It is hard for me to not be excited awaiting Michael Bourn’s first full season with the Atlanta Braves. I will admit last year when I was watching the Braves play the Houston Astros early in the year in at Houston, the person that I felt would be a solution to the Braves’ center-field woes was the man playing centerfield for the Astros that night, Michael Bourn. It seemed like every ball hit to the gap in that series had Bourn racing down and preventing extra bases or hits altogether.
When the rumors were swirling around at the trade deadline last year, I was hopeful that the Braves would acquire a center fielder instead of a right fielder. When the news broke that they acquired Bourn I was ecstatic. Bourn is an outstanding defender and a solid leadoff hitter (though, he actually hits better in the 2 hole than in the leadoff spot).
One of Bourn’s greatest assets is his ability to utilize his speed to get on base and to turn one base into more. His singles have the potential to be stretched into doubles either through hustling or through stealing the base.
I recently found an article on Bill James Online discussing the value of bunting for a hit, written by John Dewan. It is definitely an interesting read, especially in light of having a solid leadoff hitter with Bourn’s speed atop our lineup. Dewan goes in depth discussing the art of bunting for a hit and the most successful places for a bunt to be successful.
This is a piece of the article that made me think about Bourn:
“We’ve pointed this out before: bunting for a hit in non-sacrifice situations has been an effective strategy for many players since we started tracking this in the early 1990s. The best bunters hit well over .500 when bunting for a hit.”
When I read this I immediately wondered what Bourn’s statistics looked like. I know he is a successful bunter. Look how he fared on bunts in 2011:
| Split | PA | AB | H | TB | SH | ROE | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunts | 29 | 24 | 12 | .500 | .500 | .500 | 1.000 | 12 | 5 | 1 | .500 |
Dewan said that the best hitters hit well over .500 on bunt attempts. Bourn doesn’t hit well over .500, but I think that the fact that he gets a hit in half of his bunt attempts is pretty successful.
For comparison’s sake, I wanted to show you Jose Constanza’s success rate in bunt situations for last season:
| Split | PA | AB | H | RBI | SH | ROE | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunts | 8 | 4 | 1 | 2 | .250 | .250 | .250 | .500 | 4 | 1 | .250 |
I was surprised by Constanza’s stats actually. I thought that he would have a better overall average than only a .250 average on bunt opportunities. But, Dewan’s article offered more insight to why Constanza was not as successful:
“When a sacrifice situation was in effect last year (a bunt with men on base and less than two outs) there were 2,285 bunts put into play. 232 resulted in a hit for a .102 “batting average.” On the other hand, there were 850 bunts put into play in a non-sacrifice situation last year, with 372 going for hits, making for a .438 batting average.”
The success that Bourn has at bunting for a hit comes because of his success as a hitter in general. The defense has to respect his ability to get a hit like big league hitters should. That keeps the defense back and gives him the opportunity to get a bunt single.
Constanza does not garner the same respect as Bourn, thus, he rarely has the element of surprise from the defense’s standpoint. They took away the potential for the bunt single and eliminated a big part of his arsenal.
Overall, this confirmed what I thought, ultimately that Bourn is very good at getting on base when bunting.
There is a disconnect between that last excerpt and the conclusion you claim it supports.
Also, I would have liked to have scene some more research…like maybe a look at bunt rates in sacrifice situations and non-sacrifice situations, instead of just all bunts. And maybe looking at Michael Bourn’s bundts would be nice too…if he’s a church pot luck kind of a dude.
How so?
With another reading maybe it’s just a random excert and a non sequitor.
I’m not sure if my misreading was a case of giving you too much credit or not enough.
Bourn is a fun player to watch and cheer, and this helps illustrate why. Bunting for hits is skill and it takes a certain level of intelligence to do well, much like basestealing. The cost to your team when you get caught stealing is much higher than the gain to your team from a successful steal…an out is worth more than one single base advancement…so for a basestealer to really be effective he has to be successful in something like 75% of his attempts. For his career, Bourn’s been successful in like 82% of his steal attempts (actually that’s not a firm number, as CS’s can occur on plays that aren’t steal attempts…Rickey Henderson is an all time great not just because of his raw stats, but he stole those 1500ish bases at an 80% success rate, but I could swear half his CS’s came as pickoffs from 1B, not on steal attempts).
Similar logic goes for bunting for hits. It’s a good move so long as it increases your chance of scoring…so you’d need to have an OBP high enough on bunt attempts to offset the loss of the chance at the extra base hit. Bourn comfortably clears that bar.
He’s leveraged his abilities to their fullest with his craft and with great baseball intelligence and he plays a fun style to watch…I’m glad he’s on my team, at least for as long as he is on my team.