Inspiration.
Despite not being a power batter, Geraldo Perdomo has a well-earned reputation for excellent results at the plate. A few known strengths are 21.9% chase (90th percentile), 11.5% whiffs (98th percentile), and K% and BB% exceeding the 90th percentile). Also, very positive is his average 4.2 pitches per PA. In 2025, his .389 OBP was the third best in the NL.
His Balls In Play (BIPs) reveal a little-noticed aspect that contributed to his reputation for excellent batting. It is ghost bunts. Let’s look
at bunts and ghost bunts!
Definitions.
Official Bunt: An official Major League Baseball scorer determines whether each Ball In Play (BIP) is a bunt based on several factors including batter stance, hand position on bat, and bat movement. Per the official baseball rules, “A bunt is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with the bat and tapped slowly within the infield.”
Interestingly, if the bat is held in the strike zone, but the batter makes no effort to make contact with a pitch outside of the strike zone, it is NOT considered a strike.
When a player bunts with the intention of scoring a runner at third base, that BIP is a bunt and a squeeze play.
Ghost Bunt: For each Ball In Play (BIP) that was not officially scored a bunt, if its exit velocity was less than 75 MPH, its launch angle was less than 7.5 degrees, if it was fielded in the infield, and if at least one baserunner advanced, then it was a Ghost Bunt.
I created this definition to show one aspect of Geraldo Perdomo’s success.
Who are this season’s bunt leaders?
FanGraphs provided counts of successful bunts, sacrifice bunts (SBs) and bunt hits (BHs). In games through 16 June, the MLB leaders in total successful bunts were:
- Cedric Mullins, 10 bunts (4 SB + 4 BH)
- Nasim Nunez, 9 bunts (6 SB + 3 BH)
- Geraldo Perdomo, 8 bunts (4 SB + 4 BH)
- Chandler Simpson, 8 bunts (5 SB +3 BH)
Clearly, Geraldo Perdomo is one of the best bunters in MLB.
How often does Perdomo bunt?
Before looking at the answer, context is provided in this Fangraphs article, which states the following:
“So far this year, batters have bunted the ball into play (or struck out by bunting the ball foul) 640 times. That’s 0.9% of all the plate appearances in the majors in 2026, and while that might not sound like much, it’s a new high in the universal DH era [which seems to be 2022 onward],…” — Ben Clemens, June of 2026
In 2025, Perdomo’s bunted (SBs + BHs) in 1.5% of his plate appearances, which was well above the average rate (which also includes bunt strike outs). In 2026, in games through 16 June, Perdomo officially bunted in 2.7% of his plate appearances, which was about double the average rate.
Including ghost bunts significantly raised the percentage of bunts per PA. The previous mentioned percentages do not include Perdomo’s ghost bunts. Including Ghost bunts raises his percentages to 2.2% in 2025 and 4.1% in 2026. Perdomo overall bunt skills are truly amazing.
Impact of possible change in definition. If the maximum exit velocity of ghost bunts was raised 3.5 MPH, the percentages would change slightly. That is because my definition that exit velocity must be less than 75 MPH, excluded two balls-in-play with exit velocities of 76.3 and 78.5 MPH (in 2025). These two events advanced a runner while Perdomo was out at first. If included as ghost bunts, the 2025 percentage of bunts would increase from 2.2% to 2.5% of PAs. In addition, one excluded event was found for 2026.
How do ghost bunts compare to official bunts?
For all the ghost bunts in the following tables, Geraldo Perdomo was out at first base, and at least one baserunner advanced.
The following table compares bunts and ghost bunts in 2025:
The ghost bunts had exit velocities between 51.3 and 74.0 MPH, while the official bunts had velocities between 23.9 and 47.5 MPH.
The ghost bunts had launch angles between negative 64 degrees and positive 3 degrees, which was a more narrow spread than official bunts. That narrow spread suggests they are a specific type of ball-in-play.
The following table compare bunts and ghost bunts in 2026 (games through 16 June).
The ghost bunts had exit velocities between 58.7 and 73.2 MPH, similar to last season. Their launch angles were between negative 13 degrees and positive 6 degrees, which was more narrow than last season.
What was the game impact of ghost bunts?
While each ghost bunt advanced a runner (scoring a running in one game), none of them increased the win probability of the game (for the run scored, the win probability was 100% prior to the ghost bunt). However, overshadowing the ghost bunt was the immediately following plate appearance. Six of the nine PAs that immediately followed had positive win probability. Also, the Diamondbacks scored at least one run (six runs in one game) in six of the nine innings with a Perdomo Ghost bunt.
Details are in the following tables.
Summary.
Despite not being a power batter, Geraldo Perdomo has a well-earned reputation for excellent results at the plate (chase %, whiff%, K%, BB%, and pitches per PA). Last season, his OBP was the third highest in MLB.
Perdomo official bunts are more frequent than the average in MLB.
Perhaps ghost bunts are a little noticed aspect of Perdomo’s reputation for excellent batting. In 2025 & 2026, his ghost bunts advanced a baserunner and they had exit velocities between 51.3 and 74.0 MPH.
Including ghost bunts raises the bunt percentage of PAs from 1.5% to 2.2% in 2025, and from 2.7% to 4.1% in 2026 (games through 16 June). Those percentages are truly amazing.
