The Flat Bat Award 2013

Erick Aybar has won three of the last four Flat Bat Awards, but after his down season that featured only nine sacrifice bunt attempts and a .333 average on bunt-for-hit attempts, the contest is wide open for 2013. To narrow the field, we will first look at which players were most successful on bunt-for-hit attempts. These players had the best batting averages on bunt hit attempts with a minimum of 10 attempts:

Jarrod Dyson of the Royals paced the field with 18 bunt-for-hit attempts with both Leonys Martin and Starling Marte close behind him with 17 attempts. All performed quite well with batting averages over .500 on those attempts. However, noted-gloveman Jose Iglesias distanced himself from the field with 10 hits on 12 attempts. Jordan Schafer and Martin followed him with a .667 and .647 average, respectively.

Next, here are the most successful sacrifice bunters with a minimum of 10 attempts:

It is a crowded field at the top, with five players—Leonys Martin, Kyle Lohse, Logan Schafer, Munenori Kawasaki, and Jeff Samardzija—who were perfect on sacrifices with 10 or more attempts. As is typical because of the lack of a DH, most of the list is populated by National League hitters. However, the Rangers provided two of the three American Leaguers on the list. They were successful on 28 of 29 attempts combined.

Leonys Martin was the only player to make both lists, and he was near the top of both of them. He finished third in batting average on attempted bunt hits, first in total bunt hits, tied-fourth in sacrifice bunt attempts and tied-first in sacrifice bunt success rate. Combined, Jordan and Logan Schafer can give Martin some stiff competition, but, individually, no one comes close. Leonys Martin is the winner of the Flat Bat Award for 2013.