Matt Wallner, Hit By Pitch Savant

[Matt Braun]

The hidden skill aiding Matt Wallner’s stellar rookie season.

Image courtesy of Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports

There’s an art to being hit by a pitch. While some only occasionally dabble, perfectly content with letting the pitcher hit him on the hurler’s terms, others know that there’s a successful strategy that can earn him a free—albeit painful—trip to first base. Matt Wallner is one of those players.

The rookie lefty has been struck by 12 pitches this season. He’s played in 49 games. Alexi Casilla, Jason Kubel, Ted Uhlaender; these are just a few players who lap Wallner in major-league experience, and none were smoked more than him. Shoot, if you add the two times he was hit last year, he’s already tied with Shannon Stewart, Eduardo Escobar, and Steve Braun. Now that’s a list of names. Is there anything behind this impressive plunking rate?

I pulled up every clip of Wallner being plunked (thanks, Baseball Savant!) to see if there’s anything to it. I’ve observed that there are two general styles that constitute a Wallner hit by pitch, with both strategies stemming from a similar place. 

The first is an elbow-specific move. See if you can spot it:

A more strict umpire may call him back for that. He didn’t even try to get out of the way! In fact, I see a slight lean in, just to ensure that Lucas Giolito’s slider scrapes something. 

This is how a few of his free bases have come; Wallner naturally sets his arms very close to the high-and-tight edge of the strike zone, making it a prime destination for a pitch thrown just a little off. It's earned him a few jogs to first. This isn’t even that bad of an offering from Giolito; Wallner is just hard to miss up there.

The second is a stagnant, stoic acceptance in the face of imminent foot danger:

Usually you see some sort of exotic dance as a batter realizes a flying, welt-inducing object will soon come into contact with their money-makers. Not Wallner! He has no interest in moving at all. None. He just stands there, accepting the price extracted for a free bag before skipping down the line, perhaps gleeful that he turned a 1-2 situation into a runner on first. I think you can even pinpoint the moment he goes from "focused on fighting off a tough pitch" to "giving in to what he needs to do to turn the situation around." Granted, it required the kind of chutzpah most hitters aren’t willing to procure, but OBP does not discriminate; a base is a base.

When I started this analysis, I was expecting a story of a batter hugging the plate, coming so close to the strike zone that he could eat it, something akin to how Anthony Rizzo would occasionally become one with the very location pitchers are aiming for. Wallner is no stranger to the strike zone—he gets cozy with the plate when he wants to—but that doesn’t appear to be exactly what’s going on here.

Wallner is a master at not flinching. Plenty of his plunks could have become balls if he simply acted like a normal batter. He is not a normal batter. He has weaponized a rule designed to keep hitters safe, turning it into a legitimate method of reaching base consistently. This isn’t new, either; he was hit 28 times in college, eight times while playing in the Cape Cod League and the AFL, and 43 times in the minors. Lord knows what timid high school pitchers did against him. All told, we’re looking at 93 recordable hit by pitches in just 625 games—a total that decimates Chuck Knoblauch’s Twins record of 74.

Can he reach that total? I think he absolutely can. He’s already shown to be adroit at wearing one. Perhaps that rate will slow down at times—hit by pitches are notoriously finicky; he could take two next week or go the rest of the season painless. He may run out of playing time if his rate of pulverizing baseballs slows down, throwing a wrench into the longevity needed to rack up historic numbers. Still, as long as pitchers aren’t perfect, Wallner will be right there, standing, unmoving, and grateful for the one-way ticket to first base.

View full article

[Doctor Wu]

Good article! My first thought: he could be the reincarnation of Ron Hunt, who used to hold the record for being hit by pitches. But Ron Hunt was later "lapped" by guys like Craig Biggio and even Don Baylor. Nevertheless, getting hit by pitches DOES require a certain amount of extra effort!

[Trov]

One thing he is clearly doing is trying to take the up and in pitch away from the pitchers.  He is one that needs to get hands extended for big swings and the up and in will not get that done.  So he strides toward the plate and if the pitcher misses up and in at all, there is good chance wallner is going to first. I think it is more than just getting on, but telling pitchers if you want to come up and in to me, you better hit your spot or I will be on first base. If you do miss your spot it will need to be either up out of zone, or back out over the plate. 

[DJL44]

Forest Lake kids are good at wearing pitches; boys and girls. If they don't take the HBP you're likely to hear a parent call out "we've got ice".

[AlwaysinModeration]

Has Wallner ever missed time from getting HBP?  Matt “Cement Bones” Wallner has an interesting ring to it.

[Unwinder]

The greek god of hbp

[terrydactyls]

For nearly 70 years, I played hockey.  Sixty of those were as a goalie.  I know what getting hit by a fast-moving solid object feels like.  Goalie equipment was pretty flimsy in the 50's and 60's.  You learn that the pain is usually short-lived and that bruises go away (although usually replaced by new ones).  Hat's off to Wallner for standing his ground.

[Cris E]

9 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

For nearly 70 years, I played hockey.  Sixty of those were as a goalie.  I know what getting hit by a fast-moving solid object feels like.  Goalie equipment was pretty flimsy in the 50's and 60's.  You learn that the pain is usually short-lived and that bruises go away (although usually replaced by new ones).  Hat's off to Wallner for standing his ground.

Amen: look at those 4 seamers in the mid-90s.  And the graph below shows how Wallner is taking away inside pitches with his shoulder, elbow and foot. Nice article.

[wornsmooth]

39 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

It's not worth the extra base IF he gets injured and is out multiple games.  If his approach is to get more hittable pitches, and he can take advantage of that, then fine but put some armor on then.

Could not agree more. A dangerous technique, if indeed intentional. A miscalculation on his part could easily translate into a broken hand or wrist.

Sometimes a pitch fools ya. 

 

 

[Hawkeye Bean Counter]

31 minutes ago, wornsmooth said:

Could not agree more. A dangerous technique, if indeed intentional. A miscalculation on his part could easily translate into a broken hand or wrist.

Sometimes a pitch fools ya. 

 

 

In the clip above he uses his elbow pad.  For the high and tight,  ones on the elbow he will feel nothing.  If it hits the meaty part of hit bicep, likely a bruise.  He is willing to take some pain.  The feet ones concern me a bit, however,  this is a style he has likely had for years.   He may just have stronger bones, also a likely higher pain tolerance.  I doubt we will see any change in his style and he will continue to rack up HBP.  

[Cris E]

Yeah, when you're wearing the armor the real vulnerable points are the exposed bone areas like hands, feet and knees. Meat bruises and heals, but Buxton's ribs and Altuve's hand aren't as elastic.

[ashbury]

In the fall of 2021 in suburban Phoenix, USAFChief and I shared the experience of watching Wallner get smacked square in the jaw with a pitch.  There was blood, it was frightening, and I figured that would be the end of his Arizona Fall League season.  Not so - a few games later he was back in the lineup, hitting just as well as before (1.000+ OPS) and I was impressed with his toughness.  Obviously he was fortunate not to have had an outcome more like Kyle Farmer this season.  Luck and grit combined in that instance.

I''ll take the author's word for it that video of this season's HBP are all along the lines shown in the two videos, and nothing reckless.  Armored elbows and feet are risky but not usually career threatening when hit.  But the beaning in 2021 shows the downside to his strategy at the plate.  No professional pitcher goes out there to try to hurt another player.  But I could easily imagine a pitcher thinking, "oh, so you want to crowd the plate and take me deep by pulling an outside pitch, huh?  How about if I give you something to think about first, and a little higher?" And then the pitch gets away, or Wallner fails in this one instance to react quite in time.

I've believed in his bat since before the AFL, and more power to him and his approach to inside pitches, I guess.  But I hope he really has a plan beyond "if they throw inside I'll let it hit me," and that it's been vetted by older players who have seen a thing or three in their time.  Once a player has a reputation around the league, it's hard to shake.  What would a frank conversation between Wallner and Solano be like, for instance?

[Shaitan]

It sounds like few of the 90+ HBPs are to wrists, hands, and shins, which seem to cause the IL-type injuries.

[Trov]

Getting hit by a pitch and not getting hurt is actually something you can work on.  Yes, he may bet on the hand or wrist, as he did the other week.  However, you move your body when a bell comes at you, you can either move away and due a dance to avoid it, or you can move your body so it is more likely to hit a safer area of the body.  He clearly has been doing this his whole career.  Graig Biggio was hit 287 times and never went on IL from it.  Some guys get hit and go right on IL.  It is always a risk to be hit by a pitch, but it is not that he is standing up there trying to hit his more exposed areas risking it more, he is just not trying to jump out of way, or he is letting it his his elbow pad. He should get the big Papi elbow pad, that thing was huge, and he never played the field and did not need to protect his throwing arm.