There are also some OOTP meta-issues to consider. What do bunt ratings convert to inside the engine? How do strategy sliders work? How much do managers change things? And, finally, how do player strategies interact with those bigger team-goals? And that’s not getting into defense. Are some teams and players better at fielding bunts than others?
Of course, my little game log script can give us lots of insight into how teams are using the bunt.
Whether that answers any of those questions above is another story, but today I decided to have some fun with it, and see where it led.
High-Level Team Data
First and foremost, I wondered how big the differences were between team’s employment of the bunt were. So I grabbed a pivot table and created the chart below. We can see that Charlotte lead the league with 73 total bunted balls, 56 went for sacrifices, four resulted in hits. On the other end of the spectrum, Atlantic City bunted only 9 times.
So there’s the span.
How much of this is due to strategy and how much is due to situation or personnel is hard to call, but the game as played by BBA teams in 2046 resulted in teams bunting in as many as roughly half their games.
| Team | 1B | Out | FC | Sac | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte Cougars | 4 | 5 | 8 | 56 | 73 |
| Phoenix Talons | 6 | 10 | 5 | 46 | 67 |
| Sacramento Mad Popes | 4 | 6 | 8 | 36 | 54 |
| Calgary Pioneers | 7 | 8 | 2 | 32 | 49 |
| Chicago Black Sox | 10 | 10 | 6 | 20 | 46 |
| Mexico City Aztecs | 4 | 9 | 5 | 27 | 45 |
| Omaha Cyclones | 3 | 3 | 5 | 33 | 44 |
| Boise Spuds | 1 | 4 | 1 | 33 | 39 |
| Las Vegas Hustlers | 2 | 1 | 31 | 34 | |
| Madison Wolves | 4 | 3 | 27 | 34 | |
| Nashville Bluebirds | 4 | 3 | 4 | 21 | 32 |
| San Antonio Outlaws | 1 | 3 | 4 | 24 | 32 |
| Vancouver Mounties | 7 | 6 | 19 | 32 | |
| El Paso Chilis | 1 | 1 | 2 | 26 | 30 |
| New Orleans Crawdads | 4 | 3 | 23 | 30 | |
| Seattle Storm | 3 | 2 | 3 | 22 | 30 |
| Yellow Springs Nine | 1 | 7 | 22 | 30 | |
| Hawaii Tropics | 3 | 1 | 3 | 21 | 28 |
| Des Moines Kernels | 1 | 1 | 4 | 19 | 25 |
| Montreal Blazers | 2 | 1 | 2 | 20 | 25 |
| San Fernando Bears | 4 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 25 |
| Brooklyn Robins | 5 | 19 | 24 | ||
| Jacksonville Hurricanes | 4 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 23 |
| Rockville Pikemen | 3 | 1 | 6 | 13 | 23 |
| Edmonton Jackrabbits | 2 | 4 | 1 | 13 | 20 |
| Twin Cities River Monsters | 4 | 1 | 14 | 19 | |
| Louisville Sluggers | 1 | 3 | 14 | 18 | |
| Valencia Stars | 1 | 3 | 13 | 17 | |
| Portland Lumberjacks | 3 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 15 |
| Long Beach Surfers | 1 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 14 |
| Charm City Jimmies | 1 | 2 | 10 | 13 | |
| Atlantic City Gamblers | 1 | 2 | 6 | 9 |
| 1B | Out | FC | Sac | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| League | 74 | 116 | 109 | 700 | 999 |
The example of Chicago drew my eye, of course. The Black Sox led the league in bunts that fell for hits. Removing the SAC and FC column, this table suggest they hit .500 (10 hits, 10 outs) on bunt attempts. In fact, a coarse metric of Hits/(Hits + Outs) for the league suggests that the league hit .389 on bunts. My gut reaction is that (1) my script could still be missing something, but (2) it’s also possible that BBA GMs are using their players and sliders in such a way as to limit bunt for hit attempts to only those who can perform the task particularly well.
I also ponder the value of 3B or P defense in restricting the strategy—much like Catcher Arm limits steals, does a good 3B range limit bunt for hit attempts? I don’t know. A quick scan at this data sorted by Pitching team shows San Antonio gave up zero hits in seven Bunt attempts against, whereas Jacksonville allowed four hits on five bunt attempts. Random chance? Again, I don’t know.
Bunts By Inning
Looking at the same data by team and inning, we see that—overall—the league does tend to employ the bunt more often later in the game. Charlotte, in particular, seems to be quite clearly clumped between innings 5-9. Chicago’s hitters executed 10 bunts in the first tinning, Calgary nine. These are likely guys bunting for hits, but I admit I don’t really know. After Phoenix at six bunts in the first inning, no one else had more than four.
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 17 | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlantic City Gamblers | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | |||||||||
| Boise Spuds | 4 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 39 | |||||||
| Brooklyn Robins | 3 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 24 | ||||||||
| Calgary Pioneers | 9 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 49 | |||||
| Charlotte Cougars | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 24 | 8 | 15 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 73 | |||||
| Charm City Jimmies | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 13 | ||||||||
| Chicago Black Sox | 10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 46 | |||||
| Des Moines Kernels | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 25 | ||||||
| Edmonton Jackrabbits | 4 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 20 | |||||
| El Paso Chilis | 2 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 30 | ||||||
| Hawaii Tropics | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 28 | ||||||
| Jacksonville Hurricanes | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 23 | ||||||
| Las Vegas Hustlers | 2 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 3 | 34 | ||||||||
| Long Beach Surfers | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 14 | |||||
| Louisville Sluggers | 2 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 18 | |||||||
| Madison Wolves | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 34 | |||||
| Mexico City Aztecs | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 45 | ||||
| Montreal Blazers | 1 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 25 | |||||||
| Nashville Bluebirds | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 32 | ||||||
| New Orleans Crawdads | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 30 | |||||
| Omaha Cyclones | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 8 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 44 | |||||
| Phoenix Talons | 6 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 18 | 8 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 67 | |||||
| Portland Lumberjacks | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 15 | ||||||||
| Rockville Pikemen | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 23 | |||||
| Sacramento Mad Popes | 3 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 54 | ||||
| San Antonio Outlaws | 2 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 32 | ||||||
| San Fernando Bears | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 25 | |||||
| Seattle Storm | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 30 | |||||
| Twin Cities River Monsters | 3 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 19 | |||||||
| Valencia Stars | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 17 | |||||||
| Vancouver Mounties | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 32 | ||||
| Yellow Springs Nine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 30 |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 17 | All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| League | 82 | 50 | 61 | 36 | 204 | 127 | 164 | 135 | 87 | 28 | 16 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 999 |
I admit to being intrigued that the inning that saw the most attempted bunts was the 5th. I have no idea how that data maps to “real baseball” … of any era. If someone had asked, I would probably have guessed the 7th or 8th.
It’s perhaps a weird fun fact that Portland, who did not bunt much, led the league in “early bunts” with 57% of their attempts happening in the 4th or earlier.
SUMMARY … FOR NOW
I also started to get into some cuts on individual players, but that’s going to need to wait for another time. None of what I’m posting here -proves- anything about the questions I listed above, but the bottom line is that I like the overall numbers. They make me feel like it’s possible the sliders make some kind of difference, and that the difference they make allow us to control things in ways that are at least directionally sound.
