Next book I am definitely getting!

mathletics:

"For over 40 years baseball experts have realized that when an average batter is up, bunting is a bad idea....

Suppose there is a runner on first on none out. How many runs does an average MLB team score in an inning is this situation? The answer is 0.93 runs. Now let’s bunt and suppose the bunt succeeds. Now we have a runner on second base and one out. How many runs does an average major league team score in an inning with this situation? The answer is 0.71 runs. Therefore the “success” of the bunt has cost our team ) 0.22 runs. This should make it clear why the bunt is usually a bad idea.

Of course, if the batter is a poor hitter (like a pitcher) the bunt might make sense or if the score is tied and our goal is to simply score a single run the bunt might be a good idea.

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