Dumbest play in baseball and we did it.

[Philly Dawg]

A bunt is a free out nothing more.

 

[skydawg1]

No, it was the right move. We just failed to execute. That's Baseball.

 

[57stratdawg]

You have to bunt there. Without question.

 

[LovemesomeCroom]

If Mangum doesn’t insist on swinging at every first pitch ball in the dirt, it probably works out.

 

[Xenomorph]

I bet the odds Mangum gets one out of the infield there are extremely high. It was the right call.

 

[38843dawg]

Bunting was the right call. One out and a guy on third you have to get that guy in.

 

[57stratdawg]

Especially on a 1st pitch fastball with the infield in.

 

[thekimmer]

It’s so dumb that literally every team in organized baseball does it. Come on man we had the winning run 90:ft away with one out. It was absolutely the right call.

 

[Shamoan]

True

 

[Philly Dawg]

You guys don’t have a good grasp of math because that bunt lessened the chance we’d score.

 

[Philly Dawg]

Hogwash. Team that understand math don’t do it because it reduces your chance to win.

 

[WilCoDawg]

Anyone else catch the humor of 17 throwing 17 out?

 

[thekimmer]

Hogwash. Team that understand math don’t do it because it reduces your chance to win.

Really. So you are saying the odds of scoring a man from second with no outs are better than a man from third with one.

 

[patdog]

Really. So you are saying the odds of scoring a man from second with no outs are better than a man from third with one.

They're actually very close to equal. 70% with a man at 2nd and no outs vs 73% with a man at 3rd and 1 out per Boyd's expected runs tables. So, if you can be 100% successful in executing the bunt, it would be the percentage play. You won't be 100% successful though. With our hitters this year, I would never bunt.

 

[Go Budaw]

They're actually very close to equal. 70% with a man at 2nd and no outs vs 73% with a man at 3rd and 1 out per Boyd's expected runs tables. So, if you can be 100% successful in executing the bunt, it would be the percentage play. You won't be 100% successful though. With our hitters this year, I would never bunt.

Well, we were successful last night, so therefore we made the correct percentage play. We just had an uncharacteristic bad AB from Mangum (which still would have scored the run had the infield not been playing in, or if it had been a few feet more up the middle or towards 1B).

I don’t see how anyone ever questions moving the winning run over to 3rd base with less than 2 outs ahead of the top of the order and all-time SEC hits king. If you say the bunt is a bad call there, you are saying that no team should bunt ever, under any circumstances.

 

[ronpolk]

You guys don’t have a good grasp of math because that bunt lessened the chance we’d score.

No, that bunt lessened the chance that we’d score multiple runs. But we didn’t need to score multiple runs. That bunt was the correct decision 10/10 times. No doubt about it.

 

[patdog]

You can't call it the percentage play after the fact. You could just as easily say we didn't score so it was the wrong decision. With our hitters, I would rather have 3 chances to get a hit to drive in the run than 2 chances to get a hit, passed ball, etc. to score a run. But in that particular situation, the odds are so close you can't say either bunt or hit away is the "right" or "wrong" call. And that situation is the best of the potential bunt situations. In almost all other situations, it is the wrong call.

 

[thekimmer]

They're actually very close to equal. 70% with a man at 2nd and no outs vs 73% with a man at 3rd and 1 out per Boyd's expected runs tables. So, if you can be 100% successful in executing the bunt, it would be the percentage play. You won't be 100% successful though. With our hitters this year, I would never bunt.

Well one flaw I see with this is it considers everyone equal and they most certainly are not. I agree in some situations with certain players it makes sense to swing away. With other situations and players the bunt in indicated. Also, while I am not a statistician it just does not pass the smell test to me because this this strategy has been employed at the highest levels of the game for over 100 years. I agree that playing "small ball" will take you out of big innings and I don't see this as a good general strategy for scoring runs but when you only need 1 it is time tested.

Incidentally. Would you happen to be one of those who adhere to the philosophy in football that a team should never punt on 4th down because statistically it is supposed to be a better strategy to go for it?

 

[patdog]

Completely agree that you have to take into consideration who is at the plate. If you've got a .200 hitter up, the odds favoring the bunt go up considerably. If you've got a .400 hitter up, you should just never bunt. With our hitters, any bunts should be extremely rare since we have good hitters 1-9 in the lineup.

I would never go so far as to say you should never punt on 4th down, but you should definitely go for it a lot more often than teams do.

Edit: For the record, I don't have a problem with the bunt in that situation last night. It's so damn close percentage-wise that either has about the same chance of scoring the run.

 

[8dog]

Which brings the infield in and increases the chances of a hit
on a groundball

also hess was throwing almost every ball in the dirt

 

[Go Budaw]

You can't call it the percentage play after the fact. You could just as easily say we didn't score so it was the wrong decision. With our hitters, I would rather have 3 chances to get a hit to drive in the run than 2 chances to get a hit, passed ball, etc. to score a run. But in that particular situation, the odds are so close you can't say either bunt or hit away is the "right" or "wrong" call. And that situation is the best of the potential bunt situations. In almost all other situations, it is the wrong call.

You are ignoring the fact that bunts for base hits happen, errors happen on the throw to first, etc. All of that more or less offsets the odds that you don’t get the bunt down. We made a call to increase our odds of scoring by (at very least) 3% by executing a fundamental play, and we did so successfully.

That 3% is also a composite figure assuming the average of any hitter at the plate (whether it be the 9-hole, 2-hole, or leadoff guy). If you look at runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs for the top of the order vs runner on 2nd with no outs for the 9-hole, I’d bet the odds are a lot more in favor of the winning run scoring in the first situation. This is just another case of sabermetrics painting with too broad of a brush in some cases. You have to know when to use the data and you have to know when to use common sense. Every pro, college, and high school coach in the country is bunting the winning run from 2nd to 3rd with no outs and the 9-hole guy up there. Every one of them.

ETA: They also put a graphic up that showed Gilbert’s average with RISP was .236. He has a 25 K’s in 100 AB (.250 percentage). So you can clearly see that the odds of him striking out or otherwise putting the ball in play without a hit and without moving the runner is way higher than him getting a hit in that situation. Yet another data point that indicates the bunt is the correct play.