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Sacrifice Bunt

The fielder grabs the bunted ball, wheels, and goes for the out at first. No matter what happens after this, that choice cements the play as a sacrifice bunt¹. From a strategic standpoint, the art of sacrifice bunting is part of a style of play commonly known as “small ball,” or alternatively, “manufacturing runs,” with the idea being that the offense will try to create a run even without getting many (or any) base hits. This style of play tends to ebb and flow in terms of its popularity, but one side-effect of baseball’s analytical revolution was determining that sacrifice bunts are, in many cases, a counter-productive strategy in terms of producing runs (or at least, in producing a lot of them)². As such, sacrifice bunting has become increasingly rare, at least early in games.