Who wins the 2005 Flat-Bat Award?

John Dewan's Stat of the Week^TM

March 16, 2006

 

The Flat Bat Award is given each year to the best bunter in baseball. There are two ways that we look at bunters. First, we look at bunters who are most prolific and most effective at sacrificing for runners on the bases. Second, we look at the best bunters when trying for a hit.

Here are the best at the sacrifice (listed in order of the most sacrifices):

 

Omar Vizquel	San Francisco	20 out of 22	91%
Luis Castillo	Florida	18 out of 21	86%
Andy Pettitte	Houston	15 out of 17	88%
Livan Hernandez	Washington	14 out of 15	93%
Coco Crisp	Cleveland	13 out of 15	87%
Jamie Carroll	Washington	13 out of 15	87%

 

Major leaguers were successful 85% of the time when attempting to sacrifice.  That's a bit down from the 89% posted in 2004 

When bunting for a hit, the leaders are (listed in order of most bunt hits):

 

Willy Taveras	Houston	30 for 52	.577
Juan Pierre	Florida	26 for 56	.464
Scott Podsednik	ChiSox	16 for 30	.533
Melvin Mora	Baltimore	12 for 14	.857 (!)
Alex Sanchez	TB-SF	11 for 18	.611

 

Major leaguers had an incredible .531 batting average when putting a bunt into play in a non-sacrifice situation, up slightly from 2004's .521.

The Flat Bat award winner for 2005: Willy Taveras. He led the majors in bunt hits with 30.