Sacrifice Bunts: This post ends the argument

[MSDawg34]

I have complained about our use of the sacrifice bunt this season and in baseball in general. It is my opinion that they should only be used in situations where one run is needed to win the game, meaning just the 8th and 9th inning.

Sac bunt opportunities are A. Man on 1st B. Man on 2nd C. Men on 1st and 2nd
Im not sure if MSU has a successful squeeze or if it is classified as a SAC bunt.

According to this data there is at least a 48% chance of scoring a run in an inning with a sac bunt opportunity. The most common sac bunt is men on 1st and 2nd with 0 outs. This situation has shown to produce runs 72% of the time. Men with runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out produce at least one run 75% of the time. Assuming bunts move these runners over, you would have to be successful in almost every bunt attempt to achieve the 2nd and 3rd situation.

EDITED TO ADD: Since we, or most teams for that matter cannot achieve a 96% (72/75) successful bunt rate, there's no reason to try unless its a late game situation and you only need ONE run.

Lets look at MSU's stats regarding the Sac bunt this season. We have 31 sac bunts, all in separate innings. I did the research and of the 31 innings in which we did a sac bunt, only TWELVE of those innings did we score a run. That is only 39% of innings we sac bunted did we score. The data shows that at MINIMUM in sac bunt situations you should score 48% of the time. This undeniably shows that our sac bunting has cost us runs and that we should be swinging away to reach the optimal statistical numbers.

 

[Todd4State]

I don't know that you can look at raw data and base it solely on that.

I think bunting is something that is more dependent on the hitter is at the plate and the game situation. I don't like bunting early in a game myself unless it's the pitcher and it's a bunting situation.

My personal rule is if a guy has a better chance of hitting a home run than getting a bunt down, you don't bunt. If a guy has a better chance of getting a bunt down than getting a home run, you bunt. It's pretty simple.

 

[MSDawg34]

Cause I wouldn't want Adam Frazier bunting at ANY time before the 8th and he's not going yard. Either way Cohen has taken it too far, Im not going to go back and tally which innings we have bunted but I know of one situation where it may have cost us the Vandy sweep.

Vanderbilt game we lost: 3rd inning, man on 1st 0 outs. We lay a sac bunt down with Hunter 17ing Renfroe. It leads to 0 runs, we eventually lose by 1.
LSU game that we won: 1st inning, men on 1st and 2nd 0 outs. We dont bunt. Trey Porter hits a single, followed by a Renfroe double and two more doubles. It leads to 5 runs, we eventually win by 6.

I disagree with you on the data as well. Our bunting has come in 10% below just the MINIMUM for bunt situations, and that does not take into account the ~8-10 sac attempts that we have screwed up.

 

[MSDawg34]

You mentioned the pitcher hitting, which wouldn't apply to us because we have the DH. Even so, that thought may hold more water in the big leagues, but batting averages are higher in college. The constant is 3 outs, meaning there should be more emphasis on bunting in the pros than college especially with near guaranteed outs in the NL.

Just a note the 2011 Red Sox led the MLB in runs and were dead last in sac bunts

 

[drunkernhelldawg]

Even if the bunt is successful, you've got to back it up with a hit to get the run. How much of this statistic is due to the subsequent hitters failing to make contact? Definitely a frustrating season of missed opportunities. Some great pitching going on. Hopefully, we can start to win some of these close games.

I think you bunt in the early innings if the opposition's ace is on the mound. Manufacture the run when you get the chance. If the pitching is average, early inning bunting is a murkier call. Any call looks like **** without execution.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Bunting in some situations is just dumb. Todd, I can't help but chuckle at your personal rule. On a team with 15 total home runs that rule seems a bit out of place. Rea and Porter are the only ones who have a legitimate chance to go deep, and they have five and four respectively. And Rea has three sacrifice bunts this year, so he's not that much more likely to hit a home run than he is bunt given he has three and probably hasn't been asked to do it a ton.

My uneducated guess at this situation is that Cohen knows his punch and judy lineup (10th in average, 10th in slugging) is not likely to string together two singles to score a runner from first, or produce any type of extra base hit that will score someone from first, so he gives up the out to advance the runner (at a much lower success rate than we should have, I might add). Then he just needs one hit instead of two to get the run in. Apparently as 34's data shows, this isn't working very well either. I'd really like to see us dial back the bunting to situations when we have a slim lead in a pitcher's duel, when we have a comfortable lead in an average game and we are trying to stretch it out to a five or six run lead, and when we need a run to tie after the 6th or 7th and we don't take the bat out of the hands of any of our best bats. Most other situations I'd rather swing away. I have never coached so much as little league, and I don't even own a gaming system.

 

[jcdawgman18]

nm

 

[RobbieRandolph]

****, I'd almost bunt Rea EVERY time in SEC play. Dude can't hit ****.

 

[saltslugs]

The data are misleading however. The first-and-second with no outs stats includes situations where the game is very high-scoring with poor (often times wild) pitching. However, the second-and-third with one out usually occurs after a sac bunt--which is far more likely to occur in a game with good pitching as the coach is trying to squeak out one or two runs, rather than playing for a big inning. So, I think the latter scenario is far more likely to occur in a low-scoring game with good pitching, decreasing the scoring percentage.

 

[MSDawg34]

1st and 2nd 0 outs = 72% chance of scoring at least 1 run
2nd and 3rd 1 out = 75% chance of scoring at least 1 run

The difference is that the latter scenario results in .24 runs less than the first scenario.

Getting to 2nd and 3rd with one out also assumes that 96% of the sac bunts work. A percentage we are nowhere near close to.

 

[MSDawg34]

nm

 

[Todd4State]

I don't like bunting early in a game. There's no need for it. I want the batter's first at bat or two to be one where he can see the pitcher and try to figure out how he is being pitched. I have a slightly different definition of "late"- mine is probably the sixth inning at the earliest. And that is stretching it. Again, it totally depends on the situation and the hitters, the score and how well the other pitcher is throwing.

If a batter sees the third baseman back early in the game (my definition) and decides to bunt- he better beat it out, and he better not be a power hitter.

 

[engie]

I dislike the early-inning sac bunts, and they go against every other aspect of the hard-nosed wide-open Cohen baseball philosophy. They are running us right out of possible big innings more times than not. Especially when you k almost 7 times a game as a team. Assuming 35 batters/game, there is a 20% chance the next guy strikes out. Unfortunately, it sure seems we k more often than that in the situation. I would still be against it if we were OM and only k'd 4.9 times a game. It ALWAYS kills the possibility of the big inning, unless it's botched by the defensive team. How many times this year have we gotten the first 2 guys on, bunted them over to 2nd and 3rd, only to follow that up with a K and have them at 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs? This is almost no better than just allowing the batter to swing away, and hitting in the double play, IMO. ONE big inning per game would be enough to win more time than not with our pitching staff...

I'm ok with drag/push bunts for base hits, but this should most often be the batter's call based on how the infield has him played and the mechanics of the pitcher(I LOVED the push bunt against lefties that fell off the right side of the mound with their follow through).

That said, it all comes down to execution. We would be OK with Cohen's philosophy here if we were consistently getting those runs home. Since we're not, it looks idiotic. Therein lies our problem. Lack of a team's execution of the gameplan makes you look like an idiot, and it doesn't matter if your name is Ray Tanner.

 

[MSDawg34]

With no other than Wes Rea