Sacrifice Bunting in the Postseason

[Michael Davis]

This is based completely on observation, so I may be wrong, and the hardcore baseball people can correct me.

It seems that managers try the sacrifice bunt WAY more often in the postseason. Now, this may partially be explained by the premium that good pitching places on individual runs, and perhaps they are worth more in the postseason than the regular season.

But, I am not so sure. I think they should either be bunting more in the regular season, or less in the postseason. That there is in my eyes a large discrepancy here doesn't make sense.

-Michael

[bugstud]

yeah, because everyone thinks that postseason baseball is so much different...it's not. Just a smaller sample size.

[ftball0000]

In my opinion, I agree with your statement on runs being at a premium (Good pitching beats good hitting). Therefore generally speaking you will face better pitching in the playoffs and runs will be scarce. So therefore sacrificing outs to acquire runs isn't as bad an idea as in the regular season when you are facing bad pitchers half the time.

This is the thinking by Bobby Cox, by his use of smallball against the Astros. If Bobby Cox thinks his pitching staff can hold the Astros to 3 runs for the game, then he thinks that if he has a greater chance of scoring 4 runs (but a smaller chance of scoring 7 runs) and therefore winning the game, by using smallball he will do it.

Now if you believe in smallball or not is another story, I am a D-3 college baseball player so I paly a totally different game than the pros, but I think that there are situations where playing for 1 run is correct. Especally if you have players that are not HR hitters.

I hope this helps,
-Ftball

[andyfox]

The problem with playing for only one run is that, if you'r successful, that's all you get. In the second Yankees/Twins game, for example, the Twins sacrificed early in the game with a man on first base and nobody out. Then they ended up scoring the man when the next batter got a hit. Joe Morgan said something to the effect of see how good that is. But they gave up an out. Maybe if the sacrificer got a base hit they would have had a big inning, rather than just one run.

The Yankees did it later in the game, in the 7th inning. But that gave them a 5-3 lead with Gordon and Rivera to protect it. It didn't work out, but I think late in the game, there are some situations where playing for one run is fine. But to do it early is ridiculous.

[Michael Davis]

Interesting. With aluminum bats, I would suspect the times to play for one run would be extremely rare.

-Michael

[Roy Munson]

I played D1 college ball in the early 80's and the only time we played for 1 run was in the last or extra inning of a 1 run game.

I don't follow today's college game but in those days most teams batted over .300. As a former pitcher my biggest goal was to exit the game alive. Some of the shots that would come up the middle were harrowing and not all of them were avoidable.