Houston Astros Charlie Morton: MLB’s leading headhunter

Baseball’s Headhunters: Charlie Morton

This brings us to the pitcher named in the title, Charlie Morton of the Houston Astros. Of the 1113 pitchers with at least 1000 innings pitched since 1901, Charlie Morton has the highest rate of batters hit per innings pitched. His rate of 17.4 HBP/200 IP is six times as high as Early Wynn. It’s three times the rate of the intimidating Bob Gibson and 1.7 times the rate of Pedro “the Plunker” Martinez.

Morton has led the league in HBP four times in the last six years. He’s led the league four times despite never pitching more than 175 innings in a season. In one of the years he didn’t lead the league, 2016, he only pitched 17.3 innings. In the other, 2015, he was one HBP away from leading the league despite pitching only 129 innings. He easily could have led the league five times in the last six years if he had pitched a few more innings in 2015.

Morton’s primary victim has been Jon Jay, who he’s hit five times in 37 plate appearances. This isn’t too surprising because Jay frequently gets beaned, so those five beanings shouldn’t all be blamed on Morton. Jay’s rate of getting hit by pitches is in the 99th percentile for all MLB players with at least 2500 plate appearances. If there’s a batter Charlie Morton is likely to hit, it’s Jon Jay.

With the caveat that correlation does not equal causation, it’s interesting to note how Morton’s career breaks down. In the first 473.3 innings of his career from 2008 to 2012, Morton hit 12.3 batters per 200 innings and had a 5.06 ERA (4.36 FIP). Since the start of the 2013 season, Morton has hit 20.7 batters per 200 innings and has a 3.69 ERA (3.69 FIP). The more batters he hits, the better he pitches!

When it comes to pitchers hitting batters, it’s a perfect storm for Charlie Morton. He hits batters at a high rate during a time when batters are being hit at a high rate.