From the moment Abner Doubleday set the bases 90 feet apart, baseball players have been policing themselves with the fastball. The retaliation is usually nothing more than a fastball placed squarely between the numbers of a player of comparable skill on the opposing team. Players often go to extremes in this regard, sitting as far from the pitcher as possible and refusing to talk to him between innings. When it comes to the players, this unwritten rule is truly unbreakable.
So why do teams keep doing it? In the s, just as professional baseball was getting its sea legs, there was an infielder named Ross Barnes who was really only good at one thing. At 5 feet 8 inches and pounds, he had a smidge of pop in this deadest part of the dead-ball era, hitting six home runs in almost career games, but where Barnes really excelled was bunting. As recounted by Bill James in his most recent Historical Baseball Abstract , Barnes made a career of being able to bunt balls that would land fair and then spin over the base lines and off the field.
In the rules of the day, this still counted as a fair ball. And so it was that Barnes led the league in hits four times and batting average three times. Ross Barnes would've loved playing for Dusty Baker, the year-old Cincinnati Reds manager who, in an era when almost every player is at least something of a threat to hit a double or home run, still has a passion for the strategy of intentionally clunking the ball down softly a few feet in front of a defense that knows it's coming.
We're not talking here about using fast hitters to lay down a bunt against unsuspecting infielders. That's actually pretty good strategy! Baker's Reds lead the league in "successful" sacrifice bunts or, to put it another way, bunts that "successfully" give away one of the three outs teams get per inning , and they're in the top third of the league in sacrifice bunts by non-pitchers.
Through all the rule changes and improvements that baseball has implemented through years of professional existence, the bunt has persisted. It's perhaps the strongest legacy of the game's small-ball origins.
And aside from everything Alex Rodriguez does, there's perhaps no single act on a baseball field that engenders such ridicule and furor among dedicated fans. We've known for decades that its efficacy was wildly overrated even in earlier, less power-friendly eras, yet it persists: purposely sacrificing outs in critical game situations to move a runner one single base.
No current manager loves the sacrifice bunt more than Baker. A couple weeks ago, his Reds attempted four such bunts in a span of eight hitters. The outcomes were largely unsuccessful for the Reds, who lost in 16 innings. The sacrificial parade reached its nadir in the bottom of the 15th inning, when the Reds attempted what amounted to a suicide squeeze — Shin-Soo Choo took off from third, Chris Heisey tried to bunt — except that there were two outs, so if Heisey didn't make contact and Choo was toast, we'd go on to the 16th inning.
The inning also would've been over if Choo crossed the plate but Heisey didn't get to first safely to make the run official. The next morning, ESPN's Buster Olney ripped the Reds for their " bunt addiction, " one of a few pieces calling out the team's buntalicious ways.
But they're not only team with the habit: The Dodgers, Brewers, Nationals, and Giants sacrifice almost as much as the Reds. The odd thing about the bunt's persistence is that neither data nor common sense support its use. Now, in , each of them has become a legitimate threat to lay down a bunt if the defense gives them too much space. That being said, Belt, Gallo, and Rizzo have each clearly improved at bunting, and in , the three of them have combined for 10 bunt hits on 14 bunts in play.
Another argument against bunting is that doing so effectively stops your best hitter from potentially recording an extra-base hit. If the next hitter in the lineup is capable of driving runners home, then putting somebody on base is never a bad idea. During an interview in , 3-time All-Star Daniel Murphy said:.
If I drop a bunt down, what am I gonna do? If 7 percent of balls on the ground go for extra bases, someone is probably going to have to hit one in the air to score me from first. However, would Daniel Murphy feel this same way if he knocked a line drive back up the middle? It just sounds like a pride thing, and that brings me to my next point. Baseball players love beating a pitcher straight up. Obviously, Ichiro is the first person that comes to mind when countering this argument.
He made an entire Hall of Fame career out of slap singles and swinging bunts coupled with great defense, and he is one of the most beloved and respected players in MLB history.
Players are paid to get on-base. Not only would I get on-base more often, theoretically. Unfortunately, I have the hand-eye coordination of a bowl of clam chowder, so that situation will never come up. However, bunting against the shift has always been my guilty pleasure, so I took some time this week to evaluate whether or not bunting against the shift really works, and why it should be done more often.
Sometimes, players will run into a scenario where the third baseman or the first baseman is having an off-day, unable to make throws, or unable to field ground balls. Hitters who are aware that the third baseman or first baseman are struggling can lay a bunt down the line with the confidence they will have a higher chance of getting on base.
Sometimes pitchers have a tendency to finish their pitching motion towards one side of the mound. When this happens, pitchers tend to fall towards the glove side of the mound.
So right-handed pitchers tend to fall towards the left side of the mound while left-handed pitchers tend to fall towards the right side of the mound. If a batter notices that a pitcher tends to fall too far to one side of the mound, the batter can bunt the ball toward the other side of the mound.
Especially for batters who are fast, these extra few seconds it takes for the pitcher to field the ball can be beneficial towards safely reaching first base on a bunt. All baseball hitters will go through a slump at least once in their careers, if not multiple times. I know from experience that slumps are a regular part of baseball, but I also know that slumps will eventually pass even though it may not feel like it.
One common method batters use to get out of a hitting slump is to bunt for a base hit. Bunting for a base hit will give batters confidence at the plate and bunting generally helps batters improve their hand-eye coordination for their next at-bat. Although there may be other ways to get out of a slump, some coaches and hitters prefer to bunt for a base hit to get out of a hitting slump.
When a game is close, bunting at the beginning of an inning can be the spark your team needs to get the bats going. If successful, bunting at the beginning of an inning is beneficial because it allows the team to get a runner on base with no outs. This gives the base runner the best opportunity to score, which is perfect for a close game.
This also gives the hitting team additional options, like stealing second, performing a hit and run, or using a sacrifice bunt to move the runner over. On the other side of the equation, if the bunt is unsuccessful, the batter records an out. The good news is that not much is lost because there were no runners on base and the team still has two more outs to go in the inning. So to combat a grand slam from crashing the momentum of a team, players will bunt for a base hit.
If successful, this bunt could lead to another rally within that same inning.
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