My stay-at-home, baseball-postponed, zoom-meeting-filled days have, I'll admit, had a little background noise. Thanks to the MLB unlocking a ton of classic baseball games, any starved for baseball fans have been gifted historical visuals of infield/outfield green grass and are even being given the luxury of being able to pause for snacks/bathroom breaks.
I had the pleasure of watching the 1952 World Series between the Jackie Robinson rostered Brooklyn Dodgers and the Mickey Mantle present New York Yankees. What a different looking game that was. Every man in the stands is wearing a suit and smoking a cigar and hit-and-run bunts make up about 25% of all swings. Another game I re-watched was the 2016 World Series Game 7 won by the Chicago Cubs. Who could forget such an amazing game? A re-watch is highly recommended. If you want to be real nerdy about it, I suggest reading (or re-reading) the final three chapters of Tom Verducci's, The Cub's Way after you watch. This little trip down memory road made me curious about the 2 strike bunt. In the top of the 9th with the game tied, Joe Maddon gives the sign for a bunt. When relayed to Baez from third base, he is confused and needs to call time in order to talk it over with the third base coach. Verducci quotes Maddon as saying, "The other thing with the two-strike bunt most people don't understand is that most guys - their two strike batting average is abysmal. It's beyond abysmal against certain pitchers. It's nonexistent. I would like for some of our guys to do that with two strikes once in a while. Lester won a game with a two-strike safety squeeze. Lester's the best bunter on the team." Here was Baez's batting line in the 2016 playoffs with two strikes when he swung, and when he bunted.
The truth is, he didn't bunt in the regular season with two strikes on. I mean, who does? That's kind of crazy. A batting average of .188 with two strikes on during the playoffs is not great and it was, just like ol' Joe said, worse against right-handed pitching with Baez going 0 for 9 against righties in the playoffs. That is exactly what he was facing against Bryan Shaw a righty. So, trying to lay down that bunt was probably a good idea, nice work Joe. Unfortunately, Baez bunted foul and struck out. But, that's the risk associated with the 2-strike bunt.
I wanted to see when something like this happened most recently and here it is!
It just so happened to come against the Cubs in the 2019 season. Orlando Arcia effectively moved Yasmani Grandal from 1st to 2nd and after 2 fouled bunt attempts! The third times the charm, but in the end, it took a Keston Hiura walk off home run in the 10th to secure the victory for the Brewers.
I'm hungry for more. For those hitters who had multiple 2-strike opportunities to either swing or bunt, what were the splits? In other words, what hitters bunted and swung in different occasions when the go-ahead run was on base and they had 2 strikes on?
Only 2 of these players are non-pitchers and have enough 2-strike swinging attempts to make any comparisons. This is where things really comes together! If we only look at these two positional players and how they did when they had:
Here's what we see:
They call it a sacrifice for a reason. In reality, looking at batting average means much less than looking to see if the runner eventually scored as a result of these bunts. However, magic can happen and in the case of Danny Jansen laying down a 2 strike bunt and scoring the go-ahead run in extra innings, it did. Jansen also has some serious success when the go-ahead is on base. Could this be some kind of super special clutch hitter here? Maybe...maybe noise, but either way it proves that the 2 strike, sac-bunt with runners on can work!
For all code and technical work, please see my notebook on my GitHub page.
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January 2021
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