I'm in the process of drafting an OL team with a theme based on the Starting-8 position players all having a relatively high number of HBPs. To my knowledge, there's no HBP+ or HBP# stats to help facilitate this.

This decision was based on noticing that the Deadball Pitchers seem to have a higher % of hitting batters than other eras of pitchers. And since good Deadball Pitchers in the OL's are not giving up any walks (most have walk rates under 2 per 9 innings), this might be an interesting way to generate a higher batter OBP than with the high-walk batters.

I was curious if any of you happen to know what eras of baseball had the pitchers with the highest HBP rates. Of course, I'm kinda hoping I'm right with it being the Deadball Pitchers. :-)

Also, I'd be curious to hear any play-experiences from all of you as to how high HBP Teams or Players worked for you ...

Thanks!

Me too!

Drysdale and Bob Gibson in the 60s come to mind

I would totally play in a HBP theme league

I didn't research this, but have used the 1890 McMahon on several occasions and he always hits 30+ batters. His real life total is posted as 22, and his HBP/100 is 5.29

Yep, I saw those guys as good candidates in my HBP search as well. Although I love seein' their baseball cards. Ron Hunt has arms like an orangutang. Hughie Jennings has some eye-trickery issues with the geometrics of his uniform lines. And Tommy Tucker looks like he's had a very bad day at the office.



One thing I've noticed ... position players with high real-life HBP seem to consistently average about 65-75% of their real-life totals in the sim. That kinda sucks.

Don't forget Don Baylor.