The Sacrifice Fly

By Scott Sepich:

As I sit in the press box scoring games each night, the public address announcer who sits to my left asks me often about different scenarios that happen during a game. To not protect his identity at all, we’ll call him “Michael.”

Most of Michael’s ideas revolve around things like a rogue animal knocking over a fence (the “Wild Boar Rule”) or digging holes under a fence (the “Burrowing Mammal Rule”). Or the age-old question: “Does there have to be a catcher?”

Occasionally Michael hits on something that isn’t completely absurd.

Once, when a batter drove in a runner from third by bouncing out to the second basemen, he wondered aloud why that isn’t scored as a “sac chop.” After all, a simple fly out in that situation would be scored a sacrifice and entitle the batter the reward of not being charged for an at bat in return for driving in a run.

The fact that driving in a run via a ground ball doesn’t grant you the same courtesy has long been one of baseball’s most head-scratching inconsistencies.

Longtime New York scorer Bill Shannon, whom I’ve spoken about before in my entries on this blog, had a particular disdain for sacrifice flies. In MLB, scorers are required to announce sac flies over the press box PA system, and Bill could barely muster the fortitude to mutter the two words over the mike.

For Bill, the sac fly wasn’t just a rule with which he disagreed. It was something he considered to be an affront to the game, and it killed him that such a thing would sully his box score.

There are currently two kinds of sacrifice hits in baseball: a bunt that advances a runner from one base to another (including home), and a fly ball (or lineout) that advances a runner from third to home (but not between any other bases).

Both result in no at bat being charged to the hitter, though only one of these acts is a “sacrifice” in the true sense of the word.

When a batter bunts to move a runner over, he is basically declaring to the defending team “throw me out so my teammate can get closer to scoring.” Because it’s a selfless act, the rules of baseball give the batter a break by not crediting a time at bat that would lower his batting average.

A fly ball to score a runner, however (and not, of course, one that just moves a runner up to a different base), is not really a sacrifice at all. Some batters will tell you that they’ll go up to bat with fewer than two outs and a runner on third with the strategy to hit a fly ball. For the most part, though, that’s extremely difficult to pull off. I think most would agree it’s much easier to intentionally steer a ground ball to the right side to score a run, though all that gets you is an RBI and an 0-for-1.

Also, a player that hits a fly ball far enough to score a run would probably rather of just hit it over the fence for a home run.

While Michael makes a good point that logic dictates the creation of a sacrifice groundout (or “sac chop”), the best solution would be to just eliminate the sac fly altogether.

Baseball, in fact, did just that during a period of clarity which lasted more than 20 seasons.

The sac fly as we know it became a part of baseball scoring in 1908, when it was determined that batters would not be charged with a time at bat for hitting a fly ball that scored a runner. The rule was expanded to include fly balls that advanced runners from second to third in 1926, which continued through 1930.

Logic prevailed, though, when both the NL and AL scrapped the sac fly rule altogether before the 1931 season.

On Oct. 20, 1930, before baseball’s rules committee was set to meet over proposed changes. AL president E.S. Barnard told the Associated Press:

“The sacrifice fly is one of the most absurd rules in baseball. Almost every time one is hit is merely a stroke of luck. The batter gets up and swings and if he’s lucky enough to hit a long fly that advances a good runner one base he is credited with a sacrifice and no time at bat.”

There were no sac flies from 1931 through 1953, save for one season (1939) when the rule was brought back.

In 1951, Early Sheely, the GM of the PCL’s Seattle Rainiers, told the Oregonian that he felt high batting averages in the “old days” (like his .403 mark in the PCL in 1930) could be directly attributed to sac flies:

“This was pure bonus for the hitters, and those resulting high averages were, I still think, even more due to (the sac fly) than to the lively ball. The same applies, also, to the high marks in the major leagues, which also had a run of .400 averages.”

Sheely estimated that good hitters “added 25 to 30 points” to their averages because of the rule, but later analysis has shown that to be way overblown. One Oregonian reader even pointed out that Sheely’s .403 would’ve only been reduced to .389 without sacrifices (and baseball stats back then didn’t differentiate between sac files and sac bunts, so it wasn’t possible to know how many sacrifices Sheely “deserved” for bunting).

SABR research indicated that for the period of 1954-1980, the inclusion of sac flies only raised batting averages by two points (from .252 to .254).

Even if Sheely’s math was wrong, his reasoning was right on:

“I call the sacrifice fly rule ‘pure bonus’ because very seldom was a fly ball that scored a runner a deliberate act of the batter as one deliberately lays down a bunt for a sacrifice. We were at the plate trying to his safe, not just to give ourselves up on fly balls to advance the runner, so to designate such a fly a sacrifice was going too far in the batter’s favor. It was certainly nice, though, while it lasted…”

It wasn’t long after that it returned to baseball, this time for good.

The Feb. 19, 1954, edition of the Oregonian credits Red Sox GM Joe Cronin for bringing the sac fly back, quoting him as such:

“It will force a batter to hit at the right pitch. Under this rule, if he knows he will save himself a time at bat by waiting for the right pitch, he’ll lay off the others. He’ll know there’s no sense in hitting a ground ball.

I think the batter should always hit with the score in mind. If a long fly ball will drive in a run — even from second base — he should hit the long fly ball and should get credit for it. That takes skill.”

Cronin was a Hall of Fame player and eventually the president of the AL, but he’s giving players an awful lot of credit for being able to hit long fly balls at will, and to make it seem like a better thing that they’re caught instead of going over the wall.

Of course, in these days fences were usually much farther from home plate, especially in center field (thus his contention that a runner could score from second on a fly out). So perhaps a 450-foot out to center at Yankee Stadium that advanced a runner did have an inflated sense of value. Perhaps Cronin was just trying to get baseball to move the fences in.

Cronin also disregards the ground ball altogether, which often times does score a run from third.

In an article published on the SABR website, John Schwartz includes this passage from the Sporting News:

“There is no adequate reason why a batter who drives in a run with a long fly that sends a fielder back to the wall should be charged with a time at bat, while another who dumps a dinky bunt into the infield to score a runner should have the time at bat eliminated.”

This is the line of reasoning that seemed to be popular enough to reinstate the sac fly, even though the Sporting News is getting it all wrong here. The reason the “dinky” bunt is a sacrifice has nothing to do with distance, it has to do with the clear intention of the batter to give himself up as an out in order to advance a runner. A sac fly is simply a consolation prize for the preferred outcome of a home run or a ball that drops in for a double.

While there’s a lot of us out there who don’t like the sac fly rule, there hasn’t been much momentum to get rid of it, and after 59 seasons of uninterrupted use, it’s likely to remain one of baseball’s many illogical quirks.