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Thursday, October 05, 2006
Speaking of having no clue as to the efficacy or wisdom of the sacrifice attempt…
This was written by Joe Sheehan in today’s BP. Joe is a smart guy and a sabermetric writer. When these guys write fluff pieces, do they turn into blithering idiots, with all due respect to Joe, who is also a nice guy? O.K., I am being a little harsh, but these things really piss me off and I am getting too old to pull any punches.
Now, I can’t tell whether Sheehan is writing this or he is quoting a “dumb e-mail” he received, but here is what was in the article:
So, the Yankees started the game with a single off of Verlander. The Tigers had been beaten by the big inning Tuesday night, and the worst thing that could happen to them Wednesday was if their best starter fell behind early, especially given the concern over the state of his arm after the heaviest workload of his life. At the plate was a guy that no one had gotten out on Tuesday night. Things were already looking a bit scary.
That guy who hadn’t made an out all series? The one who hit .343 this season, having the second-best year of his life? He decided—decided—to make an out, squaring to sacrifice and popping up to Ivan Rodriguez. He didn’t work the count, he didn’t go to the opposite field, he didn’t pull a ball into a hole. He tried to bunt. They hadn’t gotten him out yet, and he tried to bunt. The Yankees got two more runners on base in the inning and didn’t score, and if you want to blame the last hitter in the inning for that, you can, but at least he tried.
This has gotten out of control, and needs to stop. I know that any time a good player bunts we’re supposed to genuflect, but Derek Jeter does this far too often. Him laying down a sacrifice—and we can debate whether he was bunting for a hit or not, but it did not look quite like that, and he’s sacrificed in similar situations—is a gift for the opposition, an absolute gift. Any time a .340 hitter offers you an out, you take it and thank him profusely. Jeter does this all the time. I don’t think he’s doing it to burnish his reputation, I think he’s doing it because someone told him a long time ago that it was winning baseball, and no one’s told him otherwise since.
This isn’t Little League. This isn’t college. This isn’t 1905. Great hitters put runs on the board by swinging the bat, not by passing the baton to the next guy in the lineup. I know that Derek Jeter is the Teflon Shortstop, but he’s wrong in his persistence in sacrificing bunting, and he was egregiously wrong today. A sharp single to left might have helped the Yankees put the game away early.
This what I wrote to Joe (this is actually an edited version of the e-mail I sent to Joe):
1) Jeter is NOT a .343 hitter, for obvious reasons. He is certainly not a .343 hitter versus a RHP, and he is MOST certainly not a .343 hitter versus Verlander. Now that that is out of the way…
2) The fact that he was 5-5 in the last game has nothing whatsoever to do with this AB. In case you forgot what I mean, please re-read the chapter in The Book about the predictive value of being on a “streak.”
3) When the defense is playing back, a sac bunt attempt by a good bunter and good runner is probably better (RE and WE higher) than swinging away, pretty much no matter how good a hitter you are, and again, Jeter is simply not that good of a hitter versus Verlander.
4) When the defense is playing way up in anticipation of a bunt, the bunt attempt is probably worse than hitting away, even for a very weak hitter.
I don’t know where the defense was playing at that point in time. My guess is somewhere in between.
If the defense is playing in between, number one, Jeter HAS to bunt at least some of the time, otherwise the defense will eventually NOT play in between (they will play back). That is one of the essences of game theory with regard to the sacrifice bunt, which I discuss at length in The Book.
With Jeter being a good bunter and a great baserunner, my guess is that with the defense playing in between, that the bunt attempt is at least as good as hitting away. In a perfect world, where the defense knows the perfect strategy, they will play somewhere in between such that it doesn’t matter whether Jeter bunts or not (bunting and hitting away will yield the exact same WE). I doubt that the Tigers are that smart, but according to my research, it does appear that in general teams play in anticipation of the bunt such that bunting or not bunting, on the average, yields around the same WE, for most batters, or for all batters in general (I am also certain that there are classes of batters, individual batters, and situations where the defense plays improperly). I am equally certain that batters, as instructed by their managers, do not bunt or bunt incorrectly in many situations, given where the defense is playing. Again, see the sac bunt chapter in The Book. But I digress.
Finally, if you have excellent speed and are an excellent bunter (or somewhere in that neighborhood), my guess (I have not done any research, analysis, or heavy thinking on this) is that trying to bunt for a hit (with a little more emphasis on keeping the bunt fair) is better than the “traditional sacrifice.”
All in all, I think that your criticism of the play is unfounded and has no basis in fact or evidence. With all due repsect, you sound like a disgruntled fan (or know-it-all commentator) rather than the critical analyst that you are or are supposed to be.
I think that the bunt attempt by Jeter was probably an excellent play and the expected WE was MUCH higher than hitting away, but as always, I could be wrong…