On Friday, Ben Clemens laid out 5 enjoyable issues to observe throughout the second half of the 2025 season. The one which caught my eye was the race to guide the league in bunts for base hits. The contestants all make loads of sense. The group of Kyle Isbel, Jacob Younger, TJ Friedl, Victor Scott II, and Xavier Edwards contains 4 light-hitting, fleet-footed heart fielders and one light-hitting, fleet-footed shortstop. However there’s one other bunting race occurring, and in it, these 4 speedsters – together with everybody else in baseball – are getting dusted by Jose Herrera, the Diamondbacks backup catcher whom Statcast charges because the 491st quickest out of 510 certified gamers this season. It’s the race to guide the league in sacrifice bunts, and nobody in baseball is kind of so keen to decide on the better good over their very own private gratification than Herrera.
2025 Sacrifice Bunt Leaders
Really, that’s not totally true. Herrera is tied for fourth in tried sac bunts. He simply leads the league as a result of he’s batting a thousand on his makes an attempt. (Not actually, after all; a profitable sac bunt doesn’t depend towards your batting common in any respect.) The opposite gamers I’ve talked about have failed, fouled, or whiffed on their bunts loads, however not Herrera. We’re going to place Herrera’s proclivity for the sacrifice into context a bit later, however let’s begin with the plain query. Why does Herrera bunt a lot? It may possibly’t simply be as a result of he’s good at it. It’s actually not as a result of he thinks he can beat out a success along with his third-percentile dash velocity. Typically sufficient, he’s not even pretending to run onerous. On this play, it’s not a lot that he’s sacrificing himself as it’s that he’s simply form of surrendering.
Enjoyable truth: The runner didn’t rating after this bunt, however the subsequent time Herrera got here up, he additionally had runners on base. Sadly, he wasn’t allowed to bunt, as a result of there have been two outs and the runners have been on second and third. So he did the closest factor he might to bunting, checking his swing however catching the ball anyway and sending a weak two-run double down the third final analysis.
Herrera isn’t bunting a lot as a result of he occurs to come back up in a bunting scenario all that usually. Up to now this season, he’s had runners on with fewer than two outs in 23% of his plate appearances. Amongst gamers with a minimum of 50 plate appearances, that places him in simply the twenty second percentile. For probably the most half, he’s bunting as a result of he’s not providing a lot else in the best way of offensive manufacturing. Herrera is working a 64 wRC+ and batting .195. He represents the considerably uncommon case of a batter for whom the maths actually does say bunting is a good suggestion. Or, a minimum of he ought to symbolize that. In keeping with Statcast’s leveraged run values, which take a look at the sport scenario and present the change in run expectancy after each pitch, the league’s sacrifice bunts have a mean worth of -1.5 runs per 100 pitches this season. Herrera is at -0.7, however on the final pitch of every of his plate appearances this season, not simply on sac bunts, he’s all the best way down at -3.2. He’s arguably been approach worse than the typical sacrifice bunt, so why not simply take the sacrifice, proper? Right here’s the place issues get bizarre.
In the event you don’t embody Herrera’s bunts in his run expectancy complete, it goes as much as -1.6. That’s bizarre as a result of it implies that his bunts have been notably unvaluable (which, it seems, is a phrase). The typical sac bunt is value -1.5 runs per 100, however Herrera’s have been value -5.5. What is going on right here? How are they so staggeringly expensive, particularly when you think about that two of his bunts that have been credited as profitable sacrifices resulted in errors that scored runs?
It’s largely as a result of not all sacrifices are created equal. Herrera is bunting in conditions the place the inning is rife with risk. His sacrifice chokes out a few of that risk. All 10 of his bunts have include no outs, and half of them have include a runner already on second base. These are conditions the place you’d a lot moderately roll the cube, even on a participant with a .301 on-base share, than simply give up an out.
Sorry, these final couple paragraphs obtained away from me. I don’t imply to complain. Sure, the Diamondbacks ought to stamp this nonsense out as a result of the numbers say they’d be higher off letting Herrera do his approximation of hitting. However I hope they don’t, as a result of I’m having fun with the Jose Herrera bunting expertise, as all of us ought to. It’s really inconceivable, nevertheless it’s much more outstanding after we put it into context. To try this, we have to begin by conserving in thoughts how sometimes Herrera has really come to the plate this season. He was backing up Gabriel Moreno, after which when Moreno went down with a fractured proper index finger, the Diamondbacks shortly introduced in James McCann to switch him. Due to a 65 wRC+, which is definitely an enchancment on the 52 he carried into the season, Herrera has batted ninth in all however two of his begins. Earlier than Moreno went down, he obtained pinch-hit for in additional than a 3rd of his begins. In all, he has simply 166 plate appearances, whereas Isbel and Younger are each over 230.
In the event you’re conserving rating at dwelling, that implies that Herrera has laid down a sac bunt in 6% of his plate appearances. I calculated the sac bunt share of each batter with a minimum of 150 plate appearances. Not solely is that the very best fee this season, it’s solely the second time somebody has been above 6% this century. Catcher Bobby Wilson bunted 13 instances in 201 PAs for the Angels in 2012. And that’s it. For the century. Herrera’s 6% fee ranks 169 in AL/NL historical past, or a minimum of way back to our data embody sacrifice bunts. However remember the fact that he’s doing this in an period when the sac bunt is kind of useless. Of the 168 player-seasons forward of him, 156 befell earlier than 1930. Simply 26 of them occurred lower than 100 years in the past. Solely two gamers have sacrificed themselves as incessantly as Herrera within the final 50 years.
The names forward of his on that record let you know that Herrera is conserving some very previous firm certainly. He’s there alongside Child Gleason, Wee Willie Keeler, and a number of members of the 1919 Black Sox. In an period the place a high-speed digital camera array can let you know the placement, velocity, and assault angle of the bat head in the meanwhile of affect, Herrera’s identify is on the identical record as Lena Blackburne, who lived in a time when you would make a reputation for your self by inventing mud.
I write on a regular basis about data which are in peril of being damaged. Data are falling on a regular basis as a result of the sport is all the time altering, so in a single spot or one other, we’re all the time breaking new floor. As of late which means writing concerning the three true outcomes or hit-by-pitches. However Herrera is breaking previous, previous floor. He’s bunting like somebody who simply wakened from a 100-year nap, and I hope he doesn’t cease.