Canada4Gold
Registered User
- Dec 22, 2010
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- 9,426
In theory there are 2 spots in a game where sacrifice bunting makes sense. Last night was actually one of them. Both occurring in a 1 run wins the game situation. Based on data from 2010 to 2015 runner on 2nd 0 out your odds of getting a run is 61.4%. If you bunt them to 3rd with 1 out your odds are now 66.0% an increased chance of scoring of 4.6%. Runner on 1st and 2nd 0 outs your odds of scoring 61.0% which is actually less than 2nd 0 out because of the double play odds increase. Bunting them to 2nd and 3rd gives you 67.6% chance which is a 6.6% increase. Even if they get the out at 2nd and it's 1st and 3rd 1 out you've got a 63.4% chance which is still a 2.4% increase. In any scenario where it's not 1 run wins the game situation you should be looking at run expectancy and not run probability and in that scenario the average number of runs you score decreases by sac bunting in every situation.
Now that the theory is done the real game situations are obviously different. There are specific spots where bad hitter/good bunter followed by good hitter who doesn't strike out it might make sense in some other situations too. Lets say Tapia followed by Kirk, it's defendable to bunt Tapia at times even in non walk off situations. In that same vein sometimes game situations turn good bunt situations in theory to bad bunt situations. Last night being my example. Everyone in that stadium knew a bunt was coming. The 1st baseman was closer than the pitcher, Espinal seemed incapable of aiming his bunt whatsoever. That's probably an out at 3rd 75% of the time. At that point you're giving them a free out for no gain more than you would by just swinging away, sometimes giving them 2 outs as they were a good throw away from a double play. Jansen is also in my opinion a below average hitter to be bunting to set up. He's not the worst because he doesn't strike out a ton but he pops up a bunch, doesn't hit many grounders which could sneak through in a infield in setup or get the run home anyway on the contact play and while he does hits bunch of fly balls a lot of his contact is weaker where you might not score on some of the shallower fly balls anyway.
Trying to slap a ball to the right side has a chance of resulting in a hit with the benefit of advancing the runner. Sac bunting is an automatic out with a significant chance of failing to even advance the runner in certain spots.
I'm all for trying to bunt for a base hit, and I do believe there are game situations where a sac bunt could make sense, but if the defense is going to play like that in those spots and your bunter is so incapable of aiming it like Espinal was last night then it's a terrible decision at that point even in a spot where it should make sense in theory. A hitter who is bad at bunting should never ever be bunting in my opinion. It's not going to work for a base hit if you're bad at it, and you're going to fail a significant portion of the time trying it as a sac bunt them it's a bad plan then as well. If a manager wants to use the bunt to his benefit then he needs to have the players practicing it and at least determining which ones are good enough at it to do it. The bad ones shouldn't ever try it.
