THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I don’t know what “bunt all the time” means.  If he means that literally, the infield will play all the way up and the bunt will be probably NOT be a good play regardless of the G/F ratio of the pitcher or his overall effectiveness.

And with one out, the bunt is NEVER a good play unless the batter hits like a poor hitting pitcher, again, even with a lot of ground balls.

I don’t know what Ziegler’s G/F ratio is but clearly there has to be a limit as to a pitcher’s true G/F ratio, and clearly Ziegler has gotten lucky on a lot of levels.

How much you bunt has to do with how good the pitcher is overall and what his true G/F ratio and BIP percentage is (at least with the runners forced), and the batter’s speed and bunting ability, but one of the critical limiting factors is how much the defense anticipates the bunt.

It is almost never going to be correct to bunt a position player with the defense playing all the way up, so that kind of always removes the “bunt all the time” strategy no matter what the situation and personnel.

I realize that Rany is being a little facetious, but all in all, a dumb article other than pointing out how lucky Ziegler has gotten so far this year, both with his DP rate and his goose eggs runs allowed.

Actually, had Rany left the question open, like I did, it would have been a very good article.  And, in reading it, I took the article in that spirit, that he was simply asking the question, rather than giving an answer.

THT will run an article on Ziegler this weekend.

To answer your question, MGL, Ziegler has a ~70% groundball rate.  That is way high, probably unsustainable, but something in the 60-65% wouldn’t be out of the question for a submariner, I think.

What’s interesting is that Ziegler has gotten lucky on BIP (duh - nobody is a true talent 0.00 ERA), but of his groundballs, about 81% have been converted to outs.  That’s in line with Oakland’s infield RZR.  So while he may be getting an unsustainably high number of grounders (don’t know), and while he may be getting luck on liners and fly balls (don’t know), he’s not really getting lucky on groundballs in play.

You should bunt enough to make sure the infield is always playing up, then when you swing away you can get some hits past the infield.

If the true chance of a DP grounder is really 50% with runner on first, does it make sense to bunt with 1 out, runners on 1st & 2nd?

I’d have to check the charts.

Ziegler has faced 39 batters with first base occupied.  He has gotten 10 ground ball double plays and 1 line drive double play. 

The other 29 plate appearances have resulted in 3 strikeouts, 3 walks (one of them intentional), 1 hit batsman, 2 sacrifice bunts, 2 sacrifice flies, 1 pickoff, 3 singles (one ground ball and two line drives), 2 bunt outs, 2 fly outs, 3 ground ball force outs, 5 ground ball outs to end the inning, and 1 ground ball with the runner advancing to second base.

IIRC, given that you have a GB, then the chance of a DP is 33%.

I know that the chance of a DP is around 11 or 12% per PA.  If you only include BIP, that becomes around 15%.  If you only include GB, then it’s around 33%.  On average.  Easy to see the range for pitchers will be around 25 to 40%, given they have given up a GB.  I’d be surprised if it’s any wider than that.

Here is a different question:

Suppose you have a runner on first with zero outs against an extreme groundball pitcher. You bunt, “successfully” (i.e., the sacrifice works, The Book analysis notwithstanding), and the runner moves to second.

Situation is now -2- with 1 out. This decreases the RE from .953 to .725 (values from The Book).

In the linked article, it is mentioned that the opposing manager now WALKS (IBBs) the next batter to set up a situation of 12- with 1 out (.971), to put the double play back in order.

THE QUESTION: That walk appears to cost ~.250 runs. At what GB% or likelihood of inducing a GiDP does that walk actually become the smart move?

Followup: If it is almost never a smart move, if you know the opposing manager will almost always (say, 90%) walk a batter to put a man on first to put the double play in order after a successful sacrifice, does it become the smart move to “always” bunt in that situation? (even with the infield playing in and the out at first a sure thing?)

Upon re-reading, I see that Rany specified zero or one out, which makes sense.

With zero or one out and first base occupied, Ziegler has faced 28 batters.  He has gotten the following:
10 GIDP
1 line drive DP
2 strikeouts
3 walks (one intentional)
1 HBP
2 sacrifice bunts
2 sacrifice flies
3 singles
1 bunt out (foul pop - probably an attempted SH)
1 fly out
1 force out ground ball
1 ground ball with runner advancing to 2nd base

I’m still trying to figure out where Rany’s numbers came from.  He’s not counting sacrifice bunt attempts, I guess, which also seems fair enough., which drops us down to 25 plate appearances, but I’m really having trouble figuring out how he gets only 22 plate appearances.

Oh, wait, I see.  He doesn’t have 22 plate appearances; he has 22 *situations*, which means he’s not counting the two walks or the HBP as separate situations, even though they are plate appearances.

Also, my posts above should not include the intentional walk, as it occurred after the sacrifice moved the runner to second.

Dan/7: I’m pretty sure Andy looked at this in The Book.  Let me go see…

p.290

If you use the “optimal strategy” of issuing intentional walks only with a man on third, possibly on second, and first base open with one out in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, you will win one extra game every 49,000 or so games you manage.

Anyway, that doesn’t look good in terms of trying to find the scenario that would allow putting a runner on 1B to setup the DP as a good thing.  Basically, you are adding .25 runs intentionally, in the hopes that you can erase that runner you just put on.

So, you originally had let’s say a 66% chance of getting him out, but you force that down to 0%, on the hopes of getting him out, plus the batter.  Well, it seems to me that the breakeven point would be to get a DP 66% of the time at least (if you had 1 out when you issued the IBB).

I don’t see how this makes any sense at all in the normal situation.

As Andy noted, when you are playing for only 1 run (i.e. 9th inning), it might make sense.

If it is almost never a smart move, if you know the opposing manager will almost always (say, 90%) walk a batter to put a man on first to put the double play in order after a successful sacrifice, does it become the smart move to “always” bunt in that situation? (even with the infield playing in and the out at first a sure thing?)

That is a nice point!  IOW, the value of the bunt attempt goes up if you know that a certain percentage of time the opposing manager is going to incorrectly issue an IBB to the next batter if the bunt is “successful.”

So yes, you would bunt more often if you know that the opposing manager is IBB happy.  Again, it is NEVER correct to bunt all the time, because then the defense might as well be playing on top of the batter.  I should say that it would only be correct to always bunt no matter where the defense was playing if the bunt were way the proper play, which is rare - it is usually marginal, no matter who the batter, pitcher, game situation, etc.

Ha!

Tonight’s game, bottom of the Ninth, Ziegler on in Relief:
J.D. Drew on first.
Lowrie up. Bunt. “Success”. 1 out, Drew to 2nd.
IBB issued to Sean Casey.

A net gain in runs!

Someone obviously reads this blog. =)

"of his groundballs, about 81% have been converted to outs.  That’s in line with Oakland’s infield RZR.”

Sal, does the four infield zones cover the entire infield?  I was under the impression that each position’s zone is a composite of all sub-zones where balls are turned into outs at least 50% of the time.  I assumed that meant that some parts of the infield weren’t covered by any fielder’s zone and thus composite zone rating isn’t a stand-in for infield DER.

Sky - you know what, you might be right.  Let me check in with studes.

No, the zones don’t cover the entire infield.  Sky’s definition is right on.

That being cleared up, I’m guessing there’s a strong correlation between RZR and infield DER, since balls not hit into any fielder’s zone are almost always hits.  It would probably simply be something like infieldRZR - constant = infieldDER