(670 The Score) Baseball is an untimed game, its length governed only by outs. You get 27 of them, and if you can avoid making that last one you can, theoretically, score an infinite number of runs.
That's what we understand about the significance of on-base percentage, its function as a measurement of not being out. If everyone in the lineup has a high OBP, it means considerably fewer outs and then inherently more runs. It also means making an out on purpose is a gift to an opponent, serving the additional purpose of taking away your own opportunity to do more on offense.
There remain rare and very specific times and places in which a bunt might make some kind of sense, but White Sox manager Ricky Renteria is continuing to manage his teams in the dark ages.
Now in his third season on the South Side, Renteria has a total sacrifice bunt Rate+ of 144 over 385 games. The statistic is a simple ratio of league-adjusted frequency, a manager's sac bunt rate divided by the league rate to make 100 exact average. Think of this in the same way you OPS+, ERA+, wRC+ and the like, knowing that every point below or above 100 is a percentage differential. Renteria directing White Sox, then, is calling for intentional outs 44 percent more than the rest of the league.
And he's at 183 in 2019 -- or doing so a whopping 83 percent more often than his peers.
It has to stop.
Contrast this with the career sac bunt Rate+ of some other managers with well-established track records of run production: the Red Sox's Alex Cora at 87, the Yankees' Aaron Boone at 88, the Dodgers' Dave Roberts at 68 and the Astros' AJ Hinch at 74. There's a way to do this.
And it's bothersome in the micro, too. On Wednesday, Renteria decided to have Ryan Cordell try to bunt Tim Anderson to second with nobody out in the ninth inning in Washington. The attempt failed as the Nationals retired Anderson as the lead, reducing the White Sox's Win Expectancy by 8.2 percent. What's even more maddening was the idea of playing for a single run in a tie game on the road, not to mention one the home team would then go on to win by two as if rubbing it in.
The Nationals' official Twitter feed did just that.
Don't bunt, hunt walk-offs.(This is Trea Turner's 3rd career #walkoff HR.) pic.twitter.com/BIp3ScJ6uY
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) June 5, 2019And even if the bunt were "successful," it still reduces run expectancy that adds up to Win Expectancy, with more runs expected from a runner on first with no outs than one on second with one out.
When Renteria managed the Cubs in 2014, his sac bunt Rate+ was just 90. Why do you think that was?
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in middays. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein.
