Anthony Rizzo, Bruised Into History

This season, Anthony Rizzo has obliterated 30 baseballs into the seats for home runs. As of last night, in perfect symmetry, 30 baseballs have exacted revenge for their wounded brothers by hitting Anthony Rizzo. This is a rare accomplishment. Is this an accomplishment? This is a rare accomplishment.

Until now, only one player had ever before reached that particular 30/30 threshold — Don Baylor, in 1986. That year, he knocked 31 dingers, and was hit 35 times. Over his career, he hit hundreds of homers. And he was hit by hundreds of pitches. He’s fitting company. If you want to make Rizzo more special, he’s also exceeded 30 doubles, which Baylor didn’t, so now by those terms Rizzo is the first-ever 30/30/30 player. Anyhow, going back to the original 30/30 terms, if you loosen the restrictions, there have only ever been six 25/25 player seasons. In 2004, Craig Wilson slugged 29 homers, and was slugged by 30 pitches. He came painfully close to belonging in the Baylor/Rizzo tier. Maybe that year he was robbed of a home run. I don’t know, so I’ll pretend, to aid the narrative. Craig Wilson: almost historic. Too bad.

Rizzo, of course, has picked up on the hit-by-pitch frequency. It’s hard not to notice an uptick in getting hit by baseballs. His stated preference would be to stop getting hit by baseballs so much, but he hasn’t been convinced to change anything about his behavior, so this is just a thing that’s going to happen. He’s gotten pretty good about taking these things in stride, and yesterday, after he was hit for the 30th time, he smiled at his own dugout, which isn’t how people ordinarily respond to abuse.

rizzo-hbp-reaction

Oh, sure, he’s been mad about getting hit sometimes, but he’s not that much of a jawer. He understands that these bruises come with the territory, and he knows pitchers are usually just trying to establish the inner bit of the plate. Without intent, it’s just a mistake, but what a series of mistakes. To put Rizzo’s season in additional perspective, I pulled some FanGraphs data stretching back to 2002. For each individual season, I took all the qualified hitters, and I calculated z-scores for their rates of home runs per pitch, and their rates of hit-by-pitches per pitch. Below, Rizzo’s 2015 is obviously highlighted.

z-scores

It’s the right-most point in the plot. The home runs are present, but by no means exceptional. The hit-by-pitches are exceptional. A simpler way to think about this, if you’re not a fan of mentally processing z-scores: Rizzo leads baseball by having been hit 30 times. The guy in second place is at 21. Third place is a two-way tie at 17. Rizzo is blowing the competition away. There’s no ongoing race for the hit-by-pitch title — it’s Rizzo’s, and it’s been Rizzo’s for an awful long time.

Rizzo’s power is nothing new. That’s been his selling point, even going back to his performance in the minor leagues. If you were thinking about him before the year as a 30/30 threat, the homers would almost be a given. The hit-by-pitches are the real surprise, superficially. Rizzo’s been an everyday player three years in a row. Between 2013 and 2014, he more than doubled his hit-by-pitch rate. Between 2014 and 2015, he’s doubled it again. Usually, players don’t double statistical rates without a good explanation. This one’s easy to explain. Rizzo batting in 2013:

rizzo-2013

Rizzo batting in 2014:

rizzo-2014

And Rizzo batting in 2015:

rizzo-2015

He’s moved much closer to the plate, where now his back foot is touching the inner chalk line of the box. It would be hard to crowd the plate any more while staying within the boundaries of the official rules. Moving closer has been a conscious decision on Rizzo’s part, and that’s one of the reasons he can’t get too mad about the beanballs — in a way, he’s brought this on himself. If he wanted them to stop that bad, he could back away. He’s not backing away, so, that’s effectively a green light.

The biggest change happened between 2013 and 2014. I don’t know how much of a difference there is between the last two years, in terms of Rizzo’s stance, but some of the increase could just be randomness. And there’s also the matter of Rizzo now being firmly established, so he’s the most likely Cub to be targeted for hit-by-pitch retaliation. Rizzo counts as a big-time vet now. So that’s another little boost to his numbers. He’s allowed to protest the intentional beanballs. The others, he should and does just take.

Over the three years, pitchers have only slightly moved away from Rizzo. In 2013, they threw 15% of their pitches inside, off the plate. This year, they’re a hair over 13%. They don’t want to lose that side of the plate, so, again, hit-by-pitches are going to happen as a consequence. Where has Rizzo been hit? Baseball Savant can help with this. Here’s a screenshot of Rizzo’s stance:

rizzo-raw

Now let’s fold in the balls that’ve hit him with some really terrible attempted photoshop:

rizzo-hbp

There’s activity almost everywhere, but, thankfully, nothing doing above the shoulders. You get a bit of knee and shin action, but it’s more concentrated about Rizzo’s elbow, which also means his back assuming he turns away. Headshots aside, the greatest risk of a hit-by-pitch is getting struck in the hand, but to this point Rizzo’s been more or less able to avoid that. So he gets his bruises — it’s impossible not to get bruised — but he can protect himself from fractures. Getting hit a lot guarantees pain, but it doesn’t guarantee stints on the DL.

Since this post began by talking about hit-by-pitches and home runs, let’s also mix in the dingers:

rizzo-hbp-hr

The colors are obnoxiously similar but just by thinking for half of one second you should be able to figure out which of those dots were one base and which were four. By standing close to the plate, Rizzo allows himself to extend his hitting zone away, but that doesn’t mean he’s vulnerable in. He’s currently posting a career-high slugging percentage against pitches inside from the middle of the plate. He can cover almost everywhere, which is most of what makes him so dangerous.

Without showing photographic evidence, I can just tell you Rizzo stands closer than his other left-handed Cubs teammates. Kyle Schwarber looks similar, but he’s still a few inches back, and that can make all the difference. To close out, here are this season’s left-handed hit-by-pitches, with Rizzo in black and the others in light gray:

lefty-hbps

It’s not like Rizzo is way closer than everybody else. It really is just a matter of inches. But you can see most of the black dots a little closer to the plate than the rest of the dots. You get an image of where Rizzo stands, and you get an image of where the average lefty stands. It all makes sense. In this way, hit-by-pitch totals are highly predictable. All you need to know is a guy’s stance, and how willing he is to chase soft stuff away. Or, anything that tells you how a hitter is likely to be pitched. Mostly, it’s the stance.

I mentioned earlier that Rizzo leads baseball in hit-by-pitches, 30 to 21. The player with 21 is Brandon Guyer, and Guyer has seen half as many pitches as Rizzo has. Guyer, then, is even more extraordinary in his getting-hit-a-lot-ness, but Guyer’s also hit just eight home runs. One day, maybe he’ll get his own post. But today belongs to Rizzo — not because he excels in one category, but because he excels in an unlikely pair.





Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.

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Gay Ozzie Guillen
8 years ago

Oh yay, another one!

Just went you thought 3 articles in 2 days was nice, we get blessed with a fourth! Yay!

NotAnotherPun
8 years ago

A team either has to be really good or particularly horrible to earn such a streak on Fangraphs. For the first time in a long time for the Cubs, it’s the former and not the latter. Let us have our sweet moment now, in case some messed up, against all odds, asinine thing happens and ruins it.

Gay Ozzie Guillen
8 years ago
Reply to  NotAnotherPun

Tomorrow on fangraphs:

Kyle Schwarber, More toppings than Piazza
Arrieta; even Jesus Couldn’t Do this
Jorge Soler; Sun affects Jorge’s power

For the record, I don’t like when fangraphs ambushes us with 3-4 pieces in a day or two about any team. I like diversity, and besides some of the Cub articles just being poorly done (see the Addison Russel one), I just get tired of reading about the same group of guys repeatedly.

Kershawshank Redemption
8 years ago

Ambush? As in “A surprise attack by people lying in wait in a concealed position”? Rather than “generously provide us with free and largely useful analysis”?

I don’t get why people expect to have an even distribution of articles amongst the 30 teams. Right now, as in with less than a week left in the entire grueling season, the Cubs are one of 5 or so teams even worth writing about.

Of course, if this free content isn’t up to snuff, I supposed you could, you know, just NOT READ the damn articles…

NotAnotherPun
8 years ago

To be fair, the Cubs have a lot of interesting players, but didn’t draw much attention during the first half, so it makes sense that they’re getting attention now that they are in the spot light. However, 4 in 2 days does seem a bit much. Regardless, I have to congratulate you on your fake titles. Except Soler’s, that joke has been beaten dry. Instead Soler: Power potential equal to nuclear fusion, Soler: Flaring through the majors, Soler: A G-type player, or Soler: A panel discussion would have been better.

fidel castro
8 years ago

and gay ozzie guillen crying like a schoolgirl

Gay Ozzie Guillen
8 years ago

I read the articles; as I do most things on this site. What I always found interesting was how personal people take it when a commenter expresses some degree of displeasure with a piece.

What I also find interesting is that 5 teams are worth writing about, yet 10 make the playoffs. Very bizarre.

Coming up with content daily is the most difficult part of this job; I understand that fully. I do think it would be in fangraphs best interest if writers talked about what they plan on writing about on a given day; that is not unheard of in this industry.

I enjoy reading fangraphs. I enjoy commenting. I enjoy interacting with the readers of fangraphs as well as the authors. I don’t take this personally or seriously; I’m here for the information and the entertainment and I’m always going to voice my opinion in regards to what I believe makes fangraphs a more enjoyable place for everyone who visits.

Captain Tenneal
8 years ago

What people dislike about your comment is that your displeasure stems not from the actual article, but from the subject of the article. If you want to say this article sucks and is poorly written, that’s one thing (and you would be wrong, because no Jeff Sullivan articles suck), but you seem to only be upset because of what it’s about. It’s not even about the Cubs. It’s about Anthony Rizzo, who happens to play for the Cubs. It has nothing to do with his Cub-ness. It’s kind of like being a racist, except with baseball teams.

No one ever
8 years ago

WHERE ARE THE PADRES ARTICLES?! I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT JEDD GYORKO.