Article: "Too Much of a Sacrifice?" (bunting)

[1992casey]

Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post published an interesting article on bunting this past weekend: Too Much of a Sacrifice?.

 

(The article will likely require registration. BugMeNot.com or the BugMeNot Firefox/Mozilla Suite Extension will get you around that.)

 

It's interesting in that it covers a lot of angles:

• Frank Robinson: I don't live by the numbers, and I don't manage by the numbers. I put on the bunt when the situation calls for a bunt.
  
• Author Dave Sheinin: Critics of the sacrifice bunt, on the other hand, contend it is a losing play that, mathematically, reduces a team's scoring potential in most situations.
  
• Buck Showalter: In our park, it's literally true that no lead is ever safe. So it doesn't make sense to give away an out with a sacrifice bunt, with this lineup in this park. That's not to say I'm anti-bunt. It's just a matter of our unique circumstances.
  
• James Click, Baseball Prospectus: People's adoration for the play is antiquated and needs to be updated for the modern game. [Click acknowledged that his type of analytical thinking] is not something that's received well among the old-school crowd in baseball, which is unfortunate, [and concludes that the bunt is] archaic, outdated strategy.
  
• Author Dave Sheinin: Click ran simulations using actual players to determine the thresholds for which specific hitters should and should not bunt. His conclusion: With a runner on first base and no outs, any hitter with an on-base percentage (OBP) of at least .206 and/or a slugging percentage (SLG) of at least .182?numbers that would encompass practically every hitter in the majors, including many pitchers?should swing away. The only exception is when a team is playing specifically for one run, in which case the thresholds are a .282 OBP and/or .322 SLG.
  
• Earl Weaver: I hated playing for one run. But I didn't always take my own advice. I never bunted with Frank Robinson or Boog Powell or Eddie Murray at the plate, of course. But I did it with [Mark] Belanger and [Paul] Blair, two real good players. I think I bunted them too much.
  
• J.P. Ricciardi: Basically, my philosophy is, if it's the ninth inning and we have the winning run on base, I have no problem sacrificing. But I'll tell you this: It hasn't worked too well. Earl Weaver had the greatest line?if you play for one run, that's all you'll get. ... It's not cut-and-dry in my book, but if I had my druthers, we wouldn't bunt very much at all.
  
• Buck Martinez: the bottom line is, there is no one way to play baseball [or] to manage a baseball game.
  
• Bill James: All studies of the sacrifice bunt of which I am aware show that the sacrifice bunt is a poor percentage play. But I have never found this argument convincing. ... I do agree that there is little reason to believe that profligate bunting helps a team win. But if I were a manager, I would certainly signal a bunt with a good bunter against a poor defensive third baseman, and probably in some other situations as well.
  
• Ned Yost: The bunt is kind of a lost art. Even our pitchers who are supposed to be good bunters?and we work on it every day?they struggle to bunt. A lot of times, our success or failure [in a game] hinges around the bunt. And if a pitcher can't get a bunt down early in the game, it can kill us. Bunting is still a big part of the game, but it's fallen by the wayside in the last 10 years or so.

It should probably be pointed out that the author misuses the term "Moneyball" and should use "sabermetric" instead, but that's not the main point and not a huge issue.

 

There is also discussion of this article at Baseball Primer.

[dadofandrew]

I agree with JP 100%. I despise the SAC bunt, unless that run will pretty much win you the game.

[Getpaddled]

Using data from the 2003 season, Click found that a team with a runner on first base and no outs subsequently averaged 0.919 of a run per inning. But with a runner on second and one out -- which is to say, following a hypothetical sacrifice bunt -- a team averaged 0.706 of a run per inning. That means a bunt in that situation actually "costs" a team 0.213 of a run each time it is deployed

 

dose anyone have a stat like this from anyother year?

I would really really like to see one more year worth in this day of age. Post 1995. All years if possible

[Getpaddled]

and also..... anyway to get the numbers to back up what hes saying? For all I know he could have just typed in 3 random numbers.

[WV Brew]

I agree with JP 100%. I despise the SAC bunt, unless that run will pretty much win you the game.

 

I agree. It probably reduces expected value of total runs scored while increasing the expected value of scoring at least one run. In that case, it makes sense to use the bunt late in a close game.

[rluzinski]

dose anyone have a stat like this from anyother year?

 

Here's one that look at the odds of scoring certain amount of runs, based on data from 99-2002:

 

LINK

 

Chance of Scoring 0 Runs:

 

1B, 0 Outs: 56.3%

2B, 1 Out: 59.4%

 

Considering sacrifice bunts are successful only around 80% of the time, it's a REALLY a bad idea to bunt under most situations.

[huntsvillefan]

Do you think you could email this article to Don Money & frank Kremblas?????

[RightFieldCoder]

But it's not just the chance of scoring runs with one out and a guy on second and no out and a guy on first. The batter has to do something. He either gets on base, or makes an out. So the real stats to be analized are:

 

Chances of Scoring Runs

 

Runner on second, one out

Runners on first and second, no out

Runner on first, one out

No runners on and two out

 

If the manager feels the fourth option is the most likely going to happen if the runner swings away (pitcher hitting or gb batter facing gb pitcher, etc), then he bunts not to reach the first option so much, but to avoid the last option. I don't know the numbers, but I am sure the last option is way lower then the other options. When calling for the bunt, you reduce the chance of the last option happening. To say that you always sac bunt or you never sac bunt is a bad idea. You need to look at the situation and decide whether giving up one out on purpose is worth avoiding giving up two outs.

 

Only in bottom of 8th inning or later should you be using the bunt to try to score a run. Other bunts should be used to avoid the double play.