Monday, June 8, 2009

The Curious Case of Hughie Jennings

Hughie Jennings, the lead-off batter and starting shortstop for the Bellevue Freakin' Franchise, is a slap hitting non walking albatross of a ball player. Or you might think if you haven't been lucky enough to see him play.

Take his April 11th game as the typical example of what he brings to the table:
  • In the first, he struck out.
  • In the second his singled. Stole Second. Scored on a ground ball that made its way to the outfield.
  • In the fourth, he laid down a beautiful sac bunt that led to a run being scored.
  • In the 5th, he was hit by a pitch, and scored from first on a double
  • In the 7th, he grounded out to third
  • In the 8th, he was hit by another pitch, and later scored
Add it up? 1-3, with a slap hit single, but three runs scored, a stolen base, 2 hit by pitch, and a key sacrifice bunt.

To date, Jennings is batting .285 with no power and 2 walks. Yet, in 32 games he already has 25 runs scored, 16 stolen bases, and a .385 on base percentage? How does a player who doesn't walk and have a league average batting average, manage to get on base at 38.5% clip? He's been hit by a pitch 20 times, and is on pace for 125 runs scored and an incredible 100 hit by pitches.

And before your cry foul - in 130 real life games Jennings recorded 51 real life beanings. But perhaps his 4 HBP performance on May 7, the Great Individual Feat that sparked the idea of this article, is a bit much to take.

4 comments:

  1. Up to 22 HBP through sim 3B. Some more stats on this:

    Jennings has been hit in 13.8% of his plate appearances.

    The mean among qualifying players (I fudged the qualifying marker a bit with a standardized cutoff at 34 games -- 105 PA) is 1.04. The standard deviation is 2.16. So, he's 9 SD from the mean.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nothin' beats Standard Deviation talk in the morning

    ReplyDelete
  3. Also, while researching Kevin Appier who turned in an 85 game score for me in a game following one which he was pulled after recording only one out, I see that in that May 7 game, Jennings was hit twice in the first inning! Once to lead off vs Appier, and once later in that 6-run inning by Seward.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am pretty sure my strategy is to have Jennings take as many pitches as humanly possible...and he might be taking it a little too literally

    ReplyDelete