Fangraphs did a whole thing on this years ago. Your chances of scoring with a runner on 1st with no outs and bunting is LESS than if you swing away (and that includes NL pitchers).

 

Bunting is 98.9% stupid.

 

It's never good to give up an out (which is to say: a chance to score)

 

Exceptions:

 

Suicide bunt to win a game

Infield playing a shift (think: Jim Thome bunting around 3rd base)

 

Other than that: why would you give up chances to score?

 

 

This sounds great in theory but you need to look at who's hitting. If you have a team that strikes out a lot, and you can't hit (aka the Sox), bunting makes sense. It's all context.

This sounds great in theory but you need to look at who's hitting. If you have a team that strikes out a lot, and you can't hit (aka the Sox), bunting makes sense. It's all context.

 

Sox can't bunt either.

 

A base stealer should just...steal bases.

 

What does bunting have to do with it?

 

And scoring from 3rd with outs is statisically harder than scoring from 1st or 2nd in EVERY SITUATION.

 

Fact.

Maybe I'm missing what you're saying but that doesn't make sense. Are you saying it's harder to score a guy from 3rd with one out than it is from 1st or 2nd with 1 out?

I'm pretty sure he means the number of runs scored probability is higher with hitting away at runners at 1st and 2nd no outs (three hitters swinging away), than with 1 out and runners at 2nd and 3rd.

 

 

I'm pretty sure he means the number of runs scored probability is higher with hitting away at runners at 1st and 2nd no outs (three hitters swinging away), than with 1 out and runners at 2nd and 3rd.

 

Right.

 

I'll see if I can find a link to that write up. I want to say it was from 2012 or 13 and they took an entire season with all teams as a sample to crunch the data.