THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

The strange thing here is that the bunt actually went against conventional wisdom, too. Doesn’t conventional wisdom say that the visiting team shouldn’t bunt to set up a tie game?

I wonder if Crisp bunted on his own there. It’s hard to know who to criticize without knowing who decided to do that bunt attempt.

Yes, conventional wisdom says not to bunt for a tie on the road.  The correct thing is that you should be more likely to bunt at home than on the road, but it is not yes or no in either case.

The OAK announcers mentioned that he might be bunting on his own but that is not plausible since he squared on the first two pitches which were balls.  The third base coach would have signaled or told him not to bunt after the first or second pitch if the manager didn’t want him to…

For what it’s worth, Bob Melvin said in the post-game that there was a miscommunication between him and the third base coach, Mike Gallego, and that Melvin didn’t actually want the bunt.

Again, that is kind of weird, considering that he squared 3 times.  After the first pitch, or at least the 2nd, you would think that the manager would call time and say something to someone…

Ya, that is confusing. Maybe Melvin was ok with attempts one and two, but when the count got to 2-0 he wanted to take the bunt off.

Could be…

LaRussa did it tonight in the Cards/Brewers game.  The count was 2-0 on Theriot and he sac bunted with Molina on first.  Surely a manager knows that a hitter with a 2-0 count is so much more likely to reach base (when not sac bunting) that the sacrifice is a terrible play.  At a 2-0 count, the batter is a .426 wOBA and a 1.008 OPS batter - basically just short of Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols.  Would LaRussa (and all the other idiot managers) have Bonds/Pujols bunting in that situation, even if they could bunt well?

And I presume the defense was playing somewhat more in than usual for Theriot, pushing the reason to swing away even more apparent?

MGL is right that at 2-0, the average batter is going to hit like Pujols.  Someone like Theriot is still going to be well-above average.  In 400 career PA at 2-0, his wOBA is around .410.

I have 628 hitters in my sample (1993-2008 I think), who had at least 200 PA at 2-0.  Only 3 of them were below the overall league average in wOBA.

I have 553 batters at 0-2 with at least 350 PA.  Only 1 of them was above average in wOBA (Pujols, .345).  Everyone else was at .322 and lower.

The count has a such a huge impact on performance.  So, when you look at bunts, steals, and other in-game strategies, it’s critical to consider the count.

Yes, the defense was still playing for the bunt, especially since he had already squared on the first two pitches - which elevates the expected wOBA even more.

I would love to hear a manager’s explanation when they bunt on hitter’s counts.  As I said, they KNOW that a hitter is a much, much better hitter ay 2-0, and they rarely bunt with a good hitter at the plate for obvious reasons.  So…

Now, it MIGHT be correct to bunt 25% of the time or so, to keep the IF from playing all the way back, but I doubt it…

Something else to consider: Isn’t a hitter even more likely to be Pujols-esque in this situation because, at 2-0 and with the pitcher “knowing” he’s going to bunt, is there a better time to expect a cookie right down the middle? Sure, pitchers can’t always control the ball (as proven by the fact that the count got to 2-0 when the batter was trying to make an out in the first place), but still, you’d think at 2-0 the hitter would look for that fastball down the middle. It has to come way more often there than in a regular 2-0 count.

JD, yes absolutely.  Of course, if batters didn’t bunt at 2-0, there would be no reason to throw a cookie…

Theriot isn’t very good in his career on 2-0 (surprisingly).

He is, however a monster on 2-1.

I’m sure TLR has this in his notebook, and was instructing Theriot to bunt the ball foul.

I’m surprised I’m the only genius that deciphered this.

---------------------------

Theriot has been, over his career, worse on 2-0 than he has in 2-1 and 3-1 counts. To me, this signifies that throughout his hacktastic career, he pretty much decides that on 2-0 he is going to swing no matter what ... likely topping the crap out of pitches he should not swing at. I’m certain that did NOT factor into the decision, but I just found it interesting in looking at his career numbers by count.

I’m more upset that Theriot is occupying Brendan Ryan’s roster spot.

It seems. by this and other examples, that once a manager decides to sac bunt, he will tend to stick to that decision no matter how the count develops.  Not 100% of course, but most of the time, right? But they must know that at 2-0 the batter might be technically better off with a normal approach. Is there a side benefit to doing what they do, such as letting the batters know that they will not be spared, that they are expected to get a bunt down when it is initially signaled in a PA, and are expected to practice bunting enough, or suffer the ‘embarrassment’ when they fail. Are there short or medium term side benefits (tangible or intangible) that should accrue with this managerial approach, that don’t show up in the run expectancy by count analysis?

Dave/14:

Is it possible that the probability of a pitch being a strike is not equivalent to the desirability of bunting on that pitch?  That is, by telling the batter he will not get the benefit of taking pitches he is more likely to offer at a pitch that would be a good bunting pitch, but might be called a ball?

I have no idea if this is true, but I’m curious if the optimal bunting zone differs from the optimal hitting zone.  I’m not even sure how to measure that.  Maybe look at percentage of bunts in play and not caught in the air as a function of location?

Also, this makes me wonder if there are count based decisions that run the other way.  The foul bunt third strike obviously makes this less likely, but through 0-2, the wOBA is 0.212 for the average hitter.  OBP is .207.  Maybe moving the runner and avoiding the DP starts to look good enough at that point.  Maybe 0-2 pitches tend to be in easier to bunt locations.  Just wondering out loud.

Larry, batters tend to bunt at pitches out of the strike zone for various reasons.  One reason is that if you swing at a pitch out of the zone, you are more likely to miss or hit the ball weakly.  Not necessarily true for bunting.  An outside pitch is very easy to bunt.  Also, the batter figures that his job is to get the bunt down and not to walk.  He is also afraid to get to a 2-strike count.  So he is much less likely to take a borderline pitch.

Another reason why I hate the 2-0, 2-1, and 3-1 (and sometimes 3-0) bunts.

#14, you can conjecture all you want about the possible “long-term” and psychological benefits, yada, yada, yada, but in my opinion, it is just example #1,812 of managers evincing their ignorance and stupidity.

By the way, there are plenty of managers and plenty of examples of times when managers do switch to hitting away at 2-1, 1-0, and 2-1 counts. In fact, I am pretty sure that LaRussa has done that himself. It is not like it is a big secret that hitting away is much more valuable (as compared to the bunt) in hitter’s counts…