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.