quote:
Well, if a guy is sacrificing himself, his numbers should suffer. Get it? That's part of the sacrifice.

It's esoteric, but it skews it to leave out the bunt. OBP is siupposed to measure something really basic: how often does a guy get on base when he comes up to the plate. If you sacrifice, you don't get on base. It's an out. It's not that important, really, but it skews the number to take out bunts. It rewards getting out. Or fails to punish it. You don't see the true picture of the player. There's a reason Nola bunts a lot.

When a player hits a sacrifice fly, the player's intent is usually not to hit a sacrifice fly. He is trying to hit a home run, or he is trying to get a base hit, etc., so the sacrifice fly is a possibly favorable outcome to a plate appearance that would be unfavorable if there were nobody on base.

A sacrifice bunt is different in that it is a deliberate act. Counting that against a player would be like counting negative rushing yards against a QB taking a knee at the end of a game. It would distort the statistic.

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Posted by Baloo

Formerly MDGeaux

Member since Sep 2003

49645 posts

Posted on 5/23/09 at 9:20 am to GOP_Tiger

quote:
A sacrifice bunt is different in that it is a deliberate act. Counting that against a player would be like counting negative rushing yards against a QB taking a knee at the end of a game. It would distort the statistic.

I disagree. When a player sacrifices, the game is still in doubt. It is an attempt to score runs, not run the clock out on a game that is already won. I'd analogize it closer to spiking the football to stop the clock. Which, honestly, I don't know if it counts as an incompletion.

That said, lousy hitters tend to sacrifice more. It says something about the hitter. Nola has 5 sac hits in 80 PA. The only player close to that rate is Hanover: 4 in 205. Think about it: it's why the pitcher always bunts in the NL. Even good hitters will bunt occassionally, but that will balance out. Players with an extreme number of bunts look like a much better hitter than they really are by deleting sacrifices.

And fielder's choice and errors are still plate appearances. The ssacrifice hit simply evaporates into vapor. He appeared at the plate. It should be a plate appearance. Sure, it's a manager's decision, but a manger's decision usually which comments on the hitter's a bility if it is called for the same hitter over and over.

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