With the heightened importance of sabermetrics and the revisionist history that post-Moneyball baseball allows, of late, I have been paying much consideration to the changing nature of Major League Baseball and its rules.
For a sport that abhors change and the modification of its rules for the influx of technological means, the last decade has given birth to new forms of statistical measure that have been proven to be more indicative of a player’s value than those that were once thought to be of great importance (RBI’s, AVG., etc.) With these new measures comes a heightened understanding of the sport itself and the consideration of elements of the game that were once thought to be of great use; more specifically, in this instance, the true worth of the bunt.
Bunting has long been an important element of baseball, where it can serve two purposes; to advance a runner on base, or, as less frequently used, as a means of taking advantage of third or first baseman protecting the base or playing deep, in hopes of advancing the hitter to first base.
The more thought I put towards bunting, the more I find it to be wasteful, especially in the first instance. With only three outs, admittedly wasting one only to advance a runner 90 feet seems rather moronic. Actively swallowing one of the three outs to advance a runner one base severely limits the batting teams ability to accumulate runs in that inning.
For a sacrifice bunt to be useful, it would have to be executed effectively 100% of the time, and without digging through stats at MLB.com, it is safe to say that it does not always work as planned. Furthermore, the fact that a ball bunted foul on two strikes is an out and the difficult nature of holding back a bunt once an attempt to execute it is made go to great lengths to minimize its effectiveness.
For Oakland GM Billy Beane and other small-ball enthusiasts, the bunt is an important element towards the goal of chipping-away at the opposition by scoring one run innings in hopes of wining 1-0 or 2-1. This may work in the offensively challenged AL West, but try implementing that in the AL East against the Red Sox for example; score an important run in the top half of the inning, only to have the middle of Boston’s lineup come up and rattle off successive two baggers. Long story truncated; you lose.
Let’s consider a specific situation. Man on first, none out. Batter at the plate is an efficient bunter, and the dire need for a run trumps all. The batter bunts in order to a) advance the runner to second and in scoring position and b) eliminate the chance of a crippling double play. By doing so, the team is essentially giving an out to the other team to advance the player 90 feet and to effectively eliminate the opportunity for a second out. The more I think of this, the more absurd it seems. Now it’s one thing if this is the NL and the batter is Wandy Rodriguez, but it’s a completely different story if the batter is a position player. I’m almost certain he has a lineup spot not because of his ability to bunt, but because he can hit; so, let the man hit. Donating an out to narrow the odds of a second out is ridiculous. Take a hack my man – we’ll deal with the results after the fact. It should be a matter of worst-case versus best-case scenario. With bunting, the comparison of scenarios is rather narrow; it is either an out with a man on second, or the bunter fails in his attempt, resulting in one out, man still on first. If you allow the player to bat, with consideration towards trying not to ground into a DP, the disparity between scenarios widens; it’s either a DP or a two-run homerun, or a single and a man on first and third, or a double that could have scored the runner and placed the batter in scoring position at second.
The point I’m trying to make is that by letting the player hit, it increases the odds of the occurrence of more beneficial acts for the team at bat. Bunting restricts a team’s ability to be an offensive power, which also caters to the starting pitcher by reducing the pitch count and limiting the potential of a big inning.
Without implementing statistical measures into this argument, I urge readers of the blog and baseball fans alike to watch the game from a different perspective. Become members of my campaign to eliminate the bunt and let’s allow the players to do what they’re paid to do; get a bloody hit.
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