Joe DiMaggio benefited (a little) from 2 sac bunts & 4 sac flies in 1939. Sunday, May 11, 2025
I think that the Sacrifice Fly is the stupidest scoring rule of any applied frequently. It should be eliminated and past data normalized to reflect consistency...
The Strange Story of the Sacrifice Fly
What did Ted Williams really hit in 1941?
by John Thorn Dec 12, 2019
I knew, from years of editing Total Baseball, that sacrifice flies were counted in 1908–1930 and in 1939 but inseparably from sacrifice hits; thus a batter who advanced a runner to any base while being retired himself would be spared an at bat. For purposes of his batting average his sacrifice would be chalked up as a non-event, like a walk...
For 1940–1953, however (as in the years 1931–1938) sacrifice flies were counted as outs, even though they registered as RBIs. Ever since 1954 sac flies were once again accounted in batting average as non-appearances (like walks) and as RBIs...
So that leaves us wondering about 1941 in particular, when Ted Williams hit .406 with no sacrifice bunts but an unknown number of sac flies...
It turns out that Williams had eight sacrifice flies in 1941 over seven games (in one game he had two). [See Addendum below.] Had these been counted as non-appearances, instead of outs, his season’s at bats would have been diminished from 456 to 448 — and his batting average would have been not .406 (0.40570175438) but instead .413 (0.41294642857).
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Rogers Hornsby .400 Batting Averages impacted if Sacrifice Flies were added to his At Bats. Monday, May 12, 2025
Rogers Hornsby famously had:
BA >= .400 in 3 of 4 years (1922-1925) AND
BA >= .400 cumulative 1921-1925...
https://stathead.com/tiny/fMazJ
Rogers Hornsby: 35 Sacrifice Flies in 1921-1925
1,078/(2,679+35)=.39719970523
Let's break down those 35 SF per year.
Adding in his 35 SF changes Hornsby's cululative BA from .402 to .397.
And instead of having three .400 BA in four years Hornsby has only one.
Doing this puts Hornsby on equal footing with Ted Williams when Williams had a .406 BA in 1941 when SF were lumped into At Bats (AB). Otherwise Williams would have had BA .413.
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Let's try to normalize some data by making Ted Williams in 1941 the norm: no Sacrifice Flies (SF). If there were none, then that number should be added to At Bats when computing the simple equation for Batting Average (BA): Hits/AB. Instead: Hits/(AB+SF).
I've applied this to the five legendary seasons of Rogers Hornsby: 1921-1925. Now let's apply this to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Finding their SF turns out to be pretty easy.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ruthba01.shtml
Then click Finders & Advanced Stats, then Event Finder.
Set the Seasons to all of Ruth's: 1914-1935.
Then simply pick Event Type: Sacrifice Flies.
Hit the button for Get Results.
Babe Ruth: 80 Sacrifice Flies in 1914-1935
Now the same thing for Lou Gehrig.
Lou Gehrig: 78 Sacrifice Flies in 1923-1939
If you look at those individual SF, you will notice that many simply advance a runner who does not score: first to second or second to third. Zero RBI for those.
Not every season that could have SF has them for Ruth and Gehrig. And both legendary players SF stop after the 1930 because of the rules mentioned above. SF returned for 1939 but not again until 1954. Unfortunately, this silly scoring rule has remained in effect since.
Here are the BA stats for Ruth and Gehrig with and without SF.
BA is recomputed to show more than three decimal places.
%Dif is for regular BA shown as theBA. It's the percent of the player's BA above the league BA for that season. The highest I've found are about 52%, both for Ted Williams: 1957 and 1941. One with SF, one without.
-SF: theBA - H/(AB+SF)
Ruth's highest BA: .393 in 1923. Ruth next hit .378 twice:
Obviously, 1924 was higher, although you'd never know that looking at only three decimal places rounded.
.378 in 1924 is the only season that Ruth led the AL in BA. Top ten:
| 1. | Ruth • NYY | .378 |
| 2. | Jamieson • CLE | .359 |
| 3. | Falk • CHW | .352 |
| 4. | Collins • CHW | .349 |
| 5. | Bassler • DET | .346 |
| 6. | Heilmann • DET | .346 |
| 7. | Goslin • WSH | .344 |
| 8. | Speaker • CLE | .344 |
| 9. | Myatt • CLE | .342 |
| 10. | Miller • PHA | .342 |
Ruth's lone SF reduced his BA to .377358. So Ruth would have led anyway.
Gehrig's highest BA: .379 in 1930.
Gehrig's fourth highest was .363 in 1934 when he achieved the triple crown also leading the AL with 49 HR and 166 RBI. That's the only season that Gehrig led the AL in BA. Top ten:
| 1. | Gehrig • NYY | .363 |
| 2. | Gehringer • DET | .356 |
| 3. | Manush • WSH | .349 |
| 4. | Simmons • CHW | .344 |
| 5. | Vosmik • CLE | .341 |
| 6. | Greenberg • DET | .339 |
| 7. | Foxx • PHA | .334 |
| 8. | Higgins • PHA | .330 |
| 9. | Trosky • CLE | .330 |
| 10. | West • SLB | .326 |
Since no batters had SF 1931-1938, these 1934 stats are not impacted.
Who knew, right?
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