The sacrifice bunt is a bad play the overwhelming majority of the time. It increases your chances of scoring one run while decreasing your chances to put a crooked number on the board. This is not an opinion – it’s a fact. If somehow you doubt this, go look for the base-out matrix. However, there are times when it makes sense to play for one run. If you were going up against, say, Jacob deGrom and you knew his teammates never scored when he was on the mound, then perhaps you’d want to score one run and look to win the game, 1-0. Or if it was a tie game in the last inning and one run means a win, then a bunt would make sense.
But, if your best hitter was up, would you have him bunt? If Mike Trout was at the plate – would you have him sacrifice? If Mookie Betts was up – would you flash the bunt sign? If Freddie Freeman was at the dish, would you have him square away? That’s what the Mets faced in the first game of yesterday’s doubleheader
Just about no one wants to admit it but Brandon Nimmo is the Mets’ best hitter, whether you look at career numbers or just focus on what he’s done in 2021. Before the year started, Nimmo led all Mets – including Francisco Lindor – with a 140 wRC+, the best stat there is to measure offensive production. For a comparison, Freeman has a lifetime 139 mark in the category. Here’s the wRC+ of every Mets hitter in 2021 with a dozen PA:
221 – Nimmo
114 – Alonso
110 – Villar
90 – Smith
74 – Lindor
65 – McNeil
51 – Conforto
38 – McCann
Nimmo was the exact player you wanted up at the plate with a runner in scoring position. And if you think the only thing he does is walk, which would you rather have – runners on second and third and one out or bases loaded and no outs? And Nimmo has the best average on the team, too, meaning, of course, he does more than walk.
Furthermore, when was the last time you saw Nimmo bunt? In 1,340 trips to the plate in the majors, Nimmo has two sacrifice hits. In 3,916 PA as a pro, Nimmo has six sacrifices. He’s only done it successfully .15% of the time since high school. Note, that’s not done it 15% of the time – it’s less than 2/10 of 1%.
Do you really want anyone, much less your best hitter, try something in a key situation that he’s only done successfully at a percentage you need to carry out to the third decimal place to get a non-zero number?
People are allowed to like anything they want. If people like complete games – they can root for them. If people like 5-4-3 GDPs, they can cheer for them until their heart’s content. If you like triples – Tomas Nido just gave you one. But it’s shocking to me how much people like bunting. Hey, you do you – rock on and enjoy the game however you want.
I’m no fan of Luis Rojas. But claiming he made some giant tactical error because he didn’t bunt with his best hitter, a guy who has virtually no bunting experience, is just something that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, from either a numbers standpoint or what managers actually do in real games. The Braves wouldn’t bunt with Freeman and you know it. If Pete Alonso was up in that situation, would you demand that he bunt, too?
Nimmo struck out and he deserves blame for not coming through in a key moment of the game. Same goes for Lindor and Dominic Smith. But if we have that exact same situation 50 more times during the season, my hope is that Rojas makes the same call he did yesterday 50 more times.
I would love to see the team become super-proficient at bunting and turn it into an offensive weapon. If we could do that, we could then employ it against the defensive shift strategy.
While I feel there are times that the bunt is the correct call, and in this instance it could be depending on who the batter is, as well as who is following him in the order, I agree 100% that not bunting Nimmo was the right call (regardless of the result). He’s the only guy on the team who’s hitting now and I’ll take my chances with my best hitter. Rojas made the right call.
Sure, there are as many opinions as there are fans to have them. Nobody can really be certain when it comes to speculation… so much intuition and life-experience involved. My hope is that Mets players will employ all the skills they would find useful during a game.
Bunting is a key baseball skill and an essential baseball play… not being “able” to bunt is not acceptable for someone making millions of dollars with months of free time between seasons… it just ain’t that hard.
Mets360 remains a great site with all opinions regarded and respected. Much fun for us who frequent it. Thanks.
Oh Brian, I knew you were going to say this. Last year, Cody Bellanger – MVP Cody Bellanger- bunted during the playoffs. Let’s see: Clean up hitter? Check. MVP? Check. One of the best players on the team? Check. You know why he bunted? Because he situation warranted it.
Your argument of RC+ means nothing when a hit can win you the game. Nimmo lifetime K%:? 22%. His lifetime BA? 26%. Let’s say since he was hitting .388 he had a 39% chance of getting a hit, even though we all agree that we don’t go by small sample sizes but I guess here we will, that gives him a 61% chance of making an out. Why not make it a productive out? Nimmo strikes out 26% of the time. It’s not like he’s a high contact guy that might give you a hit. So, your chances of a strikeout or a hit are kind of close to each other. Why take the chance? Move the guys up. You bunt him over and Lindor is up. They’re going to probably walk him to set up a double play – but you hope he hits – and Dom Smith is up after him, who had a homerun and is swinging well. You then have two shots to win the game, including scoring a run on a wild pitch, a fly ball, a ground ball, a balk, an error, a squeeze… look at how your opportunity just increased to win the game! How do you even bother defending that?
To answer your question, if I were Joe Maddon and I had first and second no outs, tied game, bottom of the ninth and Trout coming up with Rendon and Ohtani behind him, you better believe I’d have him bunting. If someone else compared Nimmo to Trout, you’d be the first to reticule him, but I’ll play along. The situation calls for it. It’s the right baseball play. You only need one.
I like how you assume that a guy who never bunts will be able to successfully bunt. There’s a bunch of things that could go wrong and you’re acting like all we have to do is wave a magic wand and it’s a done deal. That’s just not real life.
Productive out? I thought that term became extinct with the acceptance of Joe Morgan as baseball expert
For my 2 cents, I think the smarter play there was to bunt. Yes, Nimmo is underrated and a case can be made for him being the Mets’ best hitter, but I think that is secondary to the situation as they elite bats were next…Nimmo hitting 7th, different story.
I could be swayed to thinking the smarter play was to allow him to swing away, but that would be based on my confidence level of his ability to get down the bunt. In the current game, it certainly is not a given that guys can do this. Years ago, most everyone (at least it appeared like most everyone) except the slugger was competent enough to get the bunt sign. I haven’t seen enough of Nimmo’s ability to bunt to clearly say he was better off swinging. For one run, I like forcing the defense to make a play at third, and then maybe a play at home, especially with quick runners at the plate and on base.
If you don’t like bunts, how bout a hit and run? Bottom line is that Villar was on second at the beginning of Nimmo’s at-bat – he needed to be on third by the end of it. Some sort of contact was required.
Spring training should be used for bunting. There are game situations which warrant it – this was one of them. Fortunately they came through in the next inning, but that would have been a painful loss. My opinion is that the safety squeeze is a completely non-defendable play. A runner on second with no outs should always score if it is the only run that is needed.
Another side of this? Has Bohm or Hoskins ever fielded a bunt? Would they do it properly? There is a good chance for an error there.
Editor’s Note – Don’t capitalize words in your post
69, Girardi is their manager. I feel pretty secure that they worked on it last month.
Good point.
Tom Verducci wrote an article for SI that addresses your comment about deGrom’s rep for being a hard luck pitcher with little run support. Here it is:
https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/04/09/jacob-degrom-bad-luck-mets
Verducci argues that, “When it comes to frequency of ‘bad luck,’ Jacob deGrom is a rather ordinary pitcher.” His research surprised me. I’m wondering what other readers think of his conclusions.
…And I agree that the sac bunt is almost always a wasted out. Best to do it only with a pitcher at bat.
Are you a Shawshank Redemption fan? Reading this made me think of a line from the movie.
“Obtuse. Is it deliberate?”
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Verducci is creating a straw man. However, he’s clearly taking a multi-pronged argument and claiming that it only has one prong. And it’s not like he’s doing it unwittingly, either.
“deGrom already has more such winless elite starts in his 184 career starts (31) than Seaver did in his 647 starts (30).” So, he knows full well that the case for deGrom is so much more than the percentage of starts where the offense doesn’t show up. And he makes no mention whatsoever of games that he leaves with a lead, only to have the bullpen blow it for him. I believe they said in his last start that there are 31 instances of that, too.
This is the same writer who gave us “The Verucci Effect,” which has been debunked as a poor use of statistics. My advice is that if you see an article that he’s written that depends on some type of statistical analysis to make its point – be suspicious. Be very, very suspicious.