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Post by BTB07 on Jul 1, 2009 14:59:26 GMT -5
Earl Weaver was ahead of his time... he valued OPS (On base plus Slugging) before it even existed... After reading "Moneyball", I found myself nodding with everything in that book... On base percentage and slugging percentage are much more important in scoring as many runs as possible than the sacrifice bunt and stolen bases.... just my opinion... but Earl Weaver had a very useful philosophy to baseball... That is interesting. I too value OBP over BA myself. A kid on the team I coach has 90 plate appearances and 15 hits (but only has 60 ABs because of BB's and Sac bunts). That makes the OBP a huge number. I can see part of that, but I really think MLB teams underutilize the bunt, especially out of the bottom part of the lineup. The 3,4,5 hitters in the MLB should not be bunting but the guys in the 7,8,9 spots do not bunt enough in my opinion. So I guess my strategy puts a emphasis on OBP, but also think that sac bunts are incredibly important.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2009 15:18:15 GMT -5
The premise of Moneyball (which has swayed my philosophy a bit) is that a sacrifice is way overvalued... b/c of the fact that you have to give up an out to not score a runner... I can understand and agree with that (to an extent)... if the situation calls for one run to win or tie the game, then I'm all for sacrificing the runner over... but only in that scenario....
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Post by BTB07 on Jul 1, 2009 15:22:17 GMT -5
The premise of Moneyball (which has swayed my philosophy a bit) is that a sacrifice is way overvalued... b/c of the fact that you have to give up an out to not score a runner... I can understand and agree with that (to an extent)... if the situation calls for one run to win or tie the game, then I'm all for sacrificing the runner over... but only in that scenario.... Too many teams still choose not to sacrifice bunt even when the situation calls for it (as the one you described). But I also think it is a little underutilized in the bottom of orders. When a runner gets on base for the bottom of the lineup, why not sacrifice the guy over so it only takes one hit to score him instead of two? Maybe I am too old school (evidence in the WS threads where I called for bunts quite often, to no avail), but I really think it would prevent innings where the leadoff guy gets on...then is left stranded there and putting no pressure on the defense at all, or the pitcher for that fact (them showing you that they can field a bunt as a pitcher, can be an important aspect of the game).
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Post by BTB07 on Jul 1, 2009 15:30:21 GMT -5
I guess I should add that productive outs have to factor into the equation as well. I know those are important to the A's.
So hitting backside to get a runner over, and bunting are fairly similar not necessarily in execution but in result.
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Post by scuzz on Jul 2, 2009 17:21:17 GMT -5
I read Moneyball several years ago but the arguement was made (and backed up by facts collected by sabrematricians, there term, not mine) that outs were the most important thing in baseball and that as a result you should never give up an out.
Therefore sacrificing was overvalued. On base percentage was king.
The book does make a very good arguement. Theo Epstein of the Red Sox is supposedly a disciple of that way of thinking.
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