Numbers for those who like numbers

[Will James]

Since I am bored as shit at work, I wanted to see the bunt numbers combined for last year up to this current point of this season for all games. Just to gain a larger sample size. Dealing of course with the man on 1st, 0 out variety: My Nemesis.

We bunt! 75 times
We score! 31times
Total runs? 59 runs

That's scoring in 41% of innings and .79 runs/inning.

No bunt! 261 times
We score! 123 times
Total runs? 270 runs

That's scoring in 47% of innings and 1.03 runs/inning.

[Bo Darville]

While I agree with you that we shouldn't usually bunt in those situations, you can't always use straight statistics to tell the story. Too many variables are left out.

An example:
We get a runner on 1st in the 1st inning and we bunt him over. We don't score in the inning. People yell that we just gave away an out and should not have bunted. In the 2nd inning, we have the same situation and let the batter swing away. He promptly laces a double down the 3rd base line. Statistics will show that the bunt gave us nothing, while swinging away produced a double. People will holler "bunting is stupid and the statistics prove it".

Here is what the statistic doesn't show. In the 2nd inning, with the runner on 1st base, the 3rd baseman was afraid of the bunt and was playing in (we had already showed we like to bunt). Therefore the double down the line got by him and gave us runners at 2nd and 3rd. However, if the 3rd baseman wasn't worried about the threat of the bunt, he would have played back and the grounder would have resulted in a 5-4-3 double play. Therefore, the threat of the bunt made the defender play in and allowed the ball to go by him. It is kinda like playaction passes aren't very affective on 3rd and 20 by a team who never runs it anyway. Play action passes work better when teams actually bite on the run fake because they actually think you might run it.

I'm not necessarily defending the bunt, because I've always felt Cohen does it too much. I'm just saying that putting pressure on a defense has its place in the game, and straight stats don't always tell the entire story.

[biscuit]

Bunting has its place in the game, but if you can't bunt well, why even try.

[Bo Darville]

Sometimes you use a failed play to open up successful plays. You might have a QB throw deep on a corner, and it results in an incompletion. Then he goes 4 for 4 on short routes against the same corner. Statistics would say we should have just thrown short routes all 5 times and shouldn't have thrown deep at all. However, if we hadn't have scared the corner with the deep route and made him respect it, he would have sat on the short routes and picked one of them off.

[Will James]

Bunting has its place in the game, but if you can't bunt well, why even try.

Yes.

Bunting with man on 1, 0 outs has a severely limited place however. And never early in a game.

[Will James]

For those calling for Henderson to bunt one man over "cause he hits into double plays".

Over the last 3 MLB seasons guess who leads the league in grounding into double plays.
.
.
.
Albert Pujols. With Miguel Cabrera only one behind.

[engie]

For those calling for Henderson to bunt one man over "cause he hits into double plays".

Over the last 3 MLB seasons guess who leads the league in grounding into double plays.
.
.
.
Albert Pujols. With Miguel Cabrera only one behind.

While I agree with the premise of never sacrifice bunting(ANYONE) with a man on first and no outs, that was a bad analogy.

Pujols and Cabrera are on a complete opposite end of the spectrum from a risk/reward standpoint than Henderson is. What's the BEST you can hope for from Henderson?

Pujols scores that runner from first 4 times(hits a double or homerun) for every time he grounds into a double play.
Cabrera scores that runner from first 3.5 times for every time he grounds into a double play.
This season, Henderson grounds into a double play 6 times for every time he scores the runner from first.