Howcome Hit Batters Don't Count Against WHIP?

[YankFan51]

I know WHIP means Walks and Hits per inning pitched. However, hitting a batter should be punished, and it really is a form of a walk, so why doesn't he count?

[LetsPlay2]

Because it doesn't make an easy to pronounce acronym.

WHHBIP

Try to pronounce THAT.

[Longshot]

YanksFan, this bothers me like none other. Whenever a batter of mine gets hit I get furious - he's on base, he basically got walked, but I dont get a walk for it or OPS (both count in my league). Also, if its an opponents pitcher, he just put someone base, which should be WHIP like you said, yet it doesn't count. Personally, I think it should count as a walk, giving the hitter a BB and charging the pitcher one (hurting his WHIP and K/BB). Its perposterous

[jdh]

I don't think that the impact of hits batsmen not counting for batters or against hitters really makes much difference in a fantasy league, because the same rules apply to everyone, meaning that it will all even out. The only time you benefit from one of your guys getting beaned is if it happens with the bases loaded and you get an RBI

The problem is that the statistic is called WHIP, walks + hits per innings pitched. If they wanted to include hit batsmen, they'd have to rename the stat. I suppose they could call it baserunners per inning, but that would still create problems, because if someone reaches base on an error, it would be misleading to not count them as a base runner. But then people might want the stat to also take into account balks, wild pitches, etc. so you can't win.

Personally, I think the league should just simplify things by recording hits batsmen as intentional walks.

[Robman]

The formula for on-base % is
(hits + walks + hit by pitch) / (at bats + walks + hit by pitch + sac flys)

So it does affect the batters stats just not the pitchers WHIP.

[Robman]

Actually hit batters count against the pitchers (OBA) on base against. So hit batters count for the batters and the pitchers.

[jdh]

But most standard fantasy leagues use WHIP and not OBA, so it doesn't count for most leagues.

[dannahann]

Any league using OPS does use OBA though. It's the "O" in OPS (on base plus slugging)

[brdmaverick]

Well, we live in the age of baseball where everyone is stat-driven. A baseball player's career will be judged on his numbers. Even on any given day, pitcher's want to post the best numbers possible so........

............what if a pitcher was told by the manager to intentionally walk a guy. Why would he just throw it AT the batter? He doesn't have to throw it hard. It would only take one pitch as opposed to four, and it has just been brought to my attention that it wouldn't count against the pitcher's WHIP. That would give the pitcher the best possible stats, keeping his WHIP and BB lower than it should be.

just a random thought