THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

This is a terrible analysis of strategy.  First, win expectancy should of been used instead of run expectancy.  Second, the league batting and slugging average are completely irrelevant because Cervelli is worse than a league average batter and, more importantly, the batters that swing on a 3-0 count are a selected sample that are better than league average.  Third, the author doesn’t take into account any of the specifics of the situation: the quality of the batter, or the pitcher, or the lineup to follow.

An argument could be made that Girardi having Cervelli bunt did not increase NY’s chances of winning the game.  But it would be a very close call, and would depend on a complex analysis of all the win expectancies involved and how much mediocre batters improve, if at all, on 3-0 counts.

Peter, how do you know that it would be a “very close call” without doing any of the analysis that you suggest?

...how much mediocre batters improve, if at all, on 3-0 counts

Given that the average hitter gets ball 4 some 35% of the time (and thereby gets a walk), it would be just about impossible for any hitter not to improve on a 3-0 count (sample size notwithstanding).

I don’t have my DB at home, but I’m sure someone can do this: what is the wOBA of pitchers-as-batters, given a 3-0 count, to end of PA?  (Don’t do the “at count”; you need the through count.)

I don’t think the author intended to do any serious analysis, so you can’t really fault him much.

My guess is that it is NEVER correct to sac bunt on a 3-0 count.

And, if you read the sac bunt chapter in The Book, you will remember that despite the fact that in most potential sac bunt situations, you usually have to sac sometimes and hit away sometimes, if the batter (position player) is not fast or he is not a good bunter, it is almost never correct to attempt a sac.  A sac attempt generally only increases your WE (above that of hitting away) when there are enough singles and ROE’s.

Cervelli is not slow for a catcher and I don’t know whether he is a good bunter or not, but without being very fast (which he is not), bunting at 3-0 is almost definitely not the correct move.

It might even be more correct to take the pitch.  One of the down sides to attempting a sac bunt, which is rarely discussed, is that batters tend to offer at obviously bad pitches that they would not offer at if they were hitting away.

Anyway, without doing any analysis myself, and of course I have done as much work on the sac bunt as anyone, I would say that there is a 99% chance that it was incorrect and that it is not even close…