In baseball there are many different plays that occur in any given game. There’s one play that is discussed more than any other, the sacrifice bunt. There are those that love it, those that hate it, those that are indifferent. Those that say the numbers show it’s bad; those that say numbers don’t play baseball. Where do I stand in this conversation? I hate it, and I’ll explain why.
Earl Weaver long time manager for the Orioles, in his book “Weaver on Strategy” discusses his 10 laws for managing throughout the book. Weaver’s Fourth Law is, “Your most precious possession on offense are your twenty-seven outs.” Dan Agonistes in his blog explains this rule the following: “Weaver was ahead of his time in understanding the importance of not giving away outs. He says it makes no sense to bunt early in the game since you're giving away an out in a situation where a single run is not crucial. The opportunity cost of giving away outs early always exceeds the benefit.”(Emphasis added) Agonistes goes on to discuss Weaver’s fifth law, if you play one run, that’s all you get: “A corollary to the fourth law.” In addition, by only getting one run, you’re taking away wiggle room for your pitcher. Agonistes discusses Weaver’s sixth law; don’t play for one run unless you know that run will win a ballgame: “The reason for the fifth law.” Translation: Unless that one run will lead to a walk-off win don’t play for one run.
Monday night in the Mets Padres game, it was the top of the ninth in a 4-4 tie game. Angel Pagan led off the ninth with a single. Justin Turner is sent to bunt. First pitch, nearly takes off his fingers on a bunt attempt that goes foul, high strike. Second pitch, middle in, above the knees, bunted foul. Third pitch sinker, called strike three on the inside corner.
Turner was sent up to bunt and was put in an 0-2 hole because of it, where he had to protect the plate and was fooled by a sinker for strike three. He had a very hittable second pitch, which could have very well not only moved the runner but put another runner on base as well. This is another reason why the sacrifice bunt is a bad idea. It often hurts more than it helps. As you can see above, the only pitch that Turner was able to do anything with was bunted foul, a pitch that he very well could have gotten a hit on. In addition, if the batter is unsuccessful getting a bunt down, he is put in a two strike hole, where he must protect the plate, and if gets an unexpected pitch strikes out without moving the runner.
In a 2004 ESPN.com article, ESPN’s Buster Olney discussed Productive Out Percentage (POP). POP is productive outs divided by the total number of outs. For example, if three of a players ten outs are productive his POP is .300. “A productive out occurs when…. A baserunner advances with the first out of an inning. A pitcher sacrifices with one out. A baserunner is driven home with the second out of an inning.” Olney discusses how these productive outs lead to wins. Larry Mahnken of the Hardball Times responds to Olney in his own article called “The Truth About Productive Outs”. “POP has a .463 correlation to winning percentage, OBP in those situations has a .750 correlation, while the rate of productive outs has a mere .283 correlation…..POP doesn't work for one-run games, either. Teams that win one-run games have a .348 POP compared to the .303 of their opponents, a .045 difference. But again, the OBP difference dwarfs it: .373 to .277. And perhaps most shocking of all, the rate of productive outs per opportunity for teams that win one-run games is .218, the rate for teams that lose is .219. That's right — the team that makes a higher rate of productive outs is slightly more likely to lose.”
In a post to Athletics Nation from the beginning of 2010, “baseballgirl” discusses why she hates the Sacrifice Bunt. “I hate giving away outs. I don't care what the official playbook says the batter should do; there are only 27 outs in a baseball game, and I hate when one is handed to the other team on a silver platter.“ I couldn’t agree more, most of the people who are in the major leagues aren’t in the major leagues because of their glove alone, and they should be swinging the bat, not giving up an out. The biggest proof to this is that a manager will never ask a middle of the order batter to sacrifice bunt, because the risk is greater than the reward. I would argue the same would apply to most hitters as well, this is the major leagues! Even if a batter is hitting .250 that still means there’s a one out of four chance he would get a hit, why make him give up that chance, and give the other team an out?
In a 2005 article for the Washington Post, Dave Sheinin quotes an article from James Click of Baseball Prospectus about which hitters should and should not but: “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. "For most pitchers, it's probably a wash as to whether [a bunt] is a good idea," Click said in a telephone interview. "And with good-hitting pitchers, it's not a good idea. Any [hitter] who is good enough to have a major league job shouldn't be bunting in that situation." The Nationals, he said, "are playing in a park [RFK Stadium] that's a pretty extreme pitchers' park. So I can understand, in a way, why they play that way with that lineup. You'd be hard-pressed to get big innings going in that park. But at the same time, if offense is so hard to come by, it's foolish to give away outs "Basically, my philosophy is, if it's the ninth inning and we have the winning run on base, I have no problem sacrificing," Blue Jays General Manager [Currently Mets Special Assistant to the GM] J.P. Ricciardi, a onetime protege of Athletics GM (and "Moneyball" protagonist) Billy Beane. "But I'll tell you this: It hasn't worked too well.”
