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 

Oldest MLB franchises, cities and nicknames

For Reds fans, history is rightfully a point of pride.  But I do prefer to use facts instead of oft-repeated myths.


Professional baseball did, for all intents and purposes, start in Cincinnati in 1869.  However, that franchise is not connected to the current Cincinnati Reds as many fans believe.  In fact, it failed to remain financially viable, folded, and half the team became the original Boston Red Stockings who are now the Atlanta Braves.  Confused yet?  Good.  How about a few lists to muddy the waters a bit further?


The earliest MLB franchises still in existence (American Association, National League or American League teams):
1) Atlanta Braves (as the Boston Red Stockings, 1876 National League)
1) Chicago Cubs (as the Chicago White Stockings, 1876 National League)
3) Cincinnati Reds (as the Cincinnati Red Stockings, 1882 American Association)
3) Pittsburgh Pirates (as the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, 1882 American Association)
3) St. Louis Cardinals (as the St. Louis Brown Stockings, 1882 American Association)
6) Philadelphia Phillies (as the Philadelphia Quakers, 1883 National League)
6) San Francisco Giants (as the New York Gothams, 1883 National League)
8) Los Angeles Dodgers (as the Brooklyn Atlantics, 1884 American Association)

All others began in the 20th century.




The earliest MLB franchises (still in existence) to inhabit their current cities
1) Chicago Cubs (as White Stockings in 1876)
2) Cincinnati Reds (as Red Stockings in 1882)
2) Pittsburgh Pirates (as Alleghenys in 1882)
2) St. Louis Cardinals (as Brown Stockings in 1882)
5) Philadelphia Phillies (as Quakers in 1883)
6) Detroit Tigers (1901)
6) Chicago White Sox (1901)
6) Cleveland Indians (as Blues in 1901)
6) Boston Red Sox (as Americans in 1901)
10) New York Yankees (as Highlanders in 1903) 


All others moved to, or started in, their current cities in the 1950s or later.




The earliest MLB franchises to adopt their current nicknames (even if later abandoned and re-adopted)
1) San Francisco Giants, 1885 (in New York)
2) Cincinnati Reds, 1890 (switched to Redlegs from 1954-1959, then back to Reds)
2) Philadelphia Phillies, 1890
4) Pittsburgh Pirates, 1891
5) St. Louis Cardinals, 1900
6) Detroit Tigers, 1901
6) Chicago White Sox, 1901
6) Oakland Athletics, 1901 (in Philadelphia)
9) Chicago Cubs, 1903
10) Boston Red Sox, 1908
11) Los Angeles Dodgers, 1911 (in Brooklyn, and switched to Superbas in 1913, Robins in 1914, back to Dodgers in 1932)
12) Atlanta Braves, 1912 (in Boston)
13) New York Yankees, 1913
14) Cleveland Indians, 1915


All others adopted their current names in the 1950s or later.




The earliest MLB franchises to exist with their current cities AND nickname (even if later abandoned and re-adopted)
1) Cincinnati Reds, 1890 (switched to Redlegs from 1954-1959, then back to Reds)
1) Philadelphia Phillies, 1890
3) Pittsburgh Pirates, 1891
4) St. Louis Cardinals, 1900
5) Detroit Tigers, 1901
5) Chicago White Sox, 1901
7) Chicago Cubs, 1903
8) Boston Red Sox, 1908
9) New York Yankees, 1913
10) Cleveland Indians, 1915

All others first matched the current configuration in the 1950s or later. 


The longest-standing previous forms of current franchises
1) San Francisco Giants - played as the New York Giants for 83 seasons
2) Minnesota Twins - played as the Washington Senators for 60 seasons
3) Oakland Athletics - played as the Philadelphia Athletics for 54 seasons
4) Baltimore Orioles - played as the St. Louis Browns for 52 seasons
5) Atlanta Braves - played as the Boston Braves for 41 seasons


A few oddities:


- The New York Yankees began as the Baltimore Orioles in 1901.


- The Baltimore Orioles began as the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901, then the St. Louis Browns from 1902 through 1953.


- The Dodgers have had a ridiculous number of nicknames: Atlantics, Grays, Bridegrooms, Grooms, back to Bridegrooms, Superbas, Dodgers, back to Superbas, Robins, and finally back to Dodgers.  That's ten different incarnations with seven different names.


- Two different current franchises began as two separate forms of the Washington Senators.  The 1901 version of the Senators eventually became the Minnesota Twins (in 1961).  The 1961 version of the Senators eventually became the Texas Rangers (in 1972).


- Of the 16 current franchises established in 1901 or earlier, only three have kept the exact same nickname throughout history: the Tigers, White Sox, and Athletics.




Baseball-reference.com was my main source for this post.  If you find any errors, don't hesitate to point them out.

An analysis of MLB mascots

I highly encourage anyone and everyone to look into the history of MLB mascots.  Just about every mascot has at least one embarrassing/amusing anecdote or backstory.

One good place to start is the Wikipedia article on the topic.  The highlight for me, especially as a Reds fan, was the line: "Gapper is sometimes referred to as Groper due to his inability to keep his hands off the female fans."  Whoever added that gem of a sentence is to be commended.

Four teams have no mascots - the Angels, Cubs, Dodgers and Yankees - and as you'll see below, that might be the best decision.

I've grouped the official mascots of MLB into several categories.

BIZARRE, PATHETIC AND WEAKLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE TEAM
(a.k.a. the "Olympic mascots")

DINGER (ROCKIES) - only exists because they found a triceratops skull while constructing Coors

SLIDER (INDIANS) - somehow this monstrosity is one of only three MLB mascots in the Mascot Hall of Fame!

JUNCTION JACK (ASTROS) - supposedly a rabbit railroad engineer, though he doesn't look the part here

LOU SEAL (GIANTS) - bravo for the wordplay

RAYMOND (RAYS) - even his body language is saying a big "WTF???"

SOUTHPAW (WHITE SOX) - the nappy condition of his fur suits this generic, lame excuse for a mascot

SLUGGERRR (ROYALS) - I know all mascots arrre disturrrbing but this picturrre rrreally will give me nightmarrres

WALLY (RED SOX) - much like the Reds' "Gapper" (who thankfully is not the primary mascot), this one is based entirely on a structural feature of the ballpark.

RELATIVELY NORMAL CHARACTERS, WITH POOR EXCUSES FOR EXISTENCE

D. BAXTER THE BOBCAT (DBACKS) - get it?  At least the pun made more sense when it was Bank One Ballpark (BOB).  Now it's really a stretch.

HOMER (BRAVES) - get it?  "Home of the Braves?"  LOLOLOLOLOL

RANGERS CAPTAIN (RANGERS) - OK, I guess I've seen Chuck Norris on a horse

T.C. BEAR (TWINS) - the backstory doesn't even try to sound convincing.  "Loosely modeled" after the mascot of an early sponsor?

ACE (BLUE JAYS) - in 2004, he lost his co-mascot girlfriend "Diamond."  In 2010, he lost his excuse to exist when Roy Halladay went to the Phillies.  Unsurprisingly, it looks like he's trying to play the skin flute in the image below.

MARINER MOOSE (MARINERS) - there's so much wrong with the first paragraph of his Wikipedia page, I might as well just paste it all here.  In 1990, a contest for children 14 and under was held to select a mascot for the team under then-owner Jeff Smulyan. Out of 2500 entries received, the club chose the "Mariner Moose," originally submitted by Ammon Spiller of Ferndale, Washington.^[1] The Moose made his debut on April 13, 1990,^[2] dancing on the field at the Kingdome to "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades" by Timbuk 3.

COMPLETELY SENSICAL, BUT LAUGHABLE DESIGN

FREDBIRD (CARDINALS) - looks like a middle school-quality costume

THE ORIOLE BIRD (ORIOLES) - see description of Fredbird

PAWS (TIGERS) - paying $214 million to a fat man is Grrrrrrrrrrreat!  Tony would be proud.

SCREECH (NATIONALS) - patriotic theme makes sense, but the bird itself was the only living thing excited about its birth

BILLY THE MARLIN (MARLINS) - I honestly didn't mind this one that much until the re-branding...the new color scheme somehow makes him ten times more Sandusky

SWINGING FRIAR (PADRES) - speaking of Sandusky, don't let your kids near this guy's frock.

OLD AND OFFENSIVELY NAMED

CHIEF NOC-A-HOMA (BRAVES) - the shoes really complete the authentic ensemble

BJ BIRDY (BLUE JAYS) - with a name like that, it's no surprise he was ejected from a game for offensive gestures toward an umpire

DEFUNCT AND BIZARRE

DANDY (YANKEES) - at my hot dog stand, things like this would have to pay triple

ROOTIN' TOOTIN' RANGER (RANGERS) - the Yosemite Sam who stole Christmas

YOUPPI (EXPOS) - shown here in Canadiens gear.  While I hate that hockey team, at least Youppi survived.

We are left with only six survivors...

THE ELITE


MR. MET - he's been around (continuously) longer than any other mascot on this list

STOMPER (ATHLETICS) - while the name is only 15 years old, the elephant dates back to Connie Mack

PHILLIE PHANATIC (PHILLIES) - the prototype for "WTF?" mascots

PIRATE PARROT (PIRATES) - At age 6, he went on trial for introducing cocaine to Pittsburgh players (not joking) yet somehow the mascot lives on to this day.  Impressive!

BERNIE BREWER (BREWERS) - I support mustaches, I support drunks, and I support the fact that he's based on a real dude who camped out on top of a scoreboard as an attendance gimmick.

MR. REDLEGS - is watching you.  Always.  (scroll to the top of the page if you need reminding)

Reds' 2011 offensive drop-off

An assertion commonly made about the failures of the 2011 Reds is that the lack of quality pitching was the primary reason. I wouldn't dispute any of the following:

- pitching was, and remains, a problem for making it to the postseason
- if the Reds were to make it back to the playoffs, they'd have even more problems because Cueto is the only guy who even comes close to measuring up with the top 3 of other staffs
- obtaining a #1 or #2 starter HAS to be an offseason priority

In spite of all this, I would make the argument that offense was a bigger determinant of the drop-off from 2010 to 2011. The simple counter-argument is "hey, they were second in the NL in runs per game, while the pitching staff was 12th in the league in ERA." I am more than aware of those numbers, but one thing I've harped on all season has been the variation from game to game. Overall the Reds have indeed scored a lot of runs, but they've also come up empty a lot.

Let's compare the Reds' hitting and pitching performances with 2010, and then with this year's NL playoff teams.

2011 Reds
games where they scored above league average runs (4.13) - 41% (67 of 162 games)
games where they allowed lower than league average runs - 62% (100 of 162 games)

2010 Reds
games where they scored above league average runs (4.33) - 49% (80 of 162 games)
games where they allowed lower than league average runs - 65% (106 of 162 games)

One important note is that virtually any team will have a higher "success rate" for pitching than hitting simply by nature of this mathematical approach. You can't read much into the comparison of hitting vs. pitching for one given team, but comparing across teams does give you a good idea of where they stand. The numbers above clearly show that hitting took a bigger dive than pitching.

More evidence:
- Pitching WAR actually went up from 2010 to 2011, from 7.5 to 10.2
- Offensive WAR went down dramatically, from 28.5 to 21.6
- Almost all positions saw a drop in OPS: C, 1B, 3B, SS, LF and CF. Only 2B and RF went up.

We all know the reasons why...injuries (Rolen and Cozart), backsliding performance (Janish and Stubbs), and easily foreseeable failure (Renteria and Gomes).

How the Reds rank this season compared to the playoff teams...

Successful hitting games:
St. Louis 75
Milwaukee 72
Cincinnati 67
Philadelphia 65
Arizona 65

Successful pitching/defense games:
Philadelphia 121
Milwaukee 104
Cincinnati 100
St. Louis 98
Arizona 97

Certainly, Cincinnati's numbers were buoyed a bit by the fact they allowed half the unearned runs (42) that St. Louis did (84) with its shoddy defense. Still, they don't appear to be dramatically behind in either category.

Some timeliness would certainly help - the Reds were by far the worst of these five teams in one-run games, and also failed to capitalize on good pitching performances when they got them, as seen here:

Winning percentage in games when allowing 3 or fewer runs:
Arizona .872 (68-10)
St. Louis .851 (63-11)
Milwaukee .828 (72-15)
Philadelphia .802 (81-20)
Cincinnati .701 (54-23)

Not that this prediction is particularly risky, but I'm highly confident that neither Arizona nor Milwaukee will come within 5 of this season's win totals in 2012. Arizona not only bested its Pythagorean expectation (88) by 6, but the numbers mentioned earlier for games with good pitching and hitting would suggest (by correlation) that they'd win far fewer. Milwaukee should still be good, but are more realistically an 88-90 win club with their current roster than a 96-win team. They might repeat, but it won't be as easy as this year.

I'll end this discussion with a comparison of WAR totals:
Philadelphia - 22.2 for hitting/defense, 30 for pitching = 52.2
Milwaukee - 24.3 for hitting/defense, 17.8 for pitching = 42.1
St. Louis - 30.0 for hitting/defense, 11.0 for pitching = 41
Arizona - 22.2 for hitting/defense, 13.7 for pitching = 35.8
Cincinnati - 24.8 for hitting/defense, 10.2 for pitching = 35

If you add these numbers to a "replacement level" squad that would win 30% (48.6) of its games, you would get the following expectations:

Philadelphia - 101 (actually won 102)
Milwaukee - 91 (actually won 96)
St. Louis - 90 (actually won 90)
Arizona - 84 (actually won 94, Pythag expectation was 88)
Cincinnati - 84 (actually won 79, Pythag expectation was 83)

One last prediction: If Cincinnati remains essentially the same squad next season, they should win 84-85 games but that won't be enough to compete for the playoffs. If they solve at least two of the three main problem positions (SS/3B/LF) they will compete for the division title but won't be able to win a playoff round. If they solve a couple of those positions AND add a high-caliber starting pitcher or two, they stand an excellent chance of making their first NLCS appearance since 1995.

Red Non-Rivalries by decade

The teams the Reds beat up on the most each decade, including only the teams they played each year of that decade (for instance, Padres/Expos excluded in the '60s):

1900s - Boston Beaneaters/Doves
1910s - Brooklyn Dodgers
1920s through 1940s - Philadelphia Phillies
1950s - Pittsburgh Pirates
1960s - Philadelphia Phillies
1970s - Atlanta Braves
1980s - Pittsburgh Pirates
1990s - Philadelphia Phillies
2000s - Florida Marlins

So the Reds' all-time "play-toy" is the Philadelphia Phillies.

Now for the teams the Reds have played the worst against...

1900s - Chicago Cubs
1910s - New York Giants
1920s - New York Giants
1930s - St. Louis Cardinals
1940s - St. Louis Cardinals
1950s - Atlanta Braves
1960s - San Francisco Giants
1970s - Chicago Cubs
1980s - St. Louis Cardinals
1990s - Atlanta Braves
2000s - Los Angeles Dodgers

So the Reds' all-time worst enemy? A tie between the Cardinals and Giants.