advanced the baserunner. Some claim that we have to consider failed
bunt attempts to advance a batter. Plus, few of them regard chances
where a batter could have hit a base hit if he did not bunt.
So to summarize, only time when bunt is helpful are when:
- A single run is a goal at the very end of the game
- A batter isn’t great at hitting (usually pitchers in the national
league) so it is very unlikely to advance a runner with normal batting.
In 2015, July 2nd, a tight game was held between Texas Rangers and
Baltimore Orioles. Top 9th, Rangers leading 1-0, Shinsoo Choo walks
and Elvis Andrus is up next. Andrus outs a sacrifice bunt, sending Choo
to second. Next batter Martin Leonys hit a sharp base hit through the
center, and no more hits were made. The game ended 2-0. As a result, the
bunt was successful; without it Rangers couldn't have added more
points.10 Was this bunt statistically reasonable?
It was a 2015 season, so it is reliable to use the data from above.
It was the last inning of the game and the scores were tight. It was a
situation where it is important to focus on adding a single run. However
our data from the past 5 seasons indicates that the sacrifice bunt at
runner at 1st is inefficient. It decreases from 0.416 to 0.397. Then was
this the best option in terms of run probability?
Let's imagine what if Elvis had given a bat opportunity, not a bunt.
Think of two cases separately: when Elvis gets on-base, and when Elvis
gets out. Elvis had reached first base 97 times out of 328 bat
opportunities, recording 0.296 on-base percentage (Bat opportunities are