The tyranny of the sacrifice fly

Factual Questions
1

Checked out the Cardinals’ stats this AM and saw something you don’t see every day.

Catcher Eli Marrero’s batting average is .320. His on-base percentage is .308.

How can this be, you ask? Every hit increases BA and OBP. Other things push up OBP while nothing else boosts BA. Ergo OBP will always be at least as large as BA? Right? Must be a typo.

Not so. Going to the definitions makes clear what is going on but raises other points.

Batting average = Hits/At Bats

Slugging percentage = (Hits + Walks + Hit by Pitch)/(At Bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Flies)

Eli has 8 hits in 25 at bats, has not walked, has not been hit by a pitch, and has 1 sac fly.

Do the math.

To my mind this is just another example of the strange concept known as the sac fly.

First of all why do sac flies even exist? Why aren’t SFs treated like any other failed at bat? They’re not at all like sac hits. On SHs the batter says in effect, “I want to make an out, because by so doing I will advance a team mate closer to home. To that end I will use what skill I have to position the ball in such a way that there will be no play on the base runner. If I succeed I will return to the dugout happy in my out-making ability, prepared to accept high 5’s and fanny pats as my due, for I have increased my team’s chances of scoring, and therefore, of winning.”

The sac fly is different. No batter comes up thinking “OK, time to hit one to the track. I want to get the ball in the air, because otherwise I might get a hit, so I should be upper-cutting, and I don’t want to hit it too far, because there’s the chance it’ll leave the park, so I need to hit the ball just so.”

We recognize the intent behind the SH by not counting it as an AB. We treat the SF the same despite the completely accidental nature of the event.

We rightfully honor the excellent bunter. No one exalts the good sac fly guy. There’s a reason you never hear someone say “Bubba LaCroce is the best sac fly man in the game”.

Then there’s the arbitrary nature of how we apply SF rules. Renteria on 2nd, Edmonds scorches one to right center that gets hauled in. Renteria goes to 3rd on the play. An out for Emonds and his BA and OBP drop. Pujols sends one to the wall in left and Renteria lopes home. Pujols’ BA is unaffected but his OBP goes down. What did Pujols do that Edmonds failed to do? Why should his out be scored differently from Edmonds’?

Who led the majors in sac flies last year? Who’s the lifetime leader? Who knows? Who cares? Count the damn thing for what it is and stop pretending it results from the exercise of a skill.

Then Eli’s OBP would be what it should be, .320.

2

Y’know, if Eli would just take a walk every now and then, you wouldn’t care.

Anyway, Sac Flies are there to explain how runners advance on a fly out, especially when they score. I don’t know what makes them any different than a fielder’s choice, but if you really want to fight against the “tyranny” of an unfair stat, rage against the error: punish the hitter for getting on base!

3

The record for sacrifice flies in a season is 19 by Gil Hodges in 1954. The AL record is held jointly by Roy White in 1971 and Bobby Bonilla in 1996 with 17.

The alltime leader in sac flies is Robin Yount with 123, Hank Aaron had 121 and George Brett had 120.

Several players have had 3 sac flies in one game. The Yankees had 3 sac flies in one INNING last year against the Angels. (It’s still a sac fly even if the outfielder drops the ball.)

Cal Ripken leads active players with 119. Yount’s record could fall this year!! However, Cal hasn’t had at least 5 sac flies in a season since 1997.

When Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941, there was no sacrifice fly rule.

It has come and gone throughout baseball’s history, but it’s likely to stay because players like the opportunity to have a higher BA.

If you are working on a hitting streak and you come into a game as a pinch hitter and get a sac fly, the streak is over. It’s not if you get a walk or a hit batter or reach on interference.

4

I’ve never heard of a sacrifice hit. Isn’t a hit a hit? or are you refering to the bunt?

If you count his SF as an out therefore an AB,his BA would be .308 ( 8 for 26), same as his OBP.

5

Sorry that should read ‘sacrifice bunt’.

6

Well, to pick a nit so as not to confuse some of our readers, that should be OBP =, not Slugging percentage.

Slugging percentage = (Singles + 2 x Doubles + 3 x Triples + 4 x HR)/ At Bats, but I’m sure you knew that.

7

Sacrifice flies aren’t necessarily accidental. A batter may try to hit it deep, knowing it probably won’t go out, but that the runner can score. It’s easier to hit a deep fly than to hit it out, so this gives a chance to score a run.

They differ from a fielder’s choice because with the FC, the fielders have . . . a choice. They choose to get the batter out, but they could have chosen to get the runner. In a sac fly, the fielder has no options, other than to try to catch the runner at the plate.

8

There is a great deal of debate though about whether or not batters are more likely to hit deep fly balls with runners on third and less than two outs. The sacrifice fly rule would make sense if you could prove that some players were particularly adept at the skill.

However, the leaders in the category share only two common factors: longevity and playing for teams with good offenses.

9

BobT, thanks for the seasonal and all-time info. Do you mind giving your source?

CBEscapee, sac hit = sac bunt. Some bunts are not sac hits.

Flymaster, you noticed what happens when I proof only twice. 3 or 4 more times and I might have caught that error.

RealityChuck, sure, a guy might try to hit a deep fly to get a run in, just like he tries to get a hit everytime up. I just don’t think the effect of his trying increases the chances of the sac fly happenning. But if you’re right and there is skill involved, shouldn’t we then broaden the definition to include Edmonds’ effort in my example?

10

There is no such thing as a sac hit. Some bunts are basehits. Sac bunts advance a runner but result in an out. If the runner the batter is trying to advance is put out it’s not a sac bunt and is scored as a fielder’s choice.

11

When the runner is on 3rd with fewer than 2 outs, the batter does often try to hit the ball in the air. Remember, even the best hitters make an out 7 times out of 10. Getting a fly ball is a much easier task than getting a hit.

With a runner on 2nd, the batter is most of the time going to try to get a hit, which would score a run. Even if he hits a ground out(assuming there are fewer than 2 outs), the runner will still likely make it to 3rd base (In the Braves game i’m watching at the moment, there was a runner on 1st, no outs and the pitcher was preparing to bunt him over when the pitcher balked. With the runner on 2nd now, the pitcher was swinging away. He hit a groundball to Short advancing the runner. The next batter then sacrificed him in.)

12

You can poke around on the web and find different sites that have certain records. For this one, I had to use a book along with verifying the info through CNNSI.com which has an excellent set of historical statistics.

13

CBEscapee said:

I doubt the point’s worth arguing. If you say sac bunts I’ll know what you’re talking about.

Most (all?) stat listings use SH for sac hits to distinguish from SB for stolen bases. Look here and here.

BobT, I found a career listing at mlb.com but the sort feature doesn’t work and the totals appear wrong. I’ll check out cnnsi.

BTW, Eli went 1 for 3 last night: BA .321, OB .310.

14

I’ll bet if you take a poll of major leaguers, you’ll find the following:

With less than 2 outs and a runner on 3rd, the batter is trying to hit the ball in the air to the outfield. No one wants to bounce a one-hopper to short and have the run not score. The manager will tend to swat you about the head and neck if this happens and you tell the manager you were trying to get a hit. Every major league manager will trade a run for an out in this situation.

With less than 2 outs and a runner on 2nd, the batter should be trying to get a hit, preferably to the right side. The runner has a better chance to advance on a ground out or a fly out if it’s hit to the right side. Getting the runner to third allows the runner to score in many different ways, including a sac fly, a slow gounder, a wild pitch, a passed ball, a balk, etc.

This is pretty basic baseball strategy - what some might call “small ball”. The @#$!ing Yankees hitters are exceptional at situational hitting, and it’s a big reason they’ve won 4 out of the last 5 World Series. My Bravos have been terrible at it, and look even worse at it this year.

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.

15

[hijack]

Yup. Just look at my Mariners. Lose their big-money superstars, go back to blue-collar team ball, and scamper away with the division. Yeah, okay, it’s only April, way too early to be making predictions – maybe they won’t win another game all year. But for now at least, the M’s are basically teaching a class in the virtue of small ball, a run here a run there, move the man along type of play.

[/hijack]

Cool thread, by the way.

16

Unnecessary disclaimer: I have never played professional or semi-pro baseball, but I am a fan of “sabermetrics”, i.e. “The Hidden Game of Baseball” by Palmer and Thorn.

I don’t think it is so self-evidenct that the batter should be trying to do anything other than take his best damn swing at the ball in either situation, perhaps with two exceptions:

  1. If it’s the bottom of the ninth and a tie game; or
  2. If he really has enough bat control to hit the ball to the right side without otherwise impairing his swing.

A fundamental theme of Palmer/Thorn’s book is that the “fundamental baseball” strategies are too short-sighted; that managers are always trying to obtain the “perfect” scenario but losing sight of the big picture. Palmer/Thorn (or was it Bill James?) ran a marvelous article in the early 1980s demonstrating that managers actually screwed up their lineup by following the traditional “put your best hitter third and your sluggo fifth”. The short version of the thesis being that “conventional wisdom” played for the big first inning, i.e. everybody get on base so sluggo can hit the grand slam. In fact, the most important indicator of an inning’s sucess is whether the leadoff man gets on base. By setting up a lineup as above, your great hitter bats third (where he will never lead off the second inning) and your low on-base sluggo (a Rob Deer-type) bats fifth and, in those “rare” (sarcasm) first innings where everyone doesn’t get on base, sluggo often leads off the second. A long digression, but . . .

In either sugesstion above, what the writer is advocating is a strategy that, if sucessful (absent the odd homer on the fly ball and the “tweener” on the grounder) is functionally equivalent to a bunt – giving up a base for an out. As stated earlier, if it’s a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, fine. But otherwise, unless someone shows me some evidence to the contrary, I’m going to stick with thinking that the best thing you can do is hit, hit, hit.

17

Make that “giving up an out for a base”.

As they say, “if you play for one run, that’s what you will get.”

18

Regarding lineup order, computer simulations have shown that over the course of a season, you could pick the batting order of the 8 or 9 players randomly and you would come out with the same number of runners scored over the course of a year. I believe that study was done by Bill James.

The other lineup fallacy is that the #2 hitter should be able to “do the little things”, like play hit and run and sacrifice. James and Palmer and Thorn believe that it is better to have a #2 hitter who is a lot like the #1 hitter, i.e. someone who gets on base a lot.

19

This is one jumping off point for more unusual baseball records

This is a link to the alltime leader in Sac Flies in the AL

http://www.baseballimmortals.net/Statistics/Career--AL/sf.htm

The overall leader links don’t seem to work.

20

Makes no sense to me, either.

In the 1987 season, Vince Coleman, then of the Cardinals, had a game in which he hit 3 sac flies. The third came in the top of the ninth with the Cardinals trailing by two. (They lost by one.) Real helpful, huh? But he got off the hook where at bats were concerned.

Later that same year, his teammate Jose Oquendo came up in the ninth of a tie game and bounced into a fielder’s choice at second, the winning run coming home from third on the same play. The opposition was trying for the DP and didn’t get it; IIRC, they didn’t have a play at the plate. Oquendo’s out was a game winner, but he got charged with an at bat. Bizarre, I thought then, and bizarre, I still think now.

Helps the power hitters over the speed demons, though, Vincent Van Go notwithstanding.