From 1896 to 1898, Jennings was hit 51, 46 and 46 times. Despite being so prolific at getting beaned, Jennings’ career rate is 28 HBP per 550 plate appearances, good for second in baseball history to our man Brandon Guyer.
The modern leader in career HBP is Craig Biggio, who was plunked 285 times, just two behind Jennings’ 287. Biggio, though, had over 12,000 plate appearances to rack up the HBPs. His rate of 13 HBP per 550 plate appearances pales in comparison to Brandon Guyer’s.
Another player well known for taking fastballs to the body is Don Baylor, who is fourth all-time with 267 plunkings. Don Baylor was so tough, when he was beaned they had to check the ball for damage. Baylor’s career rate is 16 HBP per 550 plate appearances, meaning he’s been hit half as often as Guyer.
The single-season leader in getting hit by a pitch is Ron Hunt. Hunt was hit a whopping 50 times in 1971. He had a technique for getting hit. As Hunt said,
"“First I would blouse the uniform—this big, wool uniform, I would make sure it was nice and loose. Then I’d choke way up on the bat, and stand right on top of the plate. That way, I could still reach the outside pitch. That was the Gil Hodges philosophy of hitting: the two inches on the outside corner were the pitcher’s, the rest was his. I thought, ‘If I can take away those two inches, and he’s not perfect, I can put the ball in play and get some hits. And if he comes inside, I can get on base that way, too.’”"
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This technique worked well for Hunt. Not only did he get hit 50 times in one season, he was also hit 20 or more times in five other seasons and had a career total of 243. Still, his career rate of 22 HBP per 550 plate appearances is well short of Brandon Guyer’s.
During Hunt’s 50 HBP season in 1971, he was hit by a pitch two times in six different games, but he was never hit three times in a game that season. He did pull off this feat in 1969, though, in a 13-inning game against the Giants on April 29. In that game, Hunt was hit three times by three different pitchers. Brandon Guyer also had a game in which he was plunked three times. Last October, Guyer took three to the body from Mark Buerhle. He did it again this year, on April 21, when he was hit twice by David Price and once by Neil Ramirez. Here’s the video of Guyer getting hit three times by Buehrle last October:
Hunt’s 50 HBP in 1971 is a single-season record that no one has come particularly close to since. Don Baylor was hit 35 times in 1986 and Craig Biggio was dinged 34 times in 1997. Brandon Guyer has 20 HBP at the All-Star break and is projected for 11 more by the Depth Charts at Fangraphs. If he can continue to get regular playing time, he has a good chance to pass Baylor for the second-most prolific HBP season since 1901. His current rate of 52 HBP per 550 plate appearances is even better than Ron Hunt’s rate in his 50 HBP season (43 HBP per 550 PA).
Next: 5 players due to bounce back in second half
The Tampa Bay Rays are having an ugly season. They have the second-worst record in the American League and the second-worst run differential. But they also have Brandon Guyer getting beaned on a regular basis and that’s something.