The team’s solid play at the end of 2009 was a refreshing bookend to a season that saw a strong first half (14 games above .500 at one point) followed by a very deep canyon during the summer.

Throughout the season, a few players were able to soldier on rather consistently and help give the birds a shot at the playoffs. In fact, three players were so good at performing their roles that they ended up at the very top of the league.

Most wins:

Shohei Tateyama (no. 25) with 16 wins (an honor he shares with Chunichi’s Yoshimi). 2009 was the first year that he led the league in wins. Tateyama threw 188 1/3 innings for the birds which was good enough for fourth in the Central behind Yoshimi (189 1/3), Yokohama’s Miura (195 1/3), and Tokyo’s Ishikawa (198 1/3). He also tied Yoshimi for the league lead with three games in which he didn’t concede a walk. Tateyama tied for ninth in the league with 126 strikeouts (Hiroshima’s Lewis took the honors with 186 K’s). He finished out the year with a 16-6 record, and a 3.39 ERA. Look for the Tokyo ace to be on the mound tonight versus the Chunichi Dragons in game one of the first round of the Climax Series.

Most steals:

Kazuki Fukuchi (no. 3) with 42 steals. This is the second year in a row that Fukuchi has come out on top in the criminality department. Like his victory in 2008, Fukuchi swiped 42 bags. This year, however, it took him 137 games to do so as opposed to 131 last year–possibly due to a drop in production at the plate (.366 OBP in 2008; .310 in 2009). Hopefully Fukuchi can get on base a little more often in the playoffs and give the opposition catchers some headaches.

On Base Percentage (OBP):

Norichika Aoki (no. 23) led the league with a .400 OBP this season. This is absolutely phenomenal when you think about the start of the season when he could only get to first care of walks or beanballs. He didn’t really start hitting until July! Aoki carried the team during the final two months of the season, and they wouldn’t have made it to the playoffs without him. His ability to get on base naturally led to him ending up at the top of the runs scored standings. Along with Yomiuri’s Sakamoto and Chunichi’s Blanco, Aoki crossed home plate 87 times this season. He also notched 66 rbi’s this season while improving at hitting with runners in scoring position (.277 BA in 2008; .307 in 2009). Accordingly, don’t be too surprised if you see him batting fourth this evening. In 16 games at cleanup this season, Aoki hit .429 and amassed 12 rbi’s (3 home runs). He is, without a doubt, the most dangerous bat in the Tokyo lineup. If Aoki hits well at Nagoya Dome, the team should have a good chance of making it to Yomiuri Land next week.

The Tokyo Swallows are now 7.5 games behind the first place Giants.

A lot of things aren’t clicking at the moment: the starting pitching has had several glitches; the 24-7 small-ball strategy hasn’t been generating many runs; the relievers are beginning to show some signs of overuse; and Takada has returned to last year’s habit of meddling with the lineup when the game is close.

But rather than focus on all those problems, let’s take a moment to look at how the starting lineup has been performing offensively so far during the second half.

The starting lineup (excluding the pitcher) has generally looked something like this over the past 12 games:

1. Aoki
2. Tanaka
3. Fukuchi
4. D’Antona
5. Guiel
6. Miyamoto
7. Aikawa
8. Kawashima

Aoki has actually been moved back to third in the order recently, and he has split time at left and center (switching back and forth with Fukuchi). Otherwise, everyone else listed here has pretty much stayed in their normal spot both on the field and in the batting order.

With the exception of Miyamoto (due to injury), everyone has started in at least 10 of the 12 games played so far (the numbers discussed here only reflect at-bats from games that the players started). It’s pretty safe to say that these are the regular guys for Tokyo.

Lighting it up

D’Antona is leading the way on offense without a doubt. He’s had 18 hits, including two home runs, and tallied nine rbi’s since the break. He’s also added three walks to help him boast a .383 batting average (avg.) and .420 on base percentage (OBP).

Kawashima has had a nice run of late. He’s hitting .333/.378 while driving in five runs, drawing three walks, and collecting 14 hits (including one homer).

Aoki is also playing well right now. He’s had three rbi’s and six walks to complement his 15 hits (one home run). His .319 avg. and .396 OBP have been very helpful.

Productive

Guiel hasn’t been hitting the ball very often (only six hits), but he’s been getting on base. He has been beaned three times and walked five to help his OBP stay at .333. He’s also driven in six runs off of his six hits (one homer), so he’s obviously getting things done when guys are on base bespite his 12-game .176 avg.

Tanaka is way better than his numbers indicate, but he spends a disproportionate amount of time bunting and losing chances to collect hits compared to the other guys on the team (Tanaka leads the league with 31 sac bunts thus far). He had 10 hits and drove in four runs while compiling a .263 avg. His OBP is .333 thanks to the four walks that he drew. He is by far the most under-utilized bat in the order.

Miyamoto has been a steady contributor, as always, to the Tokyo offense. He’s had 10 hits (one home run), one walk, and three rbi’s. He’s also sporting .294/.314 vitals. Congratulations go out to the Miyamoto household as they celebrated the birth of their fourth child, a baby girl, on the eighth of this month!

Yikes!

Aikawa has been having a rough time at the plate. He’s had 10 hits, but at the same time he’s only drawn a single walk. His numbers, .200/.220, show that he might benefit from some more patience at the plate (ie. try to draw more walks).

Fukuchi has done almost nothing at the plate over the last 12 games. To illustrate: in the third game last week versus Yokohama, he struck out four times! He has reached base only eight times, seven hits and one plunking, and recorded only two rbi’s despite Kawashima, Aoki, and Tanaka’s rather decent OBP’s. Fukuchi has gone 0-12 in his last three starts and that is part of the reason why he has a .163 avg. and a .182 OBP.

Conclusion

So there you have it. A couple of guys are slumping at the moment, but the team as a whole isn’t in terribly bad shape. The weak links, Fukuchi and Aikawa, will hopefully pick it up a bit (especially Aikawa since the team doesn’t have a viable replacement), and the rest of the team will keep the team competitive so long as they generate a few extra runs and make sure that Takada stays in his seat.

The big worry is that Fukuchi has been hitting like a pitcher, and that’s basically why he lost his spot in the starting lineup during the first and third games versus Yomiuri.

However, if Fukuchi’s plate appearances have been so unproductive, then why was Tanaka continually asked to bunt? Why waste an out when Fukuchi’s OBP is sub-.200? This is perhaps more evidence that Takada neither cares for nor understands sabremetrics.

Moreso than in years past, we can be reasonably confident that the pitching coach will sort out some of the complications with the rotation and bullpen and help protect leads. This should take some of the pressure off of the offense and allow them to play the way that they did during the beginning of the season.

And because of the absence of a DH, the pitcher often has to hit. You can occasionally find guys that know how to swing a baseball bat, but in general the pitcher is an easy out. Therefore, most would agree that it’s better to move the runner over than to waste an out (an “unproductive out”, if you will) on a strikeout or a pop-fly.

And then there’s the most-annoying-case scenario: the pitcher hits into a double play, and the team is in worse shape than if he had simply struck out!

But the simple answer to the title of this article is: it depends on who’s doing the bunting.

Like most avid baseball fans, we here at Tsubamegun don’t get too upset about pitchers being told to sacbunt. However, we do get pretty riled up when a guy like Hiroyasu Tanaka is asked to.

Aoki’s on first with no outs? Great, sac bunt! (how many times have we seen that this season?)

The big problem, of course, is that Tanaka is not a pitcher.

Not that Tanaka can’t bunt, because he definitely can, but why would you want a hitter with a .343 on-base percentage (OBP) to play against the odds and ensure that the team is that much closer to not scoring a run?!

And fair enough, there are definitely late inning, tight game situations where the team desperately needs to manufacture a single run, and one method of doing that is to sacrifice bunt.

But it must be kept in mind that bunting in such a situation doesn’t actually increase the team’s chances of scoring a run. Every out brings the end of the inning/game closer, and therefore outs have been shown to be an extremely valuable commodity.

See, there are these things called Expected Runs Matrices that have been around for years, and they consistently demonstrate that having a man on first with no outs is statistically closer to scoring a run than having a man on second with one out. It’s that simple. Not that our manager, Takada, is paying attention, however.

And that is where the sac bunt is used the most often (no outs; man on first)–just like in the Aoki-Tanaka situation mentioned above.

I mentioned yesterday that it might be about time to revisit this topic, and in the unending spirit of producing advice and data that Takada neither cares about nor understands, here are the results of some number-crunching that I did this evening.

Method

Building on the idea that sacrifice bunts with no outs and a man on first rarely lead to a run being scored, and all of the moaning that I did in my sac bunting report from last year, I wanted to find a more simplified way to analyze the idiocy that several NPB managers adhere to. Our own Shigeru Takada ordered no less than eight sac bunts over the last two days, and only one of them was carried out by a pitcher!

A quick look at the circumstances surrounding those eight giveaway outs shows that no runs scored as a direct result of them. They were indeed wasted and ultimately unproductive outs.

However, two measly games does not provide nearly enough data to back up my central point: bunting with no outs and a man on first is nearly always a bad idea. So I decided to do some quick counting on all of the NPB games that have been played since the All-Star break last month. In all, I analyzed 34 baseball games of nine or more innings (which is still not enough to unequivocally support my thesis, but anyway…).

My goal was to see how many runs could be expected to cross home plate as a direct result of a sac bunt. All bunts mentioned in this survey were with no outs and a man on first base. In some situations there were multiple men on base, but this was the exception rather than the rule. The only times that the influence of a sac bunt was negated was when a triple or home run cleared the bases and cancelled the idea that the bunt was a “productive out”.

At the same time, I also gauged how often managers opted to let their hitters swing away with a man on first and no outs. A common reason for instituting the sac bunt is to avoid a double play, so I kept track of double plays as well. Furthermore, I tallied how many runs were scored in innings where sac bunts were not employed.

Because of the DH rule, bunts are a bit fewer and farther between in the Pacific League (23 to the Central League’s 34). However, there were still plenty of them to go around. It should also be noted that I did not attempt to control for fielding errors or other such anomalies that might artificially inflate the number of runs scored. Therefore, it is probably safe to say that this analysis is being quite generous in its consideration of how productive sac bunts have been since the end of July.

Results

There were 57 bunts in the 34 games that I sifted through. Each of them came with no outs and a man on first base, and a total of 14 runs scored following the bunt being laid down. This accounts for roughly 0.23 runs crossing home plate per bunt.

This compares unfavorably with the relative run value of the decision not to bunt in the same situation. There were a total of 156 instances where a man was on first with no outs, and the manager did not call for a sac bunt. I will call these situations, in acknowledgment of the common fear, double play opportunities (DPOs).

As can be expected, a chunk of those DPOs did actually end with the worst-case scenario. Double plays were turned on 20 occasions, accounting for 13% of all DPOs. While double plays are definitely a momentum shifter, it’s difficult to see how a 13% chance of something happening is scary enough to pass up on Tanaka’s 34% OBP. Miyamoto, another Tokyo player frequently called upon to bunt, has an OBP of 33%. In fact, there isn’t a single hitter (with at least 20 at-bats this season) on the the Tokyo Swallows first team that has an OBP lower than 13% (or .130 in baseball lingo).

I’m obviously simplifying things here, but it’s not that hard to see why we might want to limit sac bunts to players who can’t control the strike zone (and draw a walk) or swing a bat effectively.

Aside from the double plays that were actually turned, there were obviously many other outs recorded. However, 101 runs scored from those 156 DPOs. That works out to a simplified run expectancy of about 0.65 runs per decision not to give up an out for free. That is more than 2.5 times the run value attributed to a sacrifice bunt.

One of the limitations of this analysis is that it deals with a very small number of games. A more in-depth coverage of Expected Runs is in order within NPB so that we can see how closely the numbers match the available data from MLB.

However, no matter how small the sample size is, there seems to be little doubt that larger-scale studies will corroborate the available evidence.

Summary

Many a manager’s fallback strategy, the sacrifice bunt, can be attributed to any one of a number of influences. One of them is pure habit. The sac bunt has been an integral part of baseball for as long as these men and their fathers have been alive.

Another reason might be the desire to save face. Getting a guy on second base, no matter what the cost, makes it look like you created a chance to score. And that seems to count for a lot, especially in Japan.

However, in the beautiful words of Little Brother, some of us have already “…reach[ed] the conclusion that every now and then you gotta ask yourself: do you really want to win or just look good losing?”

And some managers have started to listen to the logical arguments (and maybe Little Brother as well) against the kneejerk application of such a wasteful strategy. More importantly, they have shown that it is possible to win while using it sparingly (or hardly at all).

Recently we’ve begun to see an ever-so-slight move away from its use in Japan. Managers like Trey Hillman (Hokkaido Fighters) and Bobby Valentine (Chiba Marines) only occasionally use(d) it. New Saitama Lions manager, Hisanobu Watanabe, last year’s Japan Series Champion manager, rarely bunts at all, and all three of those gentlemen have won a championship within the last four years.

Chunichi’s manager, Hiromitsu Ochiai, has also been known to bunt sparingly, and he won a championship two years ago.

A growing mountain of evidence is showing that their way of playing baseball leads to more runs being scored. More runs often mean more wins, and enough of those could lead to a berth in the playoffs. It’s very hard to deny the intuitive appeal of such a simple equation. Thus, it is shocking that a manager would do anything to decrease his team’s chances of scoring runs and winning baseball games. Sacrifice bunting, except when it’s me or someone else who doesn’t know how to hit at the plate, is simply betting against the odds.

The current survey shows that baseball managers would be wise to be more conservative in their use of the sacrifice bunt. Having competent hitters bunt doesn’t make sense. Betting against the odds will obviously work on occasion, but it doesn’t pan out very well over the length of an entire season.