Cracking the WHIP: An Evaluation of Baseball’s Hall of Fame Pitchers

Abstract

Walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) is a key performance metric for pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB).  The authors analyze WHIP and its two components, walks and hits, to determine whether Hall of Fame pitcher performance has changed over time since the Hall of Fame’s first induction in 1936.  All inducted pitchers are divided into four roughly equal groups.  The results reveal that pitchers inducted between 1936 and 1959 gave up significantly fewer walks per inning pitched while pitchers inducted between 1960 and 1979 gave up significantly more hits per inning pitched.  However, in general, WHIP displays no statistically significant trend over time, as the small number of walks per inning pitched among early inductees is offset by a large number of hits given up per inning pitched among later inductees.