Hey Blue Jays, What’s With All The Bunting?

In the series opener on Monday night against the Chicago Cubs, the Jays picked up a 5-1 victory, highlighted by a three-run homer off the bat of Ernie Clement in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Clement’s three-run bomb ended up bringing in the game-winning run, and was the key play in an otherwise fairly low-scoring affair. The curious thing about the homer, though, is that after the game, John Schneider told the media that Ernie Clement had missed a bunt sign prior to hitting the home run.

Now, without even thinking about it, if given the choice, you, me, and the Jays would take the three run homer over a successful sacrifice bunt in every single baseball situation in the history of the sport, so why was Schneider willing to give up a chance for a three run homer – or any other run scoring hit – to willingly give the other team an out?

It’s something we’ve seen the Jays do a lot this season, and to their credit, when they do it, it generally goes pretty well. The Jays are 18-6 this season when successfully completing a sacrifice bunt, with nine of those wins coming in games they won by two or less.

The choice to attempt a sacrifice bunt is almost always made in close games where a single run will drastically swing the situation in your favour. Hence, the importance of execution always seems to be magnified when it comes to actually getting the bunt down and advancing the runner(s). A failed sacrifice bunt often turns into a disaster; a double play could completely take the pressure off the pitcher, or the runners could be stuck where they started while the defence gets to collect a free out.

So, it’s a good thing that the Blue Jays, who have attempted the second-most sacrifice bunts in baseball, are also operating at a 75% success rate, over 10% better than league average.

If you feel like the Blue Jays bunt a lot, you’d be correct. Their 40 sac bunt attempts are second only to the San Diego Padres at 48, and nearly twice as many compared to the league average of 22 so far this year.

There are so many different ways to win in baseball, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of correlation between how good a team is and how much they bunt. The Jays and Milwaukee Brewers have the two best records in baseball, and are two of the top four teams in attempted sac bunts. On the other hand, the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies are the next two teams in the standings by record, and both are in the bottom five in attempted sacrifice bunts.

Bringing it back to the Jays, I think a big part of the reason they’re so eager to sacrifice to get runners in scoring position is because of how effective they are at scoring those runners. 

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there’s no way for me to tell you which percentage of runners the Jays advance via sacrifice end up coming in to score, at least not without going through game logs and counting them individually. Still, I’ve dug up something similar that’s likely very indicative of our missing stat.

The Jays are elite at both cashing runners from third base with less than two outs and from second base with zero outs. With a runner on third and less than two out, the Jays are scoring 55.9% of the time, the second-best mark in baseball, and nearly five percent better than league average. They’re even more efficient when there’s a runner on second base and none out, scoring that runner 60% of the time, which is the best mark in baseball and more than nine percent better than league average.

Obviously, a sacrifice bunt cannot lead to a situation with a runner on second and none out, but the overall point that the Jays do an excellent job of executing in run-scoring situations stands.

The other key factor in all of this is personnel. The way the bottom of the Blue Jays' lineup is built, they depend a lot on not striking out, putting the ball in play, executing when runners are on, and turning the lineup over for the bigger bats. Myles Straw (despite his recent power outburst against the Rangers) represents this concept perfectly and leads the team with 10 sacrifice bunts. Nathan Lukes and Ernie Clement both have six, Tyler Heineman has three, and five players have one. 

While all of those guys are exceeding expectations with the bat this season, late in close games against high-leverage relievers, they’re more likely to be overmatched, so a productive out, setting the table for a guy like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, or Bo Bichette, might be the most attainable positive outcome.

Ordinarily, I tend to lean towards the side of baseball enthusiasts who dislike the sacrifice bunt. Still, I’m not going to disagree with many of the decisions of the third-best offense in baseball by wRC+.