Wakamatsu Likes To Bunt
As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the Mariners are bunting more this year, as part of Don Wakamatsu’s effort to get the team to play a different style of offense. With a sub-par lineup, he has less incentive to let guys swing away, and so the team has turned to small ball in the first few weeks of the season.
But we’re not just bunting more than we used to – we’re bunting more than anyone else used to, either. Take a look at the AL Leaderboard for bunts. The Mariners have laid down 13 bunts so far this year, 22% of the entire American League total. The Twins are second with seven bunts. They haven’t always been sacrifice attempts, as we saw with the Gutierrez squeeze last night and the Chavez bunt the day before, but the M’s still lead the league in sac bunts with nine. The Angels are second in the league… with four.
The Mariners are on pace to lay down 191 bunts this year, 133 of which would be sacrifices. Last year, the Twins laid down 182 bunts to lead the league, but only 52 of those were sacrifice bunts, and the second most frequent bunters were the Royals with 106 attempts (and only 32 sac bunts). The Twins center fielder, Carlos Gomez, laid down 73 bunts by himself, and almost all of them were of the bunt-for-a-hit variety. The two bunt happy franchises last year were not moving runners over, but were trying to get themselves on base.
In the American League last year, the average team laid down 34 sacrifice bunts. At their current pace, the M’s will match that sometime in May.
This is small ball on steroids. The Mariners are bunting circles around the rest of the American League. It’s exciting for fans to watch, especially when the team is winning, but it’s not a very good long term offensive strategy. I’ve been impressed by a lot of the things that Wak has done, but if there’s one thing that we’d have to consider something of a concern through 11 games, this is it.
There are a few guys on the team who can bunt for a base hit. I like to see that, pulls the infield in, although there are limits to how often you can do it.
But there are otherr guys on this team who have no business bunting, ever.
Bunting isn’t always a bad idea. I love the squeeze play. Chavez bunting for hits is a good use of his skills. Rob Johnson can’t hit, so having him move a couple of runners over isn’t a bad idea.
But 132 sacrifice bunts in a season? That’s a lot of outs that we don’t need to be giving up.
Endy Chavez and Franklin Gutierrez make up 9 of those bunts by themselves. These two guys are most likely to make their own call to bunt if last night was any indication:
Lopez, Johnson, Johjima, and Betancourt have 1 bunt each. Wakamatasu definitely likes when his team bunts but those bunting ninjas are making a huge difference.
Actually, this was one of things I liked about this team. The pitcher was throwing a perfect game, so we tried a different approach. I didn’t view it as over reliance upon the bunt but as not being pigeon-holed in our offensive approach. Yeah, if it becomes a consistent longterm strategy (I didn’t realize we’d used it that much in other games) because 1/3-1/2 of the lineup can’t consistently hit MLB pitching then that’s a problem.
Is there anywhere to find the specific situations in which the sac bunts occurred? It feels like the team has sacrificed mostly in situations where it made a fair amount of sense, but given the sheer number of times they’ve done it I’m thinking I’m wrong.
I’m fine with the Mariners bunting a lot if they do it when it’s smart, but I’d really hate for this team to give away outs in bad situations because it’s part of an identity they’re trying to craft for themselves.
I don’t know if they have taken it to an extreme or not. Considering the state of the game in 2009 I think it makes a lot more sense to bunt now then it did the last 15 years. Less steroid use is gonna require more bunting I would think.
Bad lineup + Safeco Field + less Steroids = a large incentive to bunt. They may very well be taking this too far but it does make some sense to bunt a lot with our current roster. Hopefully we can bunt our way to contention and then make a deal or two at the deadline and play some more long ball.
I’ll ignore certain parts of your argument because they don’t have much to do with anything, but I will point out that the offensive environment so far this season has been absolutely insane.
Dave…have you done a write-up on the usefullness or lack thereof of bunts?
On Sacrifices: I think if used effectively, it is a useful tool and keeps the defense on it’s toes. It was soo frustrating last year to see the M’s get people on third and not score. With the pitching keeping things close this year…it’s certainly better to get one run than none trying to get a bunch.
On Bunting for a basehit: I remember watching Brett Butler for the Dodgers bunt his way on base so many times…it was like a challenge for him if he saw the third baseman cheating in to see if he could still lay down a bunt. I wish someone would show Ichiro some video of Butler and get him to try it!
To my untrained eye, two solitary singles in an inning rarely produce a run. But two singles + bunt, or two singles + SB, or single + walk + SB + bunt often will do the trick. Seeing as how our lineup can go several innings in between XBH, the bunt is a critical tool for this team, even as it remains generally counterproductive for a team like the Tigers, for example.
It’s almost like the league has a rule that your manager must have at least one major flaw in his tactical approach – you’re not allowed to hire a guy who does everything right. What a manager who doesn’t waste outs on bunts? Fine, you can choose from this guy over here who’s wedded to the closer role, or that guy over there who thinks hitting second is a skill…
Have you looked at HR rates so far this season? Teams are hitting over 1.2 HR/G. We haven’t seen that kind of gopher rate since 1996. It’s 20% more HR per game than the last two years. Whether that holds up, or whether it’s due to the ball being juiced (maybe you can hide the neddle markes with the seams) or what, playing smallball right now isn’t exactly a useful adaptation to the overall environment.
There are statistical tables about these situations, taken from game conditions. You don’t need a trained eye–you just need to look it up.
(Hint: What you expect does not actually happen in real life games)
and
I highly recommend The Book (Tom Tango occasionally comments here too, BTW). It’ll give you a good intro to the number crunching for bunts and a whole bunch of other baseball related subjects.
Thank you. I am not a fan of bunting in general – yet I love it when the M’s bunt. I would love to be disabused of this notion, so I appreciate the guidance.
The only thing I can think about this tendency is that if you don’t use it, you lose it. Or he’s establishing it now so he can play against tendencies later.
But those are just WAGs,
I’d have to agree. Unless Wak is a complete idiot I think he’s just trying to create a perception around the league that he’s not afraid to bunt and be aggressive on the basepaths. I’m sure once he creates this perception he’ll be able to use it to his advantage later in the season.
I think it is great. Too many corner infielders, ours excluded, are slow. Bunts add a wrinkle to the game. Speaking of wrinkle to the game does Jed Lowrie’s injury mean that they may be looking for some SS help? If so could we ship of Yuni for some parts?
I remember reading an interview with Waka during Spring Training where he talked about how bunting a lot can lead to the other team changing how they play defense against you to account for it, and it then opens up other holes defensively.
I did a search to try to see if I could dig it up, but didn’t have much luck…hopefully I didn’t just make it up in my head, because I think it’s an interesting idea/baseball experiment even if it isn’t successful.
I have hated the bunt ever since Earl Weaver peresuaded me that it is by and large useless, unless it takes the opposition by surprise. But I’m cool with how Wakamatsu is using it.
As pointed out upthread, if Chavez, Ichiro, Gutierrez, and maybe Cedeno are bunting, that’s fine. They have the speed to put some pressure on infielders. If Johnson bunts in a situation like last night, that’s also OK.
It’s NOT OK — ever — under ANY circumstances — to bunt with a man on second and nobody out. F-g Piniella did this often, and so did Hargrove. Lefebvre drove me crazy with it. I haven’t seen Wak do this yet, and I hope I don’t.
It’s not OK to have your big boppers bunt. I haven’t seen Branyan bunt, nor Griffey, nor Lopez, nor Beltre. I hope someone corrects me if I am mistaken. Yuni should never bunt because he is a shitty bunter. I think he has tried to bunt a couple of times, but none of the power hitters have. So I’m cool with that.
There’s no evidence that Wak wants to use this as a long term strategy. I’ll consider it strictly situation-bound until he demonstrates that it’s a habit. Then I will share Dave’s low opinion of the practice.
I was wondering the same thing. We generally consider Wak is adept at valuing defense. Perhaps he feels that opponents are either poor defenders against bunts, or that they are inherently unprepared for bunts.
That said, it sure is fun to watch.
It’s NOT OK — ever — under ANY circumstances — to bunt with a man on second and nobody out. … I haven’t seen Wak do this yet, and I hope I don’t.
You must have missed Opening Day when they won on this exact play. With the winning run on second already, it was a terrible play though it worked out perfectly.
Let’s hope Wak is bunting early to keep it in the defense’s mind and lets up on the “throttle” as the season progresses.
If Waka is still bunting when the team is losing, and the bunts are clearly unproductive, then I’ll join in the criticism. Adaptability is probably the thing I most admire about any manager: even if not successful, if he (all men in the majors so far, after all) is trying to find the best use of the resources he has (as opposed to “trying any damned thing”) he has my vote.
An interesting case was Troy Hillman in Japan. He won a pennant with a power-based offense, led by Ogasawara. but when he was lost to free-agency, Hillman moved to an almost complete smallball strategy – due to his having Darvish & Co. as well as a tremendous defense – and won another.
That’s a fine manager to me.
Might mean that he’s playing a longer game–season wide—than opposed to one game. Wonder how many managers play against the percentages in the short term, but for long term gain.
Not sure how to pick that up from the results, though.
If you’re talking about Yuni’s bunt after Gutierrez’s double that led to a throwing error and the winning run, that’s pretty much the perfect time to bunt. Bunting with a runner on second with no one out lowers the overall run expectancy, but it increases your odds of scoring at least one run. When one one run is all you need, the sac bunt is almost a no-brainer.
I’ll continue to regard the bunt with nobody out and a runner on second as a cardinal sin, thank you very much. Any American League hitter, and any National League nonpitcher who can’t hit a ball to the right side isn’t much of a hitter at all, and probably shouldn’t be in a major league lineup.
I like the bunting. It’s Wak’s way of taking matters into his own hands. If the lineup is hitting, great. Let ’em rip. If they’re all scuffling, small ball ensures at least one or two runs. As long as the pitching and defense holds up, one or two runs is enough.
The power (Lopez, Beltre, Branyan) will show up eventually. If we can win games while we’re waiting, great.
Dave,
Is it possible to write a query on the Fangraphs database to get out WPA when the M’s bunt? I think that would be an excellent quantitative measure that answers a simple question: Is the M’s bunting contributing to victories?
It doesn’t factor in the quality of the Mariner hitters who are bunting, but it ain’t bad, neither.
I think the bunting is awesome. Unorthodox, okay, sure. So what? When bunting is done well it’s one of the most important, underappreciated assets in a team’s arsenal. It makes the other team play the entire field. Most offenses only exist from 30 feet out from the plate to the back wall– infields play accordingly. Hell if Giambi could bunt, there’d never be a Giambi shift. It’s a valuable talent. And everybody should be able to do it, too. If Junior or Branyan can drop one down, the possibility of a squeeze play is a nice thorn to be able to stick the defense with when there’s a man on third and less than two outs. I like to measure strategies by results, and I have nothing to argue with right now. I love that everyone is talking about how Franklin put down that squeeze bunt last night all on his own, it wasn’t a called play. I’ve heard and read it all over the place– and other teams are gonna know about it too. It might not be the most romantic way to win games, but (just like our bullpen’s fastballs) if it keeps working, don’t change it. Play to our own strengths, right? Nice job, Wak!
Don’t need to query – FanGraphs has play logs for each player.
Chavez has two sac bunts; one gave them -0.011 WPA, the other -0.034. Gutierrez got +.040 WPA for his sacrifice/error that won the game, but then has -0.39 WPA on his other three sac bunts.
You can go through these play logs for each player, and as expected, they’re almost all negative plays. Now, given that Chavez/Johnson are below average hitters, sacrificing with them is more acceptable. Gutierrez shouldn’t be giving himself up this much, though.
I like to measure strategies by results…
You should change that. It’s a terrible way to evaluate things.
(I’ll try, Dave *laughs* But old habits die hard.)
And I forgot to add– it’s fun to get the opposing team’s pitcher caught up in playing defense and thinking about where he needs to be coming off the mound, instead of just winding up and heaving at the plate with nothing else to worry about.
Oh, you should always measure strategy by results.
As long as you have several hundred results to measure and not just the three memorable ones that stuck in your mind.
Think back to the fourth inning on Wednesday – Branyon led off the inning with a double and our #6 hitter (Lopez) sacrificed him to third. Fangraphs rates it a -.014 WPA play.
is this because in reality, Wak nows this offense in limited so it is better to score single runs and piece together 3 or four runs than go for a big inning?
it has worked so far, but it puts lots of pressure on our pitching.
Mariners not afraid to show bunt this season