Cedric Mullins - 30/30 ?

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I hate using the eye test because it's hard to backup with evidence, but Mullins does seem to get to a lot of baseballs that other centerfielders in the last 5 years could not get to. 

Adam Jones was good at getting to the balls within his range, but there seemed to be a lot of hits that fell for extra bases in the last few years of his Orioles career. 

Adam played CF far too long.   He was a very graceful athlete, but his speed wasn’t CF quality the last 2-3 years he was in Baltimore.   

[HowAboutThat]

19 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

Bunting could help Mateo a lot. Haven't seen him try one yet.

I don’t know why our fast guys don’t bunt for hits more. There should be plenty of scouting reports on the opposing third baseman, and when you combine those with the guy on the mound, it should be pretty easy to determine whether a good bunt would result in a hit. 

[HowAboutThat]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Who wouldn't have a 10-WAR season when the population was 5' 3", 110 lbs and thought pork fatback and unfiltered Camels was good nutrition?

They aren’t?

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, Philip said:

I don’t know why our fast guys don’t bunt for hits more. There should be plenty of scouting reports on the opposing third baseman, and when you combine those with the guy on the mound, it should be pretty easy to determine whether a good bunt would result in a hit. 

Some people just aren’t good at it.   The median number of bunt hits per team this year is 8; O’s are at 7.  The median team success rate on bunt hit attempts is 20.9%; O’s are at 21.2%.

So think about that — league OBP is about .315.   If you bunt, your OBP drops to .209, and the best you can possibly do is a single.   So, you really shouldn’t do it unless you’re way above average at it.   

Which Mullins is.   He’s tied for fourth in MLB with 4 bunt hits, and he’s 4 for 9 which works out to a .444 OBP.   Last year of course he was crazy good, 9 out of 15.   He’s bunting a lot less this year, both because infielders are crowding him and because he’s been hitting extremely well and for power, so bunting isn’t as attractive an option.   

Besides Mullins. Freddy Galvis had two bunt hits (5 attempts) and DJ Stewart had one (2 attempts).  That’s it for successful bunt hit attempts for the Orioles.   The rest of the team is 0 for 17 on bunt attempts.   But I don’t have a breakdown of who that is.
 

[sportsfan8703]

Mullins is a beast. He’s the one good thing that’s come out of all this. 

[SteveA]

29 minutes ago, Philip said:

I don’t know why our fast guys don’t bunt for hits more. There should be plenty of scouting reports on the opposing third baseman, and when you combine those with the guy on the mound, it should be pretty easy to determine whether a good bunt would result in a hit. 

Do you think our fast guys do it less than other teams' fast guys?   That seems to be the implication of your question.

Yet I don't recall it being done against us much at all this year.   Is anybody on any team doing it with any kind of frequency?   I couldn't find stats on that with a cursory Google search.

[HowAboutThat]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Some people just aren’t good at it.   The median number of bunt hits per team this year is 8; O’s are at 7.  The median team success rate on bunt hit attempts is 20.9%; O’s are at 21.2%.

So think about that — league OBP is about .315.   If you bunt, your OBP drops to .209, and the best you can possibly do is a single.   So, you really shouldn’t do it unless you’re way above average at it.   

Which Mullins is.   He’s tied for fourth in MLB with 4 bunt hits, and he’s 4 for 9 which works out to a .444 OBP.   Last year of course he was crazy good, 9 out of 15.   He’s bunting a lot less this year, both because infielders are crowding him and because he’s been hitting extremely well and for power, so bunting isn’t as attractive an option.   

Besides Mullins. Freddy Galvis had two bunt hits (5 attempts) and DJ Stewart had one (2 attempts).  That’s it for successful bunt hit attempts for the Orioles.   The rest of the team is 0 for 17 on bunt attempts.   But I don’t have a breakdown of who that is.
 

Wouldn’t those statistics include all the guys who are bunting for hits because they were told to, and not because they were good at it? I don’t remember who did it, but I remember a famous video of a player being shifted drastically to the right of the infield and he bunted up the third-base line. The exit velocity was about 45 miles an hour and he got a double

[HowAboutThat]

10 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Do you think our fast guys do it less than other teams' fast guys?   That seems to be the implication of your question.

Yet I don't recall it being done against us much at all this year.   Is anybody on any team doing it with any kind of frequency?   I couldn't find stats on that with a cursory Google search.

I haven’t done any research, but it seems like almost nobody bunts for base hits anymore. It’s swing for the fences or strike out. But as I said, given the right third baseman, the right alignment, the right guy on the mound, and a fast hitter with a good eye, Which certainly includes Mullins, and may also include Mateo(and maybe even Mountcastle because he’s very fast.) It seems like bunting should be more common.

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, Philip said:

I haven’t done any research, but it seems like almost nobody bunts for base hits anymore. It’s swing for the fences or strike out. But as I said, given the right third baseman, the right alignment, the right guy on the mound, and a fast hitter with a good eye, Which certainly includes Mullins, and may also include Mateo(and maybe even Mountcastle because he’s very fast.) It seems like bunting should be more common.

Like I posted, the O’s are just about average in both successful bunt hits and success rate.   And yes, bunt attempts are more rare than they used to be.   Just going back to 2010, the median number of successful team bunt hits was 23, compared to 8 today.  The median team success rate was about the same as today, however, about 20.8%.   Apparently in the last 11 years someone figured out that trying a move with a 20.8% success rate and very little payoff when it was successful was a stupid thing to do.    It’s interesting though that the success rate hasn’t gone up, when (1) teams are being more selective about doing it, and (2) there are so many defensive shifts where the 3B is in no position to field a bunt.   I suspect the answer is that hitters don’t do it or practice it as much so they’re less proficient when they do try it.   

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

59 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Adam played CF far too long.   He was a very graceful athlete, but his speed wasn’t CF quality the last 2-3 years he was in Baltimore.   

It was becoming apparent by 2015 that Jones would be better off playing RF except the Orioles had no legit option to play CF. 

[HowAboutThat]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Like I posted, the O’s are just about average in both successful bunt hits and success rate.   And yes, bunt attempts are more rare than they used to be.   Just going back to 2010, the median number of successful team bunt hits was 23, compared to 8 today.  The median team success rate was about the same as today, however, about 20.8%.   Apparently in the last 11 years someone figured out that trying a move with a 20.8% success rate and very little payoff when it was successful was a stupid thing to do.    It’s interesting though that the success rate hasn’t gone up, when (1) teams are being more selective about doing it, and (2) there are so many defensive shifts where the 3B is in no position to field a bunt.   I suspect the answer is that hitters don’t do it or practice it as much so they’re less proficient when they do try it.   

Just to be clear, you’re saying that given the exact same circumstances, the same player, he’s more likely to get a swinging base hit than a bunt base hit?

If that’s true, then one wonders what variable must exist to make anybody do it at all.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Cedric already has credit for hitting a double today and the game hasn't even started. 

 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Philip said:

Just to be clear, you’re saying that given the exact same circumstances, the same player, he’s more likely to get a swinging base hit than a bunt base hit?

If that’s true, then one wonders what variable must exist to make anybody do it at all.

I’m talking about the average player.   There’s just a lot of guys out there that can’t bunt.   And remember, that 21% success rate only relates to bunts in play.   It doesn’t account for bunt attempts  that merely result in a strike (either foul or missed).    

So why try it at all?   Well, they hardly do try it.   33 attempts for the O’s in 4,840 plate appearances.   Once every 150 plate appearances or so.   
   

[HowAboutThat]

24 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m talking about the average player.   There’s just a lot of guys out there that can’t bunt.   And remember, that 21% success rate only relates to bunts in play.   It doesn’t account for bunt attempts  that merely result in a strike (either foul or missed).    

So why try it at all?   Well, they hardly do try it.   33 attempts for the O’s in 4,840 plate appearances.   Once every 150 plate appearances or so.   
   

Well that kind of begs the question of parsing your statistics to exclude the guys who don’t bunt well And look at the guys who bunt for a hit as well as they swing for a hit(Or finding out the guys who come closest to bunting with success equal to swinging.)
That might be nobody, well Ichiro maybe.

And then figure out what percentage of difference makes bunting for a hit worthwhile, or gleaning whether There are particular circumstances where the percentage of success is substantially greater.

Otherwise, there’s just no point to doing it at all. And when you remove the incentive to do something that is itself exciting, you make baseball more boring.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Philip

[7Mo]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Some people just aren’t good at it.   The median number of bunt hits per team this year is 8; O’s are at 7.  The median team success rate on bunt hit attempts is 20.9%; O’s are at 21.2%.

So think about that — league OBP is about .315.   If you bunt, your OBP drops to .209, and the best you can possibly do is a single.   So, you really shouldn’t do it unless you’re way above average at it.   

Which Mullins is.   He’s tied for fourth in MLB with 4 bunt hits, and he’s 4 for 9 which works out to a .444 OBP.   Last year of course he was crazy good, 9 out of 15.   He’s bunting a lot less this year, both because infielders are crowding him and because he’s been hitting extremely well and for power, so bunting isn’t as attractive an option.   

Besides Mullins. Freddy Galvis had two bunt hits (5 attempts) and DJ Stewart had one (2 attempts).  That’s it for successful bunt hit attempts for the Orioles.   The rest of the team is 0 for 17 on bunt attempts.   But I don’t have a breakdown of who that is.
 

Earlier in the thread I was going to post "players don't bunt because it's not easy to bunt" which would have been accurate but not persuasive. 

And then I ran across this factual masterpiece. Excellent post.