The State of Baseball: More Bombs, Fewer Bunts
Wallops and Whiffs
The big story of 2019 is the home run. Balls are flying over the fence at an unprecedented rate, with league home run records sure to be broken, as well as many single-season team home run records. The Brewers and Nationals recently played a 14-inning game (won 15-14 by the Brew Crew) in which 11 balls left the yard, seven for Milwaukee to the Nationals’ four. A day later, the Nationals got revenge with a 16-8 victory and team-record-tying eight home runs. The Brewers “only” hit four long balls in that one, giving the two teams a combined 23 home runs in two days.
Along with the home runs come the strikeouts. Batters are whiffing at a rate that should result in a 14th straight season with more strikeouts than the year before. Pitchers are averaging 8.8 strikeouts per nine innings, which is twice as many as in those halcyon days of yore about which ye olde-timers like to reminisce (e.g. 1955; 4.4 K/9).
Small Samples of Small Ball
While homers and strikeouts continue to rise, “small ball” tactics like stolen bases and sacrifice bunts are falling out of favor. This year, stolen base attempts are down for a fifth straight year, to 0.64 per game, and have reached their lowest point since 1964. The use of the sacrifice bunt is also at an all-time low for the eighth season in a row. Teams are laying down successful sacrifice bunts at a rate of 0.16 per game, which is less than half as often as they used the tactic as recently as 2011.
The sacrifice bunt is especially rare in the AL West, where all five teams rank in the bottom 12 in the statistic, and four of the five teams rank in the bottom seven.
At the very bottom of the list are the Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels. The A’s have successfully used the sacrifice bunt four times this season; the Angels just three times. Both have a chance to break the record for fewest sacrifice bunts in a season, set by the Toronto Blue Jays – you guessed it – just last year. Those record-holding 2018 Blue Jays laid down five successful sacs. (Surprisingly, one of those was by Curtis Granderson: it was his only sacrifice bunt in the last six years.)
According to FanGraphs, the single-season team record for sacrifice hits belongs to the 1917 Red Sox, with an incredible 310. At the time, sacrifice flies were included in the sacrifice hits total, so we can’t really compare them to modern teams, although it’s undeniably clear they bunted much more frequently than teams do in 2019. That Red Sox team had three infielders with 40 or more sacrifice hits and a svelte, 22-year-old pitcher named Babe Ruth who had seven in 142 plate appearances. It’s likely that some of those were sacrifice flies.
Mapping the Trend
The definition of “sacrifice hit” changed multiple times from 1889 to 1939, sometimes credited only when the player bunted the ball; sometimes grouped together with sacrifice flies. In 1940, the sacrifice hit rule we stabilized:
“A sacrifice bunt occurs when a player is successful in his attempt to advance a runner (or multiple runners) at least one base with a bunt.”
That year, teams had 0.51 sacrifice hits per game (SH/G). The rate of sacrifice hits briefly increased during the World War II years, then started to decline over the next 70 years. A big change occurred with the advent of the DH in the American League in 1973. This resulted in a gap between the leagues that still exists, although both leagues have seen a steep decline since 2011.
Along the way, we saw some notable milestones for fewest sacrifice hits by a team. In 1941, the New York Yankees had the fewest sacrifice hits of any team, with 49. Notably, the great Joe DiMaggio (.357/.440/.643) was not asked to lay one down (nor should he have been). The record for fewest sacrifice hits by a team remained in the 40s for 16 years until the 1957 New York Giants finished with just 32 sacrifice bunts. Willie Mays wasn’t among the bunters. He was busy launching 35 dingers, legging out 20 triples, and stealing 38 bases.
When the DH was introduced to the American League in 1973, a shift in bunting occurred as AL teams no longer had pitchers regularly laying them down. With this change in place, the 1973 Yankees reduced the record for fewest sacrifices by a team to 27. The man credited with being the first DH ever, Ron Blomberg, had one such sacrifice.
In the 1980s, NL teams used the sacrifice bunt about 1.5 times as often as AL teams. In the 1990s, this increased to nearly 1.7 times as often. The 1990 Blue Jays brought the fewest sacrifice hits record down to 18, six of which were by center fielder Mookie Wilson, who was otherwise having a forgettable season (.264/.300/.355). Tony Fernandez and Junior Felix each had two. Fred McGriff, despite a team-leading 35 homers, was also credited with a sacrifice hit.
When the 2000s rolled around, the NL increased its lead over the AL to 1.9 times as often. Fittingly, the first team to ever finish a season with fewer than 10 sacrifice hits was the 2005 Texas Rangers. This was a power-hitting team that came close to setting the MLB record for home runs in a season. They hit 260 bell-ringers, just four short of the 1997 Seattle Mariners. Mark Teixeira (43 HR), Alfonso Soriano (36 HR), David Dellucci (29 HR), Hank Blalock (29 HR), Kevin Mench (25 HR), and Michael Young (24 HR) were all adept at driving the ball out of the park and none of them laid down a successful bunt.
The sac bunt clearly dwindled over time, but it plummeted beginning in 2012. At the same time, the NL saw a sharp increase in the percentage of sacrifices credited to pitchers: In 2011, 53% of all sacrifices in the NL were by pitchers. This year, it’s up to 77%.
As mentioned above, last year’s Blue Jays dropped the record to five, with two from Richard Urena, and one each from Curtis Granderson, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., and Yangervis Solarte. This year’s Angels (3) and Athletics (4) could set a new mark for the fewest sacrifice hits in a season. Perhaps one year soon we’ll have a team go an entire season without a sacrifice bunt. Keep the champagne on ice for that occasion and raise a glass to that team’s manager (editor’s note: while you pour one out for baseball in general…).
Notable Notes
The Angels are an interesting newcomer to this trend of bunting less often. Under former manager Mike Scioscia from 2000 to 2018, the Angels finished in the top half of the American League in sacrifice hits 14 times. In 2012, Mike Trout’s rookie year, the Angels led the AL. It should be noted that Scioscia wisely didn’t ask Trout to bunt that year or any year since, nor has Brad Ausmus called for the sacrifice with Trout at the dish this season. I mean, why would he?
The fact that Trout has yet to notch a sacrifice hit in his career is more of a “fun fact” than anything, but it does show how the game has changed over time. Almost all of the players around him on the all-time WAR leaderboard have laid down at least one sacrifice bunt.
Since 1940, when the sacrifice hit rule was cemented into place, Trout ranks 27th in FanGraphs WAR. All 26 players ahead of him had (or have) at least one sacrifice hit. Most of them had 10 or more sacrifices. One player, Brooks Robinson, had 101.
In fact, just five players ahead of Trout on the 1940-present fWAR list had fewer than five sacrifice hits. Barry Bonds had four. Three of those came in his first four seasons. One, inexplicably, came in 1998, when he hit .303/.438/.609 and launched 37 taters. A closer look at that bunt reveals the details: The Giants were losing 1-0 to the Pirates in the bottom of the sixth inning. Rey Sanchez singled to center to lead off the inning. Bonds is credited with a bunt groundout, catcher-to-first base, with Sanchez advancing to second.
It’s hard to imagine Giants manager Dusty Baker asking Bonds to bunt in that situation, so perhaps Bonds was attempting to bunt for a base hit and was credited with a sacrifice when he was thrown out at first. Whatever the specifics, Bonds moved Sanchez to second, Jeff Kent walked, and Joe Carter hit a three-run bomb to give the Giants the lead. Touch ‘em all, Joe!
Ted Williams (post 1940 only) had two. One came in his second big league season and the other came in 1947, when he had the second of his two Triple Crown seasons. Again, it’s hard to imagine a manager giving the bunt sign to a guy who would hit .343/.499/.634 by season’s end. According to the play description, the Red Sox were losing 6-2 in the bottom of the ninth and had one out and a runner on first. Then this: “Bunt Groundout: P-1B/Sacrifice; Pesky to 2B.” It seems very unlikely that Ted Williams laid down a bunt right then, or ever really. He didn’t seem to be the bunting type.
Chipper Jones and Jeff Bagwell each had three successful sacrifice bunts. Jones’ sacrifices all came in his first five seasons. Two of them were in the ninth inning of a tie game. Bagwell’s three sacrifice hits came in his first two seasons, before he became the powerful slugger he was in his prime. All three of his bunts look legit—they came late in games when the score was tied and the Astros were likely playing for one run.
That leaves just one player who ranks higher than Trout in FanGraphs War post-1940 and has fewer than five sacrifice hits: it’s Trout’s current teammate, Albert Pujols. Sir Albert has just one sacrifice bunt in the big leagues. It came in the 67th game of his career, when he was a rookie hitting .350/.412/.654. The Cardinals were ahead 6-3 in the bottom of the seventh and had runners on first and second with no one out. Reliever Sean Lowe came in to face Pujols and was greeted with a sacrifice bunt that moved both runners up.
That was 2725 games ago for Pujols, and the last time he was asked to bunt. Will Mike Trout ever attempt the feat, or will he go down as the greatest player in baseball history who never had to lay down a sacrifice bunt? The numbers say it’s likely.
Bobby Mueller
