Cincinnati (and NL) Sacrifice Bunting Statistics

Disclaimer: Like everybody, I'm thrilled with how the Reds are playing these days.  Who wouldn't be?  With that out of the way, though...

During tonight's Reds TV broadcast, Thom Brennaman was lamenting Cincinnati's lack of bunting execution, and rightfully so.  Miguel Cairo had just fouled out on an attempt, the sixth time a Reds player has struck out while trying to bunt this year. 

Below are some statistics on success rate of NL teams.  But first, some important notes:

- I define "success rate" as:
(Hits on Sacrifice Attempts + Successful Sacrifices + Reached on Error on Sacrifice Attempt) / (Sacrifice Attempts + Strikeouts on Foul Bunts + Strikeouts on Missed Bunts). 

- You may disagree with my inclusion of errors as successes, but to some extent, placement of the bunt can lead to errors.  And more importantly, in most cases, the error is made in an attempt to record the out at first...which means it would've been a sacrifice anyway.  Besides, the Reds have reached base on errors in sacrifice attempts more (7 times) than any other NL team...so changing the methodology would only strengthen the overall point that the Reds are terrible at bunting.

- This analysis does NOT include attempts to bunt for base hits, nor those ABs in which the original intent was to bunt, but the hitter changed his mind with two strikes.  Most Reds fans, including myself, probably feel that our statistics would be among the worst in the league in these areas as well, but I can't offer any numbers on these situations at the moment.  If I figure out an accurate way to do so, I'll post it.

The best:
1) Pittsburgh - 89% success rate
2) Philadelphia - 87
3) Arizona - 83
4) Colorado - 81
5) Houston - 80
6) New York, San Diego - 79
8) Milwaukee - 78 (including a league-leading 13 base hits on their attempts)

The worst:
9) San Francisco - 77% success rate
10) St. Louis, Atlanta - 75
12) Los Angeles - 73
13) Cincinnati, Washington - 71
15) Miami - 67
16) Chicago - 61 

To make matters worse, the Reds are also second in the league in attempts (83), trailing only the Brewers (97).  Therefore, they lead the whole league in most ABs thrown away on failed sacrifice attempts:

Most failed ABs

1) Cincinnati - 24

2) Los Angeles, Milwaukee - 21
4) Chicago, Miami - 20

Just for good measure, I'll include success rate where "reached on error" is counted as a failure (although, as I said earlier, I disagree with this).

Alternate success rate rankings (reached on error counts as failure):
1) Philadelphia - 85
2) Houston - 80
3) Pittsburgh, Arizona - 79
5) New York - 75
6) San Francisco, San Diego - 74
8) Milwaukee, Atlanta - 73
10) St. Louis, Colorado - 72
12) Los Angeles - 70
13) Miami - 67
14) Washington - 64

15) Cincinnati - 63

16) Chicago - 59

And using the same method (errors count as failures):

Most failed ABs

1) Cincinnati - 31

2) Milwaukee - 26
3) Los Angeles - 23
4) Chicago - 21
5) Miami - 20

So now you may be wondering (if you made it this far) what the individual Reds' stats are in 2012....

Reds player success rate (sacrifice hits + hits / sacrifice attempts) (minimum 4 attempts)
Leake, Hanigan - 100%
Cueto - 86%
Valdez - 71%
Heisey - 60%
Latos - 58%
Bailey, Cozart, Stubbs, Arroyo - 50%

Most successful sacrifice attempts (sacrifices and base hits):
1) Cueto - 12
2) Latos - 7
3) Valdez - 5
4) Leake, Hanigan, Stubbs - 4

Most failures (force outs, strikeouts, or reached on error):
1) Latos, Bailey - 5
2) Stubbs - 4
3) Arroyo, Cozart - 3