Jacoby Ellsbury Shattered an All-Time Record

The Indians just signed Brandon Guyer to a very modest contract extension. If you know Guyer, it’s for one of two reasons. A small number of you might know Guyer personally. A greater number of you know Guyer for his skill at being hit by things. Guyer is a specialist when it comes to finding an alternate path to first base. Here he is, doing his thing:

Call it cheap if you want, but what works works. Despite being a part-time player, Guyer just led the league in hit-by-pitches. For his career, he’s been hit by a pitch 66 times, while he’s been walked on four balls 61 times. Just last season, Guyer was hit by a pitch in 9% of his plate appearances, a rate which was 10 times higher than the league average. Ten times higher than the league average! Guyer is a statistical weirdo, but you have to love him for it. Unless, you know, you’re pitching.

Guyer is a bit of a competitive annoyance because of his specialty. And yet, as the freaks go, he’s out-classed. Guyer specializes at one arguably cheap way to reach base. Jacoby Ellsbury specializes at another. We’ve gone over this before, but we’re doing it again. Last year, Guyer’s rate of reaching by HBP was 10 times the league average. Last year, Ellsbury’s rate of reaching on catcher’s interference was 94 times the league average. Ellsbury managed one of the most extraordinary statistical accomplishments in the history of the game.

I first wrote about Ellsbury and catcher’s interference in 2013, when Ellsbury pulled it off four times. That sounds so cute nowadays. But, to be clear, four in a season is notable. Few players ever get to four in a season. This past July, I wrote a little about Ellsbury again, because he’d already made it to eight. Officially, he finished at 12. Jacoby Ellsbury reached base this past season a full 12 times on catcher’s interference alone. Second place was a tie between Aaron Hill and Angel Pagan. They tied at three. C.J. Cron reached on catcher’s interference twice. Nobody else did it more than once. There were just 39 of these calls, and Ellsbury was responsible for almost a third of them.

Here is catcher’s interference No. 9. This happened on July 19.

There’s nothing to argue; the glove came clean off. There’s only one reason for that to ever happen, and it entitles the hitter to first. The game didn’t subsequently pause for very long, and Ellsbury didn’t take a call from the commissioner or a representative for the Hall of Fame. But with that ninth catcher’s interference — on July 19 — Ellsbury broke the all-time record, previously set by Roberto Kelly. The record for a single season had been eight. It wasn’t a record worth anyone knowing. Not until now. And Ellsbury, obviously, wasn’t finished.

A week and a half later, No. 10 was a delight. Double play! Just kidding.

Near the end of August, Ellsbury drew No. 11, against the Royals. And then, near the end of September, he drew No. 12, again victimizing the Orioles.

You see Matt Wieters‘ shoulders slump. He initially tried to play it off like just another foul ball, but when the umpire called him on his interference, there was no visible protest. That’s one of the things about catcher’s interference — the catchers always know they did wrong. You can’t really not notice when a baseball bat hits the glove you’ve got one of your hands in. Here’s a replay, just to give you a better understanding of how this works:

Ellsbury hangs out near the back of the box. That’s part of it. He takes a good number of swings off his back foot. That’s also part of it. The back-swing is a third part of it. It’s no mystery why Ellsbury draws the occasional interference. It’s more of a mystery why he suddenly drew so many of them. Catchers and coaches have been aware of this for some time. Remember that so many present coaches are former catchers, and former catchers know what to look out for to help current catchers. Ellsbury’s idiosyncrasies are no secret, yet a whole dozen times, catchers found themselves reaching too far forward. It combined to improve Ellsbury’s effective on-base percentage by 13 points. Catcher’s interference doesn’t go into the formula, but that doesn’t mean it’s not incrementally valuable.

It’s such a weird but incredible thing. Last regular season, there were 2,428 baseball games. In 38 of those games was there a call for catcher’s interference. That means, on average, there was catcher’s interference every 64 games or so. I’d say even the average semi-serious baseball fan falls short of watching 64 complete games a season, so that average fan likely wouldn’t have seen any catcher’s interference, unless he or she watched some Yankees. It’s an event you almost never think about. Broadcasters of opposing teams were mostly caught off guard this year when Ellsbury was awarded his bags. It’s one of the most unusual ways to reach, but Ellsbury had as many interference calls as Brandon Crawford had home runs. As Anthony Rendon had stolen bases. As Mike Trout had intentional walks.

Remember that Ellsbury didn’t just set a new record. The old record was eight. The new record is 12. Ellsbury beat the old all-time record by half. In the most basic terms, that’s like someone finishing with 393 hits, or 207 steals, or 77 hit-by-pitches, or 110 home runs. When records fall, they’re supposed to fall by the narrowest of margins. They’re supposed to fall in the final days of the season. They’re not supposed to fall by 50%, and they’re not supposed to fall right after the All-Star break. I want you to understand how insane this is. It’s annoying, and it’s stupid, and in the end it hardly matters, but there has been so much baseball in the history of baseball. There have been players like Jacoby Ellsbury. There have been players better than Jacoby Ellsbury. There have been players with weird swings and other weirder quirks. Ellsbury just did something no one has ever come even particularly close to doing for as long as we’ve got notes and records.

For whatever it’s worth, because Ellsbury reached on interference 12 times, there were 12 Yankees plate appearances immediately following said interference. How annoying is it to see an opponent reach on that kind of technicality? In six of those 12 following plate appearances, the Yankee hitter reached on a hit or a walk. Doesn’t have to mean much, but I might as well take advantage of the .500 OBP to suit my argument that pitchers get a little knocked off their own games. How couldn’t they be? It sucks.

Thanks to the 2016 surge, Ellsbury’s career catcher’s-interference total stands at 26. Now, that mark is not a record. The record stands at 29, and it was set by Pete Rose over 15,890 career plate appearances. Ellsbury is 33 years old, with 4,966 career plate appearances. In theory, now, passing Rose ought to be easy before Ellsbury’s playing days are done. It ought to be easy before 2018. Perhaps it ought to be doable before next June. I don’t know how catchers are going to adjust moving forward, but if the most recent year is any indication, they don’t actually really know what they’re doing. Ellsbury’s back-swing presumably hasn’t found the last bit of leather it’ll find.