Sultan of Sacrifice asks Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Committee to add Omar Vizquel's Modern Era Leading 350 Combo Sacrifices to his Hall of Fame Ballot Biography.

Sultan of Sacrifice blog has asked the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Committee to add Omar Vizquel's Modern Era record of 350 Combo Sacrifice Flies and Sacrifice Hits to his Hall of Fame Profile.

I want to point out another Hall of Fame statistical irony. If Omar Vizquel had had the exact same number of at bats without ever attempting a sacrifice, Vizquel would have probably reached 3,000 hits. Add in 11 gold gloves, highest fielding percentage for shortstops, tied for the record for fewest errors in a season, respectable base running skills and a very respectable walks to strikeouts ratio of almost 1 to 1 should mean induction in the Hall of Fame.

The irony is, if Mr. Vizquel had never been proficient at sacrificing, he probably does not have as long of a playing career. So Vizquel is being punished by Saber Metrics people who place negative value on a sacrifice for doing what Managers knew to be effective, being able to produce a sacrifice when necessary.

Then the Saber Metrics further punish Viquel's Hall of Fame chances by placing no value in being a viable shortstop for 24 years. This is arm chair analysis at it worst and it is harming Mr. Vizquel's chances of being a Hall of Fame Inductee.

Sacrifices are more valuable than an at bat and the level of analysis needed to actually prove this theory wrong is something that has not been done. Simply stating that a runner at first and no outs scores 42% of the time, but a runner at second base and one out scores 40% of the time is just not enough of a thorough analysis regarding how to value a sacrifice.

Here's hoping the Hall of Fame Committee will add Omar Vizquel as the Modern Era leader in combo Sacrifice flies and Sacrifice hits with 350 to his Hall of Fame Resume.

The argument that a Sacrifice is no better than a regular at Bat is Flawed.

The purpose of a sacrifice is to try and get a runner into scoring position. The purpose of not sacrificing is to try and have a big inning. What Saber Meterics has forgotten to do when comparing a runner on first base and no outs to a runner on second base and one out is how many of the runs that scored from first base were not necessary.

As stated during the 2018 MLB playoffs, a runner on first, no outs, scores 42% of the time, a runner on second base, one out, scores 40% of the time. This works out to a 5% differential. However, what Saber metrics did not do was calculate how many of the extra runs were entirely unnecessary, aka stat padding. If at the end of the year we discover that of a team's 700 runs scored, 70 runs were the equivalent of stat padding, then those runs should be removed from the sacrifice versus non sacrifice comparison. If most of those 70 runs were scored without benefit of a sacrifice, then suddenly we would see that sacrifices may produce slightly less overall runs, but the runs that are scored are in close games.

If a team wins a game 15-3 but it is statistically shown that any run over 9 was a wasted run, then why allow those six extra runs to be part of the comparison between a runner at first base and no outs versus a runner on second base and one out?

I think it is entirely plausible that if we removed all the stat padding runs from the comparison between the runner on second one out, and runner on first and no outs, we may find that a runner on second base, one out, actually scores at a higher percentage than a runner on first with no outs, while also discovering that overall a runner on first with no outs scores more overall runs with a certain percentage of those runs being over kill.

As it stands now, the Sabermetric world has not necessarily quantified baseball strategy as in when one run matters more than hit or miss but when one hits more runs are scored.  A manager would probably prefer to win an occasional game by one or two runs then always go for the big inning and then lose an extra game or two by one run because their big inning plans just did not materialize.

Lets not fall into the trap that the highest percentage of runs scored is also the most effective use of total runs scored, especially when the difference is only 5 percent.