slightly OT: sacrifice flies

by D O on Jun 19, 2007 4:54 PM EDT

So this is really not a minor league question per se, but it is something I've wondered about for a long time and I thought it might be fun to discuss with other amateur baseball historians:

The sacrifice fly, as a statistical category, was eliminated from 1931 until 1954 (with the exception of 1939 when it was temporarily reinstated). This means that during that time, batters were charged with an official at-bat for plate appearances in which they hit what we now call a sac fly. Does anybody know if at-bat totals, batting averages and slugging percentages from that period have ever been adjusted to account for this (and thus be more in line with the rest of modern baseball history)? I realize that the sac fly is probably not a common enough occurance that any statistics would be changed drastically. Still, it might be interesting (or at least fun for us baseball geeks) to know, for example, that under modern rules Ted Williams would have batted .408 in 1941 instead of .406. Or something like that.

I suppose it is also debatable whether it would be appropriate to adjust these numbers at all. Perhaps it is better that they reflect the rules of the game at the time...

Anyway, I'd love to know if anybody knows more about this.

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I Dunno

But I'm guessing that stats from that era were not adjusted because there is no way of adjusting them. If the scorekeepers just stopped keeping track of something, I dunno how they could fix that. It's not like today where every game is videotaped and the games can be rewatched. A quick look at Teddy's baseball reference page seems to back this up. There aren't any SF listed until 1954...

Phillip Hughes turning into Barbaro? Odds are that Hughes will probably be put to sleep within the next year. --Bravesin08

by Dfarth on Jun 19, 2007 5:52 PM EDT reply actions

reply to myself

interesting tidbit: If we did have a way of adjusting statistics from the "no sac fly" era, the player who might benefit most would be al simmons, who batted .390 in 1931. He had 200 hits in 513 official at-bats. While it is unlikely that he had 13 sac flies that season (that's a pretty large number), it is possible, and that would give him a .400 batting average.

Also, does anybody know how the rules during this era affected RBI totals? Presumably an RBI would still be awarded, no?

"Well I believe in the soul..."

by D O on Jun 19, 2007 8:19 PM EDT reply actions