No hitter alert

[malthaussen]

12. Yes, there are a few players still who bunt.

But the number of bunts/team have distinctly declined over the years, and I don't mean compared to 1901, I mean compared to 2001. Some managers still would like to use it, but fewer players can pull it off. Bunting correctly is not easy. Just watch players try, the angle of the bat is all wrong, they don't try to deaden the ball... last year, the whole Oakland team sacrificed just 14 times, and the league leaders Miami only sacrificed 71 times. The trend has been downward for years. Two reasons: players don't like it (some exceptions apply), and SABRmetrics claims sac bunts are counter-productive. It is the latter that is most relevant to my original point, which is that sometimes managers do things that might be statistically sub-optimal, because they feel right.

-- Mal