Too Much of a Sacrifice?

In recent years, Weaver's Fourth Law, regarding the precious nature of outs, has become one of the principal guideposts of the "Moneyball" crowd in baseball -- which is to say, the group of thinkers and front-office types who adhere to the philosophies described in Michael Lewis's 2004 book of that name.

Under the "Moneyball" principle -- which has gained traction around the game after being initially linked to only a few adherents, such as the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays -- teams seek out hitters with high on-base percentages (who, thus, make fewer outs), and shy away from stolen base attempts.

They also tend to eschew the sacrifice bunt. Thus, it is probably not a coincidence that, other than the Rangers -- who have baseball's most powerful lineup and play in one of its most prolific hitters' parks (Ameriquest Field) -- the next three teams with the fewest sacrifice bunts this season are the Red Sox, Athletics and Blue Jays.

"Basically, my philosophy is, if it's the ninth inning and we have the winning run on base, I have no problem sacrificing," Blue Jays General Manager J.P. Ricciardi, a onetime protege of Athletics GM (and "Moneyball" protagonist) Billy Beane. "But I'll tell you this: It hasn't worked too well. Earl Weaver had the greatest line -- if you play for one run, that's all you'll get. . . . It's not cut-and-dry in my book, but if I had my druthers, we wouldn't bunt very much at all."

ESPN and Comcast SportsNet analyst Buck Martinez, whom Ricciardi fired as Blue Jays manager in 2002, said Ricciardi used to drop by his office regularly to try to persuade him not to bunt so much. In 2003, the year after Martinez was fired, the Blue Jays set an all-time record for fewest sacrifice bunts in a season, with 11.

"I can understand the argument," Martinez said. "But the bottom line is, there is no one way to play baseball [or] to manage a baseball game."

Surprisingly, Bill James, who is often called the patron saint of the "Moneyball" movement because of his pioneering use of statistics to evaluate players, does not fully embrace the arguments made by Click and others against the sacrifice bunt.

"All studies of the sacrifice bunt of which I am aware show that the sacrifice bunt is a poor percentage play," James said in an e-mail. "But I have never found this argument convincing. The studies of the sac bunt tend to assume that there are two outcomes of the play -- a "successful" bunt, in which an out is recorded but the base[s] is [are] gained, and an "unsuccessful" bunt resulting in a forceout or pop out. In reality, there are a dozen or more reasonably common outcomes of a sac bunt effort, including a foul ball, an infield hit, an error on the third baseman [or somebody else], a fielder's choice/all safe, and a double play.

"There is really no way you can evaluate the bunt convincingly unless you establish the frequency of the entire range of options."

James concludes: "I do agree that there is little reason to believe that profligate bunting helps a team win. But if I were a manager, I would certainly signal a bunt with a good bunter against a poor defensive third baseman, and probably in some other situations as well."

The decline in emphasis on the sacrifice bunt has been accompanied by an equally profound decline in hitters' ability to bunt successfully, a self-perpetuating cycle that makes managers less inclined to put on a bunt play. That decline also can lead to someone getting hurt, as it did on May 10, when Baltimore Orioles outfielder Luis Matos broke his ring finger while making an awkward bunt attempt.

A successful bunt doesn't get you on "SportsCenter," the thinking goes, so why practice it? Baseball stages a home run derby as part of its all-star festivities every year, but there are no plans for a sacrifice bunt derby.

"The bunt is kind of a lost art," said Milwaukee Brewers Manager Ned Yost. "Even our pitchers who are supposed to be good bunters -- and we work on it every day -- they struggle to bunt. A lot of times, our success or failure [in a game] hinges around the bunt. And if a pitcher can't get a bunt down early in the game, it can kill us. Bunting is still a big part of the game, but it's fallen by the wayside in the last 10 years or so."

Robinson, too, grows frustrated by what he sees as a lack of dedication to fundamentals. In one game last month, two sacrifice bunt attempts by Guzman resulted in a combined three outs -- a double play and a strikeout -- without advancing a runner. In another game, Robinson decided to let Guzman swing away with runners on first and second and nobody out, and Guzman grounded into a double play.

Asked about the decline in the quality of bunting across the game these days, Robinson laughed and said even his pitchers hate bunting. "They cry about it," he said. "They'll say, 'I'm a pretty good hitter.' I'll say, 'You're hitting .130. How is that a pretty good hitter?' I tell them to get up there and bunt."