So About All Those Ned Yost Bunts
Last night, the Kansas City Royals laid down four sacrifice bunts, one fewer than they had in the entire month of September. It was a veritable bunt-a-palooza, with Ned Yost’s squad taking small ball to an entirely different level. Predictably, sabermetrically-inclined fans and analysts hated it, as the community has spent years preaching the value of not giving away outs. The live blog was inundated with angry Royals fans who wanted Yost fired, even as the team staged a miracle comeback, because he handed the A’s more than an innnings worth of free outs in his pursuit of runner advancement.
But let’s talk about all those bunts, and whether they were actually harmful to the Royals chances of winning. Let’s go through them, in chronological order.
3rd inning, Royals down 2-1, 0 outs, man on 1st, Alcides Escobar batting
Mike Moustakas had led off the inning with a single, so the Royals had the top of the order coming up, but Yost still used Escobar — the team’s worst hitter, worth noting — to move Moustakas to second base. The win expectancy of trading the out for the baserunner advancement was -2.1%, but that’s an average that doesn’t take the specific hitter and pitcher into account. Given Escobar is a lousy hitter and Lester a good pitcher, this was probably less harmful than that, and of course, you have to include the possbility that the A’s had not defended the play well and Escobar had reached safely, which would have been a strongly positive result for the Royals.
Factoring in the chance of a great Escobar bunt or the chances of an A’s misplay, this bunt was probably more of a slight negative than a big blunder. It’s not a bunt that I liked, or would support on a regular basis, but the marginal effect was probably less than 1%. Overall, I’d call it a bad bunt, but not a disater.
9th inning, Royals down 7-6, 0 outs, man on 1st, Alcides Escobar batting
Once again, a leadoff single has put the tying run at first base, and again, Yost asks Escobar to move the runner to second base. This one, though, I absolutely hated, because immediately after Josh Willingham singled, Jarrod Dyson was sent in to pinch run. Jarrod Dyson has an 86% success rate on stolen bases in his career while running on 31% of his stolen base opportunities. In other words, he’s an extremely aggressive base stealer, and he’s rarely thrown out even though teams know he’s very likely to run, especially when inserted as a pinch-runner.
Giving up Escobar’s out to move Dyson to second base felt like a complete waste, given Dyson’s speed and Norris’ problems preventing stolen bases. And the Win Expectancy of giving up the out for the first to second advancement was -4.9%, putting in almost even with Billy Butler’s baserunning blunder in the first inning. Giving up an out –lowering your Win Expectancy by 5% — to move a fast runner from first base to second base is almost the definition of bunting to lose.
Except here’s the thing: Dyson then promptly stole third, putting himself 90 feet away with only one out, meaning he could score without the Royals needing to get a base hit. That stolen base had a Win Expectancy gain of 13.3%, so the team’s WE moved from 31.5% after Willingham’s single to 39.9% after Dyson’s steal, even factoring in the out surrendered in the process. Getting Dyson to second wasn’t that valuable, but getting him to third was extremely valuable, and the bunt enabled him to steal third in the first place.
Had the order been reversed, and Dyson stolen second base before Escobar bunted, we probably wouldn’t see this as a bad bunt. Getting that runner to third with less than two outs is a big deal, especially when its the tying run in the 9th inning against a very good pitcher who is unlikely to allow a big rally. Maybe the ideal would have been to have Dyson steal second and third, but perhaps the Royals believed that their aggressiveness in the previous inning would have the A’s pitching out during Escobar’s at-bat, making Dyson’s chance of stealing second less likely. This is where game theory really comes into play, and makes the decision extremely difficult to analyze.
So, yeah, I hated the bunt to move Dyson to second base, but we can’t ignore that the bunt allowed Dyson to steal third, and the combined effects of the bunt and steal were very strongly positive for the Royals. We could debate whether or not it would have been better to have Dyson steal twice and give Escobar a chance to try and drive him in as well, but I don’t know that I can call that a bad bunt with the knowledge that Dyson would then immediately try and take third. Seen together, the bunt and steal helped the Royals tie the game.
10th inning, tied 7-7, 0 outs, man on 1st, Chrisian Colon batting
Another leadoff single, and another bunt to second base. However, because one run is all you need as the home team in a tied game in extra innings, the cost to surrendering the out and reducing your chance of a bigger rally is significantly diminished. This is exactly the situation where playing for one run makes the most sense, as there is no value in scoring additional runs beyond the first one.
Thus, the win expectancy for the out/advancement trade-off here is only -1.1%, half of what it was in the third inning, when multiple runs still had value. Dropping 1% in Win Expectancy with the out means that this is basically a neutral or even positive play once you factor in the chances of the A’s not successfully defending the bunt. At worst, this was probably a lateral move, or something close to it, and this bunt deserves no real criticism.
11th inning, tied 7-7, 0 outs, man on 1st, Jarrod Dyson batting
Another inning, another leadoff single, another bad hitter making the out/advancement trade-off. Only with Dyson, the bunt is probably an even better play than usual, as 40% of his career bunts have resulted in hits. Bad hitters with great speed have even more incentive to attempt bunts because of the higher likelihood of reaching safely if the defense doesn’t play it perfectly, and again, we’re looking at a -1.1% cost in Win Expectancy even when the A’s do convert the out at first base.
This was not only an entirely defensible bunt, but probably the right call.
So, all told, we have four sacrifice bunts by Yost last night, and they break down something like this:
Probably Negative: 1
Unknowable Gray Area: 1
Probably Positive: 2
Ned Yost bunted a lot last night, but it’s not at all clear that Ned Yost hurt the Royals chances of winning by frequently calling for sacrifice bunts with his worst hitters. The third inning bunt is criticism-worthy, I think, and the 9th inning bunt might have been too, depending on what you think of the odds of Dyson being able to steal second sucecssfully without it interfering with his ability to also steal third, but the extra inning bunts were just fine.
It’s fine to be against giving up outs. In general, good hitters shouldn’t bunt, and teams shouldn’t be playing for one run too often early in games. But in late game situations where one run is paramount, bunting can often be the correct play, and the don’t-bunt-ever reaction can be just as incorrect as the bunt-always fanaticism.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Good article, care to analyze the sac bunt the A’s had too?
Same scenario as the 10th & 11th Royals’s bunts, although as the away team, scoring more than 1 run does have some value. The runner was Josh Reddick (not a SB threat) and the batter was Jed Lowrie (an average hitter, 103 wRC+). It seems like the bunt is slightly worse than the two extra innings Royals bunts. Somewhere between grey area and probably positive.
About all those Ned Yost bunts: Ned was successful in 12 out of 14 bunt attempts in his career. Bet that’s better than any of these candy ass players could do now.
Dave, I can’t believe you are using the completely worthless WE or RE bases/outs numbers to analyze specific bunts. I realize that you are tempering those numbers with things like “other things could have happened other than an out and baserunner advance”, but just the fact that you have to say that proves the point that those RE and WE numbers are worthless, which they are.
There is simply no way of determining whether those bunts were “good” or “bad” without knowing where the defense was playing in addition to some complex analysis of the likely result of hitting away, given the exact batter/pitcher matchup and the likely result of a bunt “ATTEMPT” given the batters’s bunting ability, speed, the position of the defense, etc.
IOW, maybe these bunts were good and maybe they were bad, we have no idea, but likely it was close either way.
I’d written a long note about the folly of requiring perfection in analyzing a situation before being willing to take a position beyond “we have no idea”. But it’s wasted on MGL and unnecessary for most everyone else, so I’ll just stick with a downvote.
MGL still has the definitive analysis of bunting in The Book, so its hard to criticise him for.. refusing to analyze.
He did a shitload of analysis to show that its really hard to know. He sure as hell didn’t throw up his hands and say don’t bother.
Then I’ll write a longer note, which says MGL should just say “as usual I disagree with any attempt to analyze when a sac bunt makes sense as my extensive analysis (incorporated by reference) shows.”
I think he goes too far saying “RE and WE numbers are worthless”. If I understand his point (and I don’t disagree), the real expected value of a sac bunt depends on the cross-product of all the potential outcomes and their respective probability (FC, E, SAC, missed bunt attempt), and that the RE/WE numbers are only averages, not the true value in the situation (e.g. Royals WE with a one run lead in the seventh is probably higher than average because by that inning Ned will actually deploy his stud relievers).
All that is true. It doesn’t make RE/WE worthless. Saying that is like saying the stats describing Cueto’s offensive ability and whoever should have hit for him Sunday were worthless because they can’t capture all the nuance of the situation (infield in, Cueto busting with pride/effort, etc.). I don’t have to be perfectly able to describe each of their chances of getting that run in to be really confident the PH was the right choice.
What we need here is two technological advancements:
1. A customized WE%/RE% indicator showing during each ballgame, updated not only for the average RE24 based charts but also for the park, pitcher, batter, scheduled batters behind the batter, wind and temperature, umpire, etc.
This indicator would update instantaneously much like the odds display during televised poker.
2. We need Jeff Sullivan to provide detailed GIFS of every MLB pitch, including a shot of the indicator from part 1, so we can have a full understanding of the context of the situation.
MGL may be insufferable, but I don’t see how he’s wrong here. The WE numbers are worthless in determining whether the bunt attempt was right or not because they only describe what the result of the bunt was. So that’s like saying bringing in randy choate to face a lefty was a good idea because he struck him out. But we know that’s not true. It’s a good idea because we know choate is good against lefties. In this case, we need to judge the various factors MGL pointed out – position of defense, speed, etc.
But you didn’t just stick with a down vote.
Thanks to MGL, postmodernism has finally arrived to sabermetrics.
Pirates fan: “I can’t believe that the Pirates are starting Volquez tonight. hat fucker can barely throw a strike!”
MGL: “Who cares? Balls and strikes are social constructs anyways”
I never knew Volquez was so fond of hats that Pirate fans would give him that nickname.
“Ohmigosh. You can’t just sit there and analyze a bunt without recognizing your hitter’s privilege. Run Expectancy Matrices are just batriarchal tools of oppression designed by sluggers and wielded against People of Sacrifice.”
Oh for f**k’s sake.
Congratulations, MGL — you have ascended to a new and truly rarified plateau of insufferability. Didn’t know you had it in ya, buddy.
Dave had a late night, okay? Give the guy a break.
Great article. The 10th or 11th inning bunts (I can’t remember which) had two terrible hitters coming up after the bunt. Nix hitting with 2 outs had almost no chance of driving in the run. That is one thing that I think needs to be considered: who is coming up, and how likely are they to get a hit?
It was the 11th. After the bunt they had Escobar and Nix coming up. Pretty terrible in my opinion.
I thought the sequence with the Escobar bunt was bizarre too, but Yost was probably worried that Esky would get himself out before Dyson had a chance to steal, and no doubt the A’s knew this. Overall, given Derek Norris’ issues with fielding the ball last night, Ned had to like his chances.
I was surprised that the Royals didn’t try a squeeze with Salvador Perez up against Gregerson in the 8th inning.
Dave, sorry, I don’t get it. Your explanation of why the second bunt “was ok” is totally illogical.
Baseball is specifically a series of chained events. You don’t just magically get to grab the two events (Dyson getting bunted to 2B and stealing 3B) together and assess them as a unit. You have to assess each decision separately!
It was a really bad decision, made even WORSE (not better!!) by the fact that if you flipped it (steal 2B, bunt to 3B) it would be a good decision. The odds of Dyson being able to successfully steal 2B are higher than the odds of him being able to successfully steal 3B, and, as far as I know, there’s nothing specific about bunting a guy from 2B to 3B that’s harder than bunting a guy from 1B to 2B (maybe I’m wrong here). Therefore, you’re basically willingly giving up likelihood of getting the guy to 3B for absolutely no reason based on your sequencing of the bunt and steal.
“The odds of Dyson being able to successfully steal 2B are higher than the odds of him being able to successfully steal 3B” How do you know that though? You’re ignoring context. The thinking was likely that the A’s would be looking for Dyson to steal second and that they could make this more difficult by pitching out, etc. Having him get bunted to second but then steal 3rd has an element of surprise, the A’s being less likely to pitch out when Dyson was already on second.
Perhaps you’re right. But I think just about everyone on the planet knew Dyson was going to try to steal third after that bunt, too. Were you surprised, personally?
Not to defend Yost’s bunt practices, but there was some method to the madness of bunting Dyson to second base. Doolittle was on the mound at the time, and he’s a lefty. I don’t know how great his pickoff move is, but as a lefty, he should have an advantage over a righty in the same situation. However, once Dyson was at second, he’d be at Doolittle’s back (albeit running to third with a left-handed batter in the box, but they weren’t worried about Norris), thus making that steal easier than it would be against a righty pitcher.
If it was me, I’d have sent Dyson with no bunt, but there’s at least some justification fir the sequencing of bunt to second followed by steal of third.
Yeah, it’d be interesting to know if the difficulty of stealing 3rd is offset by the difficulty of stealing 2nd off a lefty.
Yeah. Why couldn’t Dyson have simply stolen second and third, without the bunt happening at all? The but was a waste of an out for something Dyson could easily have taken care of on his own, with probably only a 50% chance of making an out as opposed to a 90+% chance on the bunt.
Meant to say 5-10% chance of getting thrown out, not 50%.
Stealing two consecutive bases, on a lefty, when everyone expects it, would be more like a 30% chance of getting thrown out.
I think stealing third off a lefty is easier than stealing 2nd, anyways, but could be wrong.
and “making an out” isn’t equal here. the runner get thrown out is much more devastating than the batter getting out.
Actually I think the logic that drove the decision (“logic” being a broad term when applied to Yost) is that Ned disagreed with your assumption that stealing second was a higher percentage play than stealing third. I think what we’d all like to have seen was two steals. Especially if that let the steal of third happen during the Escobar at-bat when his right-handedness would help. It would have been particularly useful because a righthanded batter pretty much eliminates any value to pitching out on a steal of third (while my sense is a pitchout with a lefty hitting pretty much guarantees a CS–unless catcher drops the ball)
Clearly you didn’t read the article because Dave talks about how he hated the second bunt for exactly the same reason you listed.
no, I read the whole thing, including the last paragraph:
“So, yeah, I hated the bunt to move Dyson to second base, but we can’t ignore that the bunt allowed Dyson to steal third, and the combined effects of the bunt and steal were very strongly positive for the Royals. We could debate whether or not it would have been better to have Dyson steal twice and give Escobar a chance to try and drive him in as well, but I don’t know that I can call that a bad bunt with the knowledge that Dyson would then immediately try and take third. Seen together, the bunt and steal helped the Royals tie the game.”
My issue is with Dave looking at all the evidence and then going “oh but if you look at these things together it was a positive so ok, it helped.”
How does that advance anyone’s understanding of baseball?
the point being, the -5% WE would be much closer to 0, considering the runner you are advancing.
The bunts bothered me far less then the ridiculous “lets have billy butler get into a rundown in the first inning” idea and the “lets bring in our wildest starter in the middle of the 6th instead of one of the three best relievers in baseball” strategy.
The biggest problem with the bunts is that they depended on Salvador Perez to make contact after and he has looked like a child swinging a garden hose the past two months.
Ventura was a better option than Shields and probably as good an option as Finnegan and Herrera. Probably worse than Duffy or Davis, but not a horrible decision.
No it was awful.
Ventura was on short rest after 70 pitches and a single day.
Is extremely young and inexperienced.
Is a starter.
Is a right handed pitcher.
A left hander just made way too much sense for Yost to use one there.
I would LOVE to hear your reasoning as to how Ventura was even close to as good an option as any of those guys.
It’s a tough strategy to employ to ask a guy to wait until the runner steals two bases before trying to knock him in. A steal and then a bunt makes more sense in general, but this way had the element of surprise (who on Earth would do this backwards? The Royals!).
That was what I was thinking. Do you really want the not-very-good hitter at the plate taking more pitches in an attempt for Dyson to steal twice, putting him behind in the count and making him an even worse hitter? Unless Dyson steals home too, the guy at the plate needs to do something.
Can you write an article about the suicide squeeze?
It’s not used alot, but i’ve always thought of it as a VERY worthwhile move.
The safety squeeze seems wiser to me. I’d like to see suicide squeezes stacked up against safety squeezes and see which is the better option of the two.
Sorry if I just misreading this, but it looks like you’re adjusting the WE for the possibility of the A’s misplaying the bunt, but not adjusting for the possibility of a popped up bunt or a bunt that allows the A’s to get the lead runner.
Agreed. I feel like people often forget that the odds of a successful sacrifice bunt aren’t 100%. There’s always the possibility of getting the lead runner out (or bunting into a double play), popping it up, fouling of a bunt attempt with 2 strikes, or just not getting it down and basically starting the AB swinging with 2 strikes already. This is especially true if the defense is expecting a bunt, which in most of these situations the A’s probably were. I don’t know the exact numbers (I’d be interested in seeing them if anyone knows where to find them) but I tend to think the odds of a bunt attempt going wrong are higher than the odds of the defense screwing it up and not converting it into at least one out.
This goes into MGL’s point above. In MLB I think you’re right, that the bad “other” outcomes (FC, DP, PO, extra strikes) are more frequent and value destroying than the good ones (hit, E, WP, extra balls) are value adding. So if the WE/RE comparison between prior state and successful sac state says the sac is bad, then it’s clearly bad when you factor in all the others. But MGL has done deeper analyze that says my assumption may be wrong and the truth is unknowable……
Anyway, I get into this argument all the time, but in girls’ softball, where there’s no good statistical baseline and lots of people who love small ball. The frequency of the good “other” results is much higher than MLB (lots of errors). But outs are more precious (more runs scored per inning) and the effort to play small ball winds up putting a lot of girls who don’t bunt well in an 0-2 hole and striking out when any ground ball would have moved the runner up (fewer DPs and FCs in softball).
I’d also like to add that he’s comparing the potential outcome with a 0 change in WPA, rather than the expected change in WPA for that batter, which might be negative or positive.
“In general, GOOD hitters shouldn’t bunt . . .” [Emphasis added]
Sorry to be facetious, but maybe that’s why the Royals felt okay bunting.
A couple factors that you are did not mention on Dyson’s bunt that make it look at lot worse to me…
First, the third baseman was completely sold out to defend the bunt. This decreases the chances of Dyson turning the bunt into a hit and increases the chances of getting the force at second. (Not to mention that it increases chances of a hit if he were to actually swing.)
Second, Escobar and Jayson Nix were the two hitters given the task of driving in this runner that Dyson moved to scoring position.
Third, Dyson finally got the bunt down on a 2-1 count, but he did manage to get it to 2-0. At that point, there is even more incentive to just let the at bat play out.
Finally, the generic numbers include the danger of a double-play, but Dyson is below average in this category despite being above average in ground ball percent.
Obviously Yost’s decisions are not based on any kind of actual thinking when he has the team’s best hitter leading off.
*when he has the team’s worst hitter leading off*
Assume a theoretical team made up of players each of whom is constitutionally unable to get the ball out of the infield more than once in twenty times, yet has enough of a subset of ‘bat control’ that they can ‘create’ inordinate numbers of fouled pitches extending pitcher-batter confrontations thus wearing down opposing pitchers, and consistently and some greatly above-average speed and related attributes for beating out infield nubs, stealing bases and advancing on the arms of opposing outfielders, even infielders, almost regardless of ability.
Why would we use a measuring stick that relies to a material extent on SLUGGING to guide, or to gauge, a team that has very little power, yet has a particular set of arguable ‘skills’ in areas related to producing runs no matter how marginally?
Yes Avattoir! I wanted to comment something similar.
I really don’t think these WE% numbers are applicable to the specific situations in the game last night. The Royals are a very unusual team. No power, great contact skills, tons of speed.
How much of that WE% number with a runner on 1st and no outs is due to extra base hits? The Royals don’t get a lot of those. Also, with a team that does get a lot of singles and does have great speed, how much higher is the Royals’ probability of scoring 1 run with a runner on 2nd and 1 out than other teams? All those guys they bunted over are very capable of scoring from 2nd on a single. The WE% numbers aren’t based on these situations, they’re just based on league averages.
I haven’t run the numbers, and I’m not sure if I would even know how to do so, but I think it’s possible that the Royals put together a team that is so good at small-ball that bunting late in 1-run or tied games actually makes sense for them. All the skills on this team complement each other.
Escobar was not the Royals’ worst batter this season. That is a bit lazy. His reputation clearly preceded him here.
While Colon bunting in that situation may have been a good idea, having Colon PH was not. Gore is probably a worse bunter, but his speed would allow him a better chance of getting an infield single. Colon can also play 3B, and he could have PH for Nix in the 11th instead.
Burning your better utility infielder for a bunt in the DH position is idiotic, even if it worked in the end.
Gore can’t hit at all. He hit .218 in the Carolina League this season. He’s basically Herb Washington. You don’t want him at the plate, you only want his legs on the basepaths.
Dave,
Nicely written per usual. The one thing I will say your articles lack consistently is the other factors at play outside of the numbers.
It is much easier to steal third off of a left handed pitcher than to steal second off of a left handed pitcher. Bunting him to second so he could read Dolittle and steal third makes sense to me.
In addition it opens up an enormous 4-hole to have Dyson at second, and they did not even effectively hold him close enough to the bag to stop him from stealing!
Genius move on Yost’s part. Also, definitely ballsy.
My in-the-moment impression of Escobar’s bunt in the third was that he had some intent of getting a hit on it. Subjective, maybe, but it puts a different cast on the percentages.
As much as I think Ned over uses the sacrifice bunt, I think that some of their guys are really good at turning those into hits, and I wish they would maybe play that angle a little more and disguise their intentions a little better.
On the flip side, when Dyson laid his down, the third baseman was nearly on the pitchers mound. I would have like to seen Dyson hack at one pitch either to get a cheap single or two keep the third baseman a little more honest for the eventual bunt.
I’m surprised a tie game, bottom inning, no out bunt him to second gives a -1.1% WE.
Isn’t the probability of scoring 1 run greater with 1 out, on 2nd than no out on first? where do you find these probabilities anyways?
http://www.tangotiger.net/re24.html
Notice the table for 1950-1968, a very low scoring run environment. The probability in that run environment of scoring at least 1 run was 41% for both situations, meaning that a sac bunt when you only need 1 run was a lateral move.
What I wonder, though, is what these probabilities are for the Royals, more specifically. Is the *Royals run environment* poor enough that it’s actually worse than MLB average from 50-68, and then bunting makes sense for them in these situations? I don’t know, but I think it’s possible.
And those tables end with a period measuring 1993-2010. 2010 was a very different run scoring environment than 1993, and 2014 is still more different. These numbers are certainly not worthless, but they are aging.
I think there is a strong possibility that many teams have recreated these tables to be more customized to their personnel. Probably would not be that hard to do.
Eh, after reading this, it seems like the argument can be made that most bunts are neutral ideas which kind of goes against the idea that outs, and how they are made, are important since 70 percent of the time the batter will be out anyway.
I’m just in the camp that “If you have the speed to steal third, you probably have the speed to steal second.” and “Why not just hit and run?”
“40% of his career bunts have resulted in hits”
Does anyone know if that’s high or relatively in line what we expect from a speedster with a decent bunting skill?
This is a bit odd, but if I recall correctly, the first Alcides Escobar bunt wasn’t a pure sac bunt, was it? I could be misremembering.
Personally I love bunting for base hit as an option much more than sac bunting with a guy on first.
I also agree it is possible that bunting Dyson to 2nd and stealing 3rd was easier than stealing 2nd and bunting to 3rd due to handedness, though it’d be hard to say.
The A’s handling of those bunts was some Weak Sauce. Melvin the Beane-Baby should be Heeaved-Hoed!!!
Suppose I bet on heads three times in a series of three coin tosses at 2-to-1 odds against. Then I told you afterwards that the coin came up heads twice, and I broke even. On the basis of that outcome, am I a good gambler?
Of course not. Just because I broke even, due to luck (or a combination of luck and skill, in the case of the bunt), doesn’t make the a priori decision to take a 50/50 shot of losing badly a wise one.
People are burying MGL’s comment, even though he’s right. Bunting is almost never a good play in advance of success. It’s only afterwards, when the bunt has succeeded, that we can say it was merely *slightly* disadvantageous, instead of *potentially* disastrous.
The reason we don’t tend to think of it that way is, we assume that the batter has more control over getting a bunt down than he does. It’s a crap shoot. Sometimes the bunt play gets made, and sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s not a given.
The Rays were second in the American League in sac bunts this year and over the past 3 years are 3rd in the AL.
I think it’s time to retire analysis of bunting through run expectancy tables, and if folks are unwilling to do this, then apply it to ALL managers, not just the popular punching bags like Yost. I have yet to see Joe Maddon called a bunting fool.
I have to think the contextual variables (quality of hitter, pitcher, platoon effects, subsequent hitters and pitchers and their platoon #’s, quality of the fielders, quality and speed of the bunter, baserunner, catcher) are probably on par if not more significant than the 1-2% expectancy changes that these decisions often come down to. I think Dave does a decent job going into some of these, but there is no attempt to actually quantify them so it is unclear if these are more significant than the aggregate RE or WE changes.
I think the real issue is one listed above: we’re giving them leeway for the chance the As mess up the play, and none for the chance the bunt messes up. Which is more likely, and what is the cost of each? I truly don’t know, but I’d bet the chance the bunt attempt leads to an out that doesn’t advance the runner is higher. Either way, I’d like to know, and you definitely can’t cite one side without the other.
I wanted to read this article…but then in the 2nd Paragaph – Alcides Escobar and ‘worst batter’ were used in the same sentence, and then roughly repeated a sentence or two later.
Which means one of the following:
1) The author can’t read / is blind/ or simply can’t understand statistics. a .285 line with a WAR of 2.4 is not a teams ‘worst hitter’ especially the Royals.
2) The author doesn’t know about someone he mentions in his article – Mike Moustakas – who is 70+ points lower in BA and only 0.4 in WAR for batting.
If I can’t get thru 30 seconds of an article before finding blatant factual / statistical errors – WTF should I even read the rest of the article?
I can’t believe I have to point out something this blatant on a sight where stat analysis should be king.
Hi fellas!