Holding Down the Sacrifice

As promised I posted a few refinements and explanation on my article Not So Sweet Surrender in a new article titled Sacrificing in 2005 Redux over at THT.

Probably the most interesting conclusion there was that pitchers sacrifice percentages are almost 20% lower than position players. However, when you take into account the low percentage attempts with two strikes which result in strikeouts 70% of the time, the difference shrinks to around 7 to 8%. One interested reader pointed out that while this difference might be mostly due to the fact that pitchers simply don't bunt as well, it may also be that defenses play more aggressively when a pitcher is in a sacrifice situation. The third and first baseman sometimes are sitting right on top of the pitcher when he bunts, turning any sub-optimal bunt into a potential force out or double play. That makes a great deal of sense to me.

To pretty much wrap up this subject and get on with other things, I took a look at the sacrifice percentage against pitchers in the 2003-2005 period. What follows are those pitchers who had 20 or more attempts against them and the percentage of successful sacrifices.

                        Att    Succ     Pct
John Thomson             22      21   0.955
Sidney Ponson            20      19   0.950
Jamie Moyer              27      25   0.926
Roberto Hernandez        23      21   0.913
Mark Buehrle             23      21   0.913
Tim Hudson               34      31   0.912
Rick White               21      19   0.905
Shawn Chacon             31      28   0.903
Eric Milton              20      18   0.900
Jae Seo                  36      32   0.889
CC Sabathia              26      23   0.885
David Wells              25      22   0.880
Vicente Padilla          32      28   0.875
Kenny Rogers             24      21   0.875
Tom Glavine              47      41   0.872
Bartolo Colon            23      20   0.870
Greg Maddux              53      46   0.868
Shawn Estes              45      39   0.867
Barry Zito               30      26   0.867
Kyle Lohse               22      19   0.864
Freddy Garcia            22      19   0.864
Matt Morris              38      32   0.842
Cory Lidle               43      36   0.837
Ismael Valdez            24      20   0.833
Brad Radke               29      24   0.828
Jim Brower               23      19   0.826
Salomon Torres           22      18   0.818
David Weathers           22      18   0.818
Mike Maroth              32      26   0.813
Kip Wells                37      30   0.811
Nate Robertson           21      17   0.810
Jon Lieber               21      17   0.810
Wilson Alvarez           20      16   0.800
Jake Westbrook           20      16   0.800
Glendon Rusch            35      28   0.800
Byung-Hyun Kim           20      16   0.800
Jeff Suppan              39      31   0.795
Derek Lowe               34      27   0.794
Paul Wilson              29      23   0.793
Todd Jones               24      19   0.792
Jason Jennings           37      29   0.784
Brett Myers              32      25   0.781
Horacio Ramirez          36      28   0.778
Esteban Loaiza           27      21   0.778
Aaron Harang             40      31   0.775
Jon Garland              31      24   0.774
Wayne Franklin           26      20   0.769
Julian Tavarez           21      16   0.762
John Lackey              21      16   0.762
Jeff Fassero             21      16   0.762
Chris Capuano            29      22   0.759
Carl Pavano              29      22   0.759
Odalis Perez             41      31   0.756
Mike Hampton             32      24   0.750
Luis Ayala               20      15   0.750
Jerome Williams          32      24   0.750
Hideo Nomo               36      27   0.750
Chris Carpenter          20      15   0.750
Josh Fogg                31      23   0.742
Jeff Weaver              31      23   0.742
Brandon Backe            23      17   0.739
Kevin Millwood           42      31   0.738
Brian Lawrence           38      28   0.737
Curt Schilling           26      19   0.731
Kazuhisa Ishii           35      25   0.714
Joe Kennedy              21      15   0.714
Roy Oswalt               48      34   0.708
Andy Pettitte            24      17   0.708
Woody Williams           41      29   0.707
Steve Trachsel           30      21   0.700
Brett Tomko              40      28   0.700
Kris Benson              23      16   0.696
Livan Hernandez          52      36   0.692
Randy Wolf               29      20   0.690
Miguel Batista           29      20   0.690
Mark Redman              45      31   0.689
Mark Mulder              35      24   0.686
Jason Schmidt            35      24   0.686
Giovanni Carrara         22      15   0.682
Claudio Vargas           22      15   0.682
Carlos Silva             25      17   0.680
Jason Johnson            28      19   0.679
Adam Eaton               34      23   0.676
Josh Beckett             37      25   0.676
Javier Vazquez           37      25   0.676
Jake Peavy               27      18   0.667
Carlos Zambrano          50      33   0.660
Oliver Perez             29      19   0.655
Doug Davis               49      32   0.653
Elmer Dessens            23      15   0.652
Kirk Rueter              37      24   0.649
Brandon Webb             54      35   0.648
Tim Redding              34      22   0.647
Al Leiter                45      29   0.644
Matt Clement             28      18   0.643
Ben Sheets               39      25   0.641
Kevin Brown              25      16   0.640
Mark Prior               36      23   0.639
Russ Ortiz               33      21   0.636
Randy Johnson            30      19   0.633
Kerry Wood               30      19   0.633
Noah Lowry               24      15   0.625
Dontrelle Willis         40      25   0.625
AJ Burnett               24      15   0.625
Roger Clemens            34      21   0.618
Tomo Ohka                31      19   0.613
Brad Penny               28      17   0.607
Jason Marquis            22      10   0.455

Perusing the list you can probably tell that there are more soft tossers in the top half and more hard throwers in the bottom. This is in fact borne out when you split the list into two groups. In one group put those who had a percentage of .75 and higher and in the other those with lower than .75 and you get.

             Count   Pct   K/9  BB/9
High Sac Pct    58  .825  5.82  2.60
Low Sac Pct     50  .670  6.85  2.80

The difference between strikeout rates climbs when you make the cutoffs >=.85 and < .65 where they are 7.24 and 6.03 respectively.

This squares with our common sense expectation. Among the many other benefits of a 94mph fastball is that it makes it more difficult for hitters to lay down bunts.