Partially Solving a 2012 Bunt Mystery
It’s no secret that there are some differences between the numbers posted on FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference. Even though, in theory, they’re measuring the same things, not everything is black and white, so differences are unavoidable so long as the two sites draw data from different sources. The most well-known case is probably how FanGraphs’ WAR has been different from Baseball-Reference’s WAR. But there are other, less visible cases where the numbers don’t quite match up.
One such case was brought to my attention Monday morning by colleague Carson Cistulli, whose last name I apparently still haven’t added to my Firefox browser dictionary. The idea wasn’t to suggest something had to be written; the idea was to suggest, if something were to be written, it would be written by me. Below, please find the rest of this post.
The case to be examined:
Baseball-reference says Andy Dirks had 8 bunts last year.FanGraphs says he had 7 bunts.
— Jeff Roberts (@EyeOnTigers) March 11, 2013
We have, according to one source, eight bunt attempts by Andy Dirks in 2012. We have, according to another source, seven bunt attempts by Andy Dirks in 2012. Eight is not the same number as seven (math reference), so this does indeed seem like a thing worthy of an investigation. You are not obligated to follow along so if this does not interest you in the least, please leave. It isn’t about to get any better.
Our first step is to confirm the numbers tweeted. Here, we do indeed see Baseball-Reference crediting Dirks with eight bunt attempts. Here, we do indeed see FanGraphs crediting Dirks with seven bunt attempts. So far, so good.
It’s curious, then, to see a difference, because bunt attempts shouldn’t be ambiguous. When a hitter attempts a bunt, everybody tends to know it was a bunt, and there isn’t question as to what just took place. A bunt looks very different from a swing. Were I capable of raising one eyebrow, one eyebrow would be raised.
Our next step is to cross-check our bunts. We can do this using FanGraphs’ game logs and Baseball-Reference’s Play Index. Baseball-Reference includes all seven Dirks bunts that show up on FanGraphs. Now we know we’re looking for just one missing bunt. These seven bunts in common took place on:
- April 14
- May 27
- August 22
- August 26
- September 11
- September 19
- September 20
We’re left with just one bunt that shows up on Baseball-Reference that doesn’t show up on FanGraphs. This bunt took place on May 15, when FanGraphs credited Dirks with three grounders and two flies, including one infield fly. This is our game to examine. Here’s the Baseball-Reference box score, and if you scroll down to the sixth inning, you find:
A. Dirks W. Ohman Foul Bunt Popfly: C (Behind Home)
Baseball-Reference thinks Dirks popped up a bunt. FanGraphs thinks Dirks just popped up. Gameday thinks Dirks popped up a bunt. Our final, hopefully conclusive step is to go to the video. For the Tigers, this was a wacky inning, with eight runs, three dingers, and two hit batters. Dirks led off the inning with a single. He batted again after the third dinger and went after the first pitch from Will Ohman. Would we see Dirks bunt, as Baseball-Reference claims, or would we see Dirks pop out, as FanGraphs claims?
welp
Our answer is “yes”. Yes, Andy Dirks bunted or didn’t. Andy Dirks did many of the things associated with a bunt, and he also did many of the things associated with a swing. Here, we see Dirks looking like he’s trying for a bunt:
Here, we see Dirks with a follow-through, which is an unusual bunting characteristic:
Andy Dirks attempted a butcher boy, or a slash bunt, or whatever you want to call it. “Slash bunt” has bunt right in the name, but “butcher boy” doesn’t, and the fact of the matter is that this is a matter most ambiguous indeed. It was a half-bunt and a half-swing, and two different sources took two different sides. Neither of them is absolutely right, and so neither of them is absolutely wrong.
However, of note: some weeks ago, I wrote about 2012’s bunt doubles. Juan Pierre was given credit, on FanGraphs, for a bunt double on a butcher boy much like Dirks’ above. So given two butcher boy examples, FanGraphs thinks one was a bunt and one was not a bunt. It isn’t fair to say that, based on the Pierre example, Dirks must be given a bunt, because you could just as easily say based on the Dirks example, Pierre must not be given a bunt. It shouldn’t come as a shock that FanGraphs disagrees with itself, because we’re mired in the gray area. If you can’t classify something for sure, then, without a set policy, sometimes it will be classified as X, and sometimes it will be classified as Y.
We’ve identified, for Andy Dirks in 2012, the questionable bunt. It turns out to be a questionable bunt, which is why this mystery remains only partially solved. Me, I’d personally lean toward considering these to be bunt attempts, but I understand the opposite argument. This is not an open-and-shut case, and even if a scorer policy were to be enacted, it would forever be a policy with which some people disagreed. And about which the overwhelming majority of people wouldn’t give a hoot.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Never, ever stop writing about the minutia of baseball.
Is there any compelling reason to ever separate out “bunts” from every other type of batted ball?
sometimes
Oh
This weekend, there was a lot of commentary about the bunts in the World Baseball Classics games. I could see a scenario where someone wanted to isolate bunts from other batted balls to argue about their efficacy in different situations (varying baserunner positions, leverage, etc).
significantly different BABIP on bunts than other types of contact, runners can advance multiple bases unlike BBs but, ISO is almost always 0… Can strike out on contact?… that one totally doesn’t matter.
Since baseball separates put bunts by making the rules different for them, the stats should separate them out as well. There are a bunch of calculations that work differently depending on whether you treat a foul with 2 strikes as an out, or not.
What are Fangraphs and B-R’s respective data sources?
Also, I was totally expecting this to be about the Indians’ absolutely absurd bunting for hit success rate.
At the bottom of every FG page it tells where they get the stats from. BIS provides MLB data, while STATS provides minor league data, which was given to them by MLB Advanced Media.
Not sure who provides the data from BRef without looking and I am lazy right now.
Should be – If the batters non-leading hand is up the barrel its a bunt. Regardless if he “swings through” or not… Position of the hands would make this a non-issue.
I thought that at first, based on the hand position as you state, but on further reflection I have changed my opinion. The follow-through is the giveaway. When bunting, you basically try to “catch” the ball with the bat – moving the hands a little backwards in order to soften the impact and deaden the ball. The only reason you’d have a follow through as shown in the video would be the classic butcher boy, which to me is a swing, not a bunt.
Just my opinion.
It would seem that separating the hands indicates a bunt while the follow through indicates a push bunt. The intent of bunting is not always to soften the impact. In some cases the intent is to get the ball just far enough past the pitcher so that it’s in the dead zone between the pitcher and middle infielders.
Good point, and one I wasn’t considering. Although I still think the follow-through exhibited in this instance is much more than a push bunt would be.
Correct me if I am right… err, wrong. But, isn’t the official scorer (an ‘agent’ of mlb) the “official” word on that? And, even if its ambiguous would not the decision sit with MLB offices in some capacity? (not fangraphs or baseball-reference)
The official scorer doesn’t classify things like this. To the official scorer, Dirks popped up to the catcher and that’s the end of it. If this were a situation where Dirks advanced a runner and was thrown out at first, then there are different scorings (sacrifice vs. fielder’s choice) but with the result of that particular play, the official scorer doesn’t have to make a ruling.
The official scorer simply records the result of the play, in this case, 2F.
tyvm for the info.
You really don’t know how to raise an eyebrow? Is it one of those things, like curling your tongue?
Yes, it is a heritable skill. I can raise my left eyebrow independently, but not my right, a trait I inherited from my mother. I know people who can raise each eyebrow independently of the other, and some who can only ever raise their eyebrows together.
I think it can be learned. No one in my family can do it but I taught myself as a child after becoming obsessed with Spock on “Star Trek”
A non-relevant bunting factoid I learned today.
Albert Pujols had one sacrifice bunt in June 2001.
Albert Pujols has not laid down a sacrifice bunt since.
Not too surprising. I’m trying to think of a scenario in which I would want Albert Pujols to lay down a sac bunt instead of swinging away. Not coming up with one. Apparently Tony LaRussa did.
I’m a bit surprised there was one, even in 2001.
This appears to be true. This would make it a fact, not a factoid.
There already is a situation where baseball rules require bunt attempts to be distinguished. As in, with two strikes a foul bunt is an out, whereas a foul ball is not. Are there rules for umpires determining foul bunts vs foul balls? Are there strikeouts on foul “butcher boys”?
All I can find is:
Rule 2.00 A BUNT is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with the bat and tapped slowly within the infield.
That would seem to preclude anything featuring a swing from being classified as a bunt. By Rule 2.00, a Butcher Boy is not a bunt.
Clearly the result of the play was not a bunt – it was a foul fly. So the question is, did he attempt to bunt. Did he:
1) Not swing
2) Intentionally meet the ball with the bat
3) Try to tap it slowly into the infield
My answers are:
1) No, he tried to swing at it. He just started his swing from a bunt position rather than a traditional position, so it is not a bunt attempt.
2) Yes
3) No, he didn’t try to tap it, he swung at it weakly, so it isn’t a bunt attempt.
The rule says a bunt is specifically not a swing. So what is a swing? Being a “swing” and a “bunt” are exclusive, apparently, so we can kind of narrow down what a bunt is by process of elimination.
“Tapped slowly” is an ambiguous term. No one would argue that a drag bunt hit with the intention of getting it past the pitcher was not a bunt. Also, this clearly means intent. A ball does not have to be fair (which is required to be “within the infield”) in order to be a bunt.
According to the rule, yes, if the ball isn’t fair, then there is a bunt attempt and a foul ball, but no bunt. If a bunt attempt results in a foul ball on the 3rd strike, it is an out.
If I’m reading my stats right, B-R claims there were 3108 bunts in 2012, while FG claims 2974. You’ve got your work cut out for you, Jeff!
One down. Thirty three to go.
Or, you know, one hundred thirty-three. But who’s counting?
Counting is what got us into this mess in the first place
Probably even more than that, you’re assuming there isn’t a single play that FG rules as a bunt that BR rules as a swing.
Math fail 🙂
I killed the Butcher’s Boy!
Noooooo!
The evidence presented suggests that the list of people who do not know whether Andy Dirks was bunting on that play or not includes Andy Dirks.
Well said.
Probably also the list of people who don’t give a hoot.
After obsessively re-watching the video, I’m inclined to think that it was intended to be a drag bunt/bunt for hit attempt.
You had me at “It isn’t about to get any better.”
He doesn’t push at the ball or try to deaden it, so clearly we cannot call it a bunt. But he doesn’t pull his hands together and try to drive the ball, so clearly we cannot say he’s swinging away. It’s so simple! It’s neither one. We can call it a swinging bunt, a butcher boy, or a slash, and give it its own thinly populated column, like steals of home.
The princess bride combined with baseball. Two of my favourite things!
It’s a bunt
It’s not a bunt.
Does anyone have access to Dirks to ask him? I think that would at least resolve this round of “who killed the butcher boy”
For me this article captures the never ending charm of baseball. It made me think of Tony Fernandez while he was with the Blue Jays – he tried slash bunts several times a year, but I can’t remember watching a successful attempt wherein he reached base. I am not knowledgeable about data sources but wonder if there is anywhere that might give an indication of how often slash bunts are successful. I’m guessing not likely.
There’s an easier way to solve this mystery. If you know Jim Leyland, it’s gotta be eight bunts. Actually, are you sure? Eight seems low.
I was trying to explain to my son this weekend why Ben Zobrist’s bunt was a bonehead play, while Micheal Saunders bunt a little later was brilliant. He got it pretty quickly: trying to make an out is stupid, trying to get on base in a high percentage manner is smart.
I’m sure Joe Torre didn’t get it. The announcers didn’t get it either.
You might want to explain that to Rob Neyer, who thinks that bunt single-handedly disqualifies Saunders from MVP honors.
That was a terribly misleading description. The goal of a sac bunt is to advance a runner, not to make an out. You can argue that the goal is not worth the probable cost (an out), but you shouldn’t give an erroneous description of the theory behind the strategy to suit your purpose.
Almost always in a sacrifice situation the infield is playing in ready for a bunt. The hitter squares early, and telegraphs his intention. The batter knows there is a 90%+ chance he is going to make an out, he’s just hoping its at first. When the hitter, and his bonehead manager, knows that there is a 90% chance he is going to make an out even if he executes it perfectly, and does it anyway then they are trying to make an out.
Than’s distinguished from intentional bunting. Saunders has a .400 babip on bunt hit attempts, so he has a better chance getting on base bunting than he does swinging away. And in that situate down 2 runs with a runner on first and one out, he got Canada what they needed, another base runner while advancing the runner on first into scoring position.
all bunts visually accounted for, captain.