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Scott Servais believes that there is a time and a place for a bunt, but most of the time that place is in the bottom of a long-forgotten dresser drawer. In saying so, Scott climbs over the last crag of the mountain and finds Earl Weaver sitting there. "A game doesn't last three hours or until sunset or 90 minutes; it last 27 outs."
So who knows how many runs the M's might gain, simply by deciding to swing away rather than bunt. A good capful, we're sure. But then whence cometh today's "situational-hitting game"? Man on 2B, 0 out ... the "right" thing to do is to hit behind the runner so that he can advance. (Pulled home runs were actually -8 points.)
Well, Pete Carroll would be proud. Turning a drill into a competition? What's next, a billiards tournament after practice? We're really excited about the upcoming season ....
....
But Dr. D has a dumb question. How does the math change, just because you were out with a full swing vs. out with a bunt swing? The run expectancy matrix gives the same result:
So what difference does it make, if you bunted him over, or you rolled over a 4-3 groundout to get him there?
....
Or:
This table means that if Leonys Martin leads off with a triple, and then Kyle Seager lifts a sac fly to the warning track, this is a win for the DEFENSE. In the long run, you're just better off swinging away, taking the occasional "failed" inning but collecting your 2's, 3's, and other crooked numbers too.
And, don't forget that if you attempt to hit a sac fly, you can also get zero runs. Maybe the first pitch is fouled up over the 1B dugout and you wind up in a 1-2 hole. Infield comes in ...
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Or:
Waitaminnit. You can't hit the other way to advance runners on 1B and 2B; that's called a "ground ball double play." But did you realize that even if you did it, you would LOSE? There are precious few situations where burning an out moves you forward, even if TWO bases are gained in the process. Check out the matrix.
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You could argue, well, I'm going to hit the ball hard to the right side, maybe get a hit, and the worst-case is that I move a runner over. You not only could argue it, but they do argue it, and play little Situational Hitting Games because they believe that. But! Isn't a bunt-for-a-base-hit also doing that? And! Isn't it hard enough to hit Dallas Keuchel's outside-corner changeup when you're not asked to roll it over to the second baseman?
Finally, the point of the M's game was that the MOTO could learn to do this, just like Leonys Martin and Steve Clevenger can. So even when the swing-away payoff is huge, with Nelson Cruz at the plate, we want to be able to trade outs for bases.
There are a lot of things in baseball that --- > I've had a hard time understanding, and --- > for a long time. Earl Weaver didn't have a hard time understanding that the hit-and-run was a busted concept; he just trashed it one day and never signalled for it again. He just let Eddie Murray go up there and take his chances. The O's did okay with that.
In fact, Earl thought that the optimal approach was simply to --- > send every batter up and let them swing away, although it helped that he had GOOD hitters. Japanese baseball, at least in the 1990's and 2000's, was the opposite of this. They were always bunting and moving runners over, and their runs scored were a good 5% - 10% below what their bases would have predicted. Dr. D's verdict is clear. The less tinkering you do when a rally's on, the better off you are.
I'm sure Servais has something in mind, with this situational hitting emphasis, but *I don't know what it is.* It would be kewl to know what it was. Maybe it was just a get-loose drill and that's all.
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Robinson Cano's team walked off with the 85-73 win based on its roster stacked with the Aoki's, Clevengers, Linds, Martes, and Seagers of camp. Nelson Cruz' losing side had Mike Baxter, Dae-Ho Lee, Leonys Martin, Seth Smith and scrubs. Here are the lineups.
Enjoy,
Jeff
We seen too many seasons where the M's batters are trying to hit a five run homer and end up failing to advance or score a baserunner, or stubbornly hit into a shift. Maybe the org is trying to get something more positive than a K, or bunt for a base hit against the shift.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Playing-Percentages-Baseball/dp/1494260174
And everyone else who wants to comment on sac bunts should as well. Everyone, whether they are saber-types or not, essentially believes the same thing and what they believe is wrong. Everyone thinks that for a given situation you either ALWAYS bunt or NEVER bunt, with the debate being about which situations fall into either bucket. The Book shows that this isn't true at all. Rather, bunting is governed by game theory. So the decision to bunt or not should be influenced by how the opposing fielders are positioned, and their positioning is going to be influenced by how likely they think you will bunt. Therefore, you need to be unpredictable so that the fielders can't be in optimal position for either a bunt or swing. That means rather than in a given situation thinking you are to bunt 100% of the time or 0%, you really should do it 70% or 2% or whatever. You should also sometimes mix things up in the middle of an at bat by switching from bunting to swinging away and vice versa.
As for trying to stress situational hitting, I agree that it would mostly result in overthinking and messing up hitters' approaches.
The best result comes from maximizing a hitter's skills. Wade Boggs made a nice living bouncing line drives the other way off of the Green Monster. Would it have been better to demand he instead pull grounders to the right side? Would you want Dick Allen (anyone else remember him?) to do anything than try to hit the ball hard...anywhere?
The best way to maximize your run production is to have people put the ball in play with men on base. JD seems to have set out to do exactly that, so hat's off.
As for this drill? I hope it's just for fun...and not serious.
Doc,
Often the question isn't HOW many runs you will score given a bases/outs situation (especially a runner on first with nobody out) but how FREQUENTLY you score just one run.
Bottom the of 8th, score tied at 4, it's the FIRST run that counts. It is dramatically more important than the 2nd run.
That said, I would still be willing to bet you score as frequently (an equal or higher percentage of the time) by not bunting as you do by bunting. The out being more important than the base (which, of course, is no guarantee with the bunt effort).
What say the numbers? What percentage of the time does a team score with 1 out and a runner on second vs no out and a runner on first. Of course, to be really accurate, you would have to factor in the % of times that the bunt attempt fails to advance the runner AND the number of times that the bunt attempt results in two runners on. But I'll just take the first and easy comparison, if the numbers exist somewhere.
Ditto with the runner on 2nd and no outs vs the runner on 3rd and one out.
Because those game-determining situations are when the real pressure is on the skipper. Deciding whether to bunt the runner over with zero outs and with your 9th hitter in the lineup up, with the game just in the 2nd inning, is a pick 'em type of play, in terms of runs you would expect to have at the end of the game. But a skipper is unlikley to have to explain that decision....and somebody will likely ask about his decision not to bunt in the bottom of the 8th.
Tango's run expectancy matricies also give yer the data on % chance of scoring one run.
Man on 1B, 0 out has a 44% chance of scoring at least one run, cf. 2B with 1 out at 42%.
Interesting, though, that man on 2B, 0 out has a 64% of changing the scoreboard whereas man on 3B, 1 out clocks in at 67%.
......
In a real game, a lot depends on whether it's Nelson Cruz coming up to bat or Steve Clevenger...
RIght moe. In my thinking BOTH viewpoints are correct in general, but the small-ball needs to be employed in certain situations where you believe the scoring of a single run is or will be decisive in the game.
If you're tied in the 8th inning and you have a lock-down closer, by all means play small ball. If you are the 1960's Dodgers with Koufax on the mound in his prime, you play small ball. If you manage to squeeze out single runs in one, two or three innings you've pretty much got a win.
It depends on your team, your opponent, and sometimes even small nuances of the situation. You might as a manager have an intuitive feelilng based on observation that your team is just not gonna be able to square anything up against a certain pitcher in late-game situations. Or, you might have Earl Weaver's lineup, in which case you're crazy to play small ball.
We all know the run-scoring environment in baseball has declined, which means there are probably more situations than previously where small-ball is called for.
I agree with you, Doc, that a team the plays to scratch out single runs most of the time is likely making a BIG mistake.
It's all in the context, which is the manager's responsibility to understand. If I were a manager and didn't have the Blue Jays' lineup, I'd make sure I at least had small-ball capability to employ when the circumstances dictated it.
. . . had years where he bunted every other night. Of course, that was after Frank Robinson retired and his .800 OPS was replaced by Rich Coggins' .600.
... AND SO you have to be sure that one run will win you the game!"
Earl knew that some runs were more equal than others :- )
Even if you are only trying to score one run, what matters isn't just the odds of scoring exactly one run. What matters is the odds of scoring any runs. While giving up an out might increase the chance of getting exactly 1-run, typically the chances of not scoring at all increases as well. That would make sacrificing a bad bet. Purely going by run expectancy charts, a straight sacrifice almost never makes sense for a non-pitcher at the plate.
This is where the exact situation comes into play. The score, the inning, exactly who is on the mound, who is up, who is on base, who is on deck and in the hole, who is in the bullpen, the ballpark, the wind, the footing in the outfield and infield, how the guys coming up behind the batter have been doing lately, small tendencies the manager might know we have no idea about. The guy on deck has the flu, or the batter fought with his wife that day, or his teammates. There are a thousand things that go into a managerial judgment in a given situation, some of them conscious, and some subconscious. (I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.)
The object of the game is to score more runs than the other team. Excess runs make no difference at all in a given game. A manager needs to understand the general matrix, but he might feel that matrix doesn't apply in the exact situation he faces.
Tom Tippet, a disciiple of Bill James who came into the Red Sox organization, did a study a number of years back and he came to the conclusion that, though the traditional view of bunting was overall counterproductive, there are certain situations where it is absolutely the right thing to do--- statistically. And this is not taking into account any of the variables I just mentioned.
Look, I agree with the general point. Don't build an offense around small ball. In most situations the bunt is counterproductive. I think we might be talking past each other.
While I completely agree with Doc about the Situational Game that Servais and crew played, I certainly hope this game was NOT the entire theory for Control the Zone.
I am definitely hoping that CPB, and basically everyone else in this thread is correct that there is a whole lot more thought that needs to go into an at bat than just hitting behind the runner. I really thought Dipoto was going to ask these athletes to think and plan BEFORE the at bat. I imagined that these players would provided information on themselves (strengths and weaknesses), the opposing pitchers (tendancies in specific counts, types of batters similar to themselves, game situations and etc...), ranges of the opposing defensive players, and ETC...
By thinking and planning, I mean that each player would have the general knowledge that Cole Hamels throws more curves in X situations when he is ahead or even in a count, and he throws the curve typically trying to steal a strike by nibbling... and since you know that, the batter should either look for that and not swing at balls OR swing with the intention of going with the pitch to the opposite field... OR crowd the plate and try to pull that ball into the gap... dependant on what type hitter you are.
When I played, and when I coached 11 -15 year olds, I expected players in the field to KNOW what they were going to do with a ball fielded by them or other to the right of them, to left of them, in the air or on the ground, hit hard or soft. I expected them to scout the opposing team during the game to figure out who were the speedsters and who were the slugs, who were the smart players and who could we run a deception play against best to get a pick off. I expected them to know which counts when a pitcher was more likely to throw a curve or change up... and how that varied by player or team or inning.
Surprisingly enough, yes some 12 years failed at this... but if I coached them for 3+ years, they got good at it. That is what I called coaching.
Maybe times have changed more than I thought.
On thing I'll note in this discussion - shifts are changing the values of AB results in many situations. The value of a bunt or pepper swing may be higher for a Kyle Seager with a man on first than for Nelson Cruz because of the chance he can "hit it where they ain't" due to the shift. I think the emphasis on LH hitters especially being able to put a pepper swing on a pitch is NOT misplaced. Likewise, Buhner's constant harping on the spread-stance two-strike approach deserves respect - Improving Control of the Zone, I'd say. And not watching Ms hitters flail at low and away sliders for strike 3 would improve my enjoyment of games. I'm all for this new approach.
*Anything* that gets MLB players thinking in terms of --- > adjustments vs. the shift? 's okay by me.
"The Book" may give standard odds for situational hitting, but history just says that the Mariners sucked at it in 2015. Who or what is to blame? Coaches, team chemistry, or just bad play or players? The M's were worst in the AL at scoring runners from 3B with less than two outs, and second worst in actually being in that situation. We were third worst in advancing runners from 2B with no outs. It is consistent with being the third worst team in scoring and batting average, second in K's, and fourth most sac bunt attempts (and tied for second in "successful" sac bunt %). So we couldn't score runners by hitting, but could have improved odds of scoring by sac bunting (squeeze).
I always have said we needed better players, or current players playing better. JeDi must have thought the former was correct. Maybe now we'll get baserunners ahead of Cruz to minimize his solo HRs, more bunts for base hits from Martin, and more hits the other way against the shift.