The Value of the Sacrifice Bunt

Fire Joe Morgan: if you like baseball, start reading this site regularly. Their mission, it appears, is to humiliate those in the baseball media and front office that reject the current value of information in baseball stats. The writing and analysis is the most refreshing thing to read about baseball on these internets. The comment on Jim Armstrong was fantastic, simply take a look at this exchange:

Have you seen some of the quote, unquote stats out there?

My man: when you are talking you say “quote-unquote” to indicate sarcasm. When you are writing you can just put things in quotes. As in: Jim Armstrong is a “journalist.” He is also “funny” and “smart” and I “want to hang out with him” because he seems to have a lot of “good” “points.”

I’m still laughing at this several days later. Anyways, there was another post directed at Jim Lang about how Moneyball is an Al Qaeda like presence in baseball. His specific complaint is that the Jays didn’t sacrifice bunt with runners on first and second with no outs. Why the outrage at such a statement? Well, anyone whose looked at an expected run matrix can tell you that statistically, the benefit of moving the runners up is less than the cost, in expected runs, by sacrificing the out. This is especially true in the American League with the D.H. But it is especially disappointing coming from Jim with the 2, 3, and 4 hitters coming up. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers.

The expected runs for a team with runners on first and second with no outs is 1.51. The expected runs for a team with runners on second and third with one out is 1.44. It obviously isn’t worth the risk in this case. Additionally, we’re assuming that the bunt is perfectly executed, which is a poor assumption in this case. We’re talking about the American League where sacrifice bunts are scarce and players are generally not accustomed to bunting. To make things simple let’s assume that either the bunt is successful leaving runners at second and third with one out, or the bunt is not successful and the runners remain at first and second with one out. And let’s say the probability of a successful bunt is 0.8. The expected runs for such a strategy is then,

0.8*1.44 + 0.2*0.91 = 1.33

Clearly the risk of the sacrifice bunt isn’t worth the reward. In fact, the strategy on average is costing you about a tenth of a run. This is precisely why the sacrifice bunt is not employed as often as it once was.

Now, was it intuition or stats that proved the sacrifice bunt was a poor strategy? I imagine it was a little of both. But what bothers me the the most about these arguments is the stratified sides. Most times, baseball purists and the stats strategies are coordinated. And the two sides are often working for the same purpose. But there are still sports writers, managers, and GM’s that refuse to listen to the new methods. Consider that managers have significantly reduced the number of sacrifice bunts. If a manager wants to say that’s because of his intuition that’s fine. But the numbers support that conjecture and it can be used to evaluate good and bad strategy. Ignoring the value in the numbers can be costly.

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There can be only one!

The battle ground is Minute Maid/Enron/Train Depot field. Brandon Backe, upset at a Pujols slide into a backup catcher, has thrown down the gauntlet. The competition between the two is now, in his words, “escalated.” Excellent. It reminds me of the critically acclaimed film, Bring it on, in which cheerleaders “bring it” at each other repeatedly? Although, I can’t substantiate that claim. At any rate, the next meeting between the two will have drama, fireworks, possibly pinatas? Who knows what the future brings. But my question is this: How can Backe extend his dominance over Pujols? Backe, after all, is only human. How much additional “competition” is necessary to destroy el hombre instead of the gentle dominance he has exhibited? Let us examine the line between the two.
PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Brandon Backe 13 10 3 0 0 3 4 3 1 .300 .462 1.200 1.662

Indeed the competition between the two is fierce. In 13 plate appearances Pujols has walked three times with a paltry 3 home runs. His 1.662 OPS is simply anemic. Backe is truly a counter force, a nemesis to Pujols. I am saddened by this of course. Pujols is, at the most, my imaginary friend. I hate to see what will happen to his line when Backe steps up the competish.