Sacrifice Bunting is Sacrificing My Brain Cells
Josh Higgs breaks down the numbers to show why the classic sac bunt is actually more harmful to the team up to bat.
One of the most contentious issues facing baseball decision makers and fans is the merits of bunting. After many lengthy sessions of verbal jousting, I have come to an irrefutable conclusion.
Bunting has virtually no place in modern day baseball.
If you happen to believe that bunting is still a smart play, you should wallow in shame for your antiquated thinking and go to the nearest sabermetrician and apologize for being a troglodyte.
The best manager in baseball today, Cubs’ Joe Maddon once opined that sacrifice bunting is “overrated.” I think he misspelled stupid. It turns out that Maddon was actually years ahead of the consensus thinking among analytics people.
Sacrifice bunting has no place in baseball, and it’s not just managers who think bunting is silly. Current MLB workhorse Cole Hamels once said the following.
“I just think it’s an easy out. I’ll take the easy out and work on the next guy, even if he’s at third base. They still have to get a hit to move 90 feet, so you’ve got a lot of options. Outs are hard to come by sometimes, so you might as well take that out while you can.”
According to ESPN Stats and Info, the sacrifice bunt results in an out just over 96% of the time in major league baseball. The argument is that it pushes a runner into scoring position, making it easier to score a run while only sacrificing one batter. From 2008–2013, there were 36,000 bunting opportunities, of which only 49.7% of those were hit fair.
If you were lucky enough to hit it fair, you were still out 96% of the time.
I can hear the collective groan of sac bunt supporters as they read this, calling it blasphemy, that in a tight game, in the bottom of the 9th with one man on first with no outs, that their team should bunt.
With a man on first and no outs, you’ve got a 71.5% win expectancy. Move him to second while sacrificing an out and that expectancy drops to 70.3%. Yes, it’s a small difference, but it becomes even more profound earlier in the game. Of course, there are other mitigating or aggravating factors to consider when deciding to bunt, such as who the person bunting is, what the opposing defence looks like, and who is on the mound. However, statistics show that even in the most beneficial of situations, sac bunting will decrease your chances to pick up a victory.
According to Baseball Prospectus, over the course of an entire game you have a 24.4 percent better chance of scoring a runner from first with no outs than you have of scoring a runner from second with one out. In addition, in situations with two base runners, teams stand a 10.4% better chance at scoring one run with runners on first and second with no outs than they do with runners on second and third with one out. With a man on first base and no outs, an MLB team’s probability of scoring at least one run in the inning in 2015 was 0.499, essentially 50%. Pushing that runner up to second in exchange for an out reduced those odds to 0.447, or just under 45 percent.
Not only does the bunt reduce the number of runs the team could expect to score in that inning (from 0.84 to 0.65) but it reduces the team’s odds of scoring any runs at all.
Now that the statistical analysis of sac bunting has been unearthed and examined, lets look at the other factors.
Plain and simple, the players are better than they were “back in the day.”
Pitchers are throwing harder, with more movement, more variety of pitches, and with better accuracy. Double plays have increased. Not just from Albert Pujols, but for the entire league.
Data is also available on all batters to show the hot and cold zones, so a pitcher can make trying to bunt a futile effort. Hitters are better, too. They have books on pitchers just as the pitchers have all the information on hitters’ tendencies. But with strikeouts rates increasing due to better pitching, a widened strike zone, and catcher framing, there has also been a steady increase in home runs. Batters are now focusing on exit velocity and swing angle, which both will aid in turning outfield flies and warning track balls into souvenirs for the fans. Batters realize that having an exit velocity off a pitch in excess of 90mph, coupled with a swing angle of approximately 25° will generate more power.
If you need proof, just ask Josh Donaldson.
Quite simply, the hitters have more power, the pitchers are more refined, and bunting surrenders a free out when you could be at the plate swinging away for multiple runs.
There are specific situations when bunting should occur in the major leagues.
Certain players like Emilio Bonifacio, Billy Hamilton, Dee Gordon, and other high end speed profile guys can use it as a weapon to get on, as they are generally not strong enough to drive pitching into the outfield. Thus, dropping a bunt down from time to time and utilizing their speed to get on base can prove favourable.
Secondly, bunting when the shift is on.
As shown above with Robinson Cano, a perennial MVP candidate and monster power hitter, the defense shifts to the right side of the field as he’s generally a pull-happy hitter. If there’s a gaping hole on one side of the diamond as the opposing team adjusts their defensive alignment in order to cover your spray of balls to spots you usually hit, a well-timed bunt can catch the opponents sleeping and enable you to sneak on base with a soft single.
Thirdly, even if there is no shift, it is smart to lay down a bunt on players who are notoriously bad defenders. Once upon a time, guys like Edwin Encarnacion and Miguel Cabrera manned the hot corner, prompting hilarious defensive plays from both mammoth individuals. It would generally be safe to bunt on them, as they were likely too slow to get to the ball in time, or would throw it nowhere near the first baseman’s vicinity.
Also, for reasons only known to God, Cubs pitcher Jon Lester cannot throw to first base, so bunting on him should be a safe play as well.
Bunting is a useful skill when used properly, but sacrifice bunting to put a runner in scoring position is the dumbest play in baseball, and statistics prove it.
Thankfully, the shift in front office thinking due to the hiring of statisticians and sabermetricians have mostly dissuaded traditional managers from hurting their teams with sac bunts that hand the opponent an in-game advantage.
Josh is a baseball contributor for TheOcho.ca. By day he teaches in schools or works at gas stations. By night he’s watching hours of sports and brainstorming his next article.
