The Flat Bat Award is given each year to the best bunter in baseball. There are two ways that we look at bunters. First, we look at bunters who are most prolific and most effective at sacrificing for runners on the bases. Second, we look at the best bunters when trying for a hit.

Here are the best at the sacrifice (listed in order of the most sacrifices):

• Royce Clayton, Colorado 24 sacrifices in 27 attempts, 89%
• Adam Everett, Houston 22 out of 24, 92%
• Omar Vizquel, Cleveland 20 out of 21, 95%
• Derek Jeter, NY Yankees 16 out of 17, 94%
• Kris Benson, Pit-NY Mets 15 out of 15, 100%

Major leaguers are successful 89% of the time when attempting to sacrifice.

When bunting for a hit, the leaders are (listed in order of most bunt hits):

• Alex Sanchez, Detroit 26 for 51, .510
• Juan Pierre, Florida 19 for 42 .452
• Corey Paterson, Chi Cubs 16 for 25, .640
• Royce Clayton, Colorado 14 for 24, .583
• Rafael Furcal, Atlanta 14 for 26, .538

Major leaguers have an incredible .521 batting average when putting a bunt into play in a non-sacrifice situation.

The Flat Bat award winner for 2004: Royce Clayton. He led the majors in sacrifice hits and had the second highest "bunt" batting average of all players with 20 or more attempted bunt hits.