dealing with.
Sac Bunt, 1st to 2nd
The bunt reduces the success of the average inning by 0.2 runs, which
means that if you bunt 10 times in this situation, your team would score
2 fewer runs than if you didn’t. This might even mean two fewer games
tied up or won.^9
Sac Bunt, 2nd to 3rd
The bunt reduces the success of the average inning by 0.15 runs, which
means that if you bunt 10 times in this situation, your team would score
1.5 fewer runs than if you didn’t. This seems counterintuitive, since a sac
fly or middle-infield grounder can score a player from third with one out.
But, nonetheless, this bunt hurts the inning in total runs scored. This
reduction is smaller than in the previous, but still relevant.^9
Sac Bunt, 1st & 2nd to 2nd & 3rd
This one does not have a relatively big decrease compared to others but it
is still a loss of runs on average. The reduction in run expectancy (RE) is
only 0.06 runs, and so it basically wastes an out without improving the
odds of scoring. ^9
In all three cases, bunt are just not helpful at all when trying to score
more runs. It prevents from having a big inning(scoring 4 or more runs
in an inning) by purposely wasting an out. However, what about when
trying to score a single run, instead of trying to score ‘many’ runs? In the
concept of run ‘probability’ rather than amount of run ‘expectancy’,
most sabermetricians agree in need of sacrifice buntings, although this
limits to 8th or 9th, or extra innings, when it is important to make a run