Bunting with control and precision is not an easy thing to do. When bunting, a player must change the grip on the bat and move her/his body and head to square towards the pitcher readjusting the perception of the pitch plane and location. Even good bunters have trouble controlling the trajectory of the ball off the bat. Besides pitch plane and location, the speed and spin of the pitch is beyond their control. Good bunters must absorb the ball contact with soft hands and knees, but modern bats and balls are designed for speed and power, making a controlled bunt very difficult. Most bunt attempts result on foul balls or misses, putting the hitter on a tough pitcher's count by the second or third pitch.
Don't get me wrong, every player should learn to bunt. It is a great skill to have in your back pocket to help your team. You never know when a sac bunt is the must-do play, when you must face a great defensive team with a weak corner, or when the element of surprise can rattle the defense. Definitely, bunting has a place and time in the greater scheme of a game.
My issue with bunting is the overused of it as a strategy to get on base on an infield single from 10U to Varsity level. Many youth coaches overuse the bunt just because the batter is fast, but mostly, because they don't trust the player to hit no matter the game situation. I understand, we all want to win games. But if a coach does not think that they are sending a no-confidence message to a young player every time they take the bat off their hands and ask them to bunt despite their bunting skills and without taking into account the quality of the defense or game situation, they are simply wrong.
Coaches justify their excessive use of bunting for a single by saying that a bunt creates chaos on the defense. I agree, a bunt gets the defense moving. But unless is a sac bunt, or a surprise play on a defense playing deep, is it really the best way to get on base?
I have been told that I am a bit obsessive when it comes to keeping stats on all my players and opponents. And when it comes to bunting as a reliable way to get on base, my stats tell another story.
I might be wrong, but in my experience, a hitter with good contact and speed gets on base more by hitting and walking than bunting. My stats also reflect that most players have more of a chance to move a baserunner with a grounder than a bunt. And for "the defensive chaos" argument, if a hitter has good contact and speed, there is as much error potential with a soft or hard grounder as there is with a bunt. I suspect that in this new world of baseball analytics, there must be a statistical reason for the decline in bunts for MLB players even with those irritating defensive shifts. Numbers do not lie.
Hitting is a combination of mechanics and confidence. Any player can learn the fundamentals of hitting on a tee at practice. But the only way to gain confidence and apply their learned skills is during a player's at-bats. Every at-bat is precious to a young player's development. Yes, today, we might lose a game by letting her/him swing, but we might get a better hitter to help us win the game tomorrow and the day after.
My set-on-stone rules are:
1- Never take the bat off the hands of a good hitter, if it is not absolutely necessary.
2- The only reason to sac bunt to score one run in a game when I am losing by a big margin, is my coach's ego.
3- My players will only get better with another good at-bat.
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