What's up, baseball players?
I'm coach Dan Blewett.
in today's video we're going to talk about should you bunt?
We'll talk a little bit about run expectancy and whether coaches should be
teaching young players to bunt in an increasingly bunt-less
MLB game.
All right, if you're new here, I'm coach Dan Blewett, I'm a former pro
pitcher, I'm the author of two soon to be three baseball books.
You'll find my online courses in the description below, as well as other videos
related to this one.
So in today's video,
should you bunt and as a coach, should you be teaching players to bunt?
Do they really need to be developing the skill?
So let's talk about some of the pros and some of the cons
and some of the, you know, the considerations here within.
You'll find timestamps in this video also.
So if you want to jump around, you can do that.
So number one, so about some of the reasons you should
teach bunch bunting now.
eight.
Number one
Obviously, it's a part of the game, so every player should learn
at a fundamental level.
But B,
especially these players are developing and they're still becoming better hitters
and they're just increasing their hand-eye coordination.
Bunning is a good skill to learn with that anecdotally.
Ty Cobb, obviously one of the best hitters of all time in the Hall of Fame.
He said when he would, when he would slump,
he would start bunting in batting practice because it would just sort of
pull him back to waiting on the ball, trying to catch it with his barrel.
You know, just watching it in as far as he could.
So I think that is a great anecdote that when players go back to the basics
that, hey, when I'm not hitting well,
my timing is off my maybe I'm just mis hitting stuff.
So Ty Cobb used that to go back to basics for good hand-eye coordination,
good timing,
letting the ball get to him because obviously
you can't lunge at the ball when youre bunting.
So it's also going help with bat control, all that sort of stuff.
If you can't catch a bunt square on in the middle of your barrel, what's
the likelihood that you can catch it square when you're swinging it?
So I think from that general foundational hand-eye
coordination, barrel timing, you know, barrel accuracy
standpoint, Bunning has its plays, especially for developing players.
I think it's also a good thing to help players be
have have less fear of the ball when they're when they're growing up.
The best players have to have
and they have to be pretty fearless at the plate
if you're really scared of the ball and a lot of young players are.
That's not a good thing.
It's not a good scenario.
So teaching them to bunt
and getting their face in there a little bit might be scary at first,
but it's going to help them get through that and continue to develop.
I mean, it's scary.
I do.
But when I was a pitcher
and like my second year pro ball, we were in this weird National League
rules league and it was terrifying trying to run 90 mile per hour fastballs
when I hadn't seen anything past high school pitching
because I hadn't had a bat in my hands since I was 18.
So that fear, it's a real fear.
So that is, I think, also part of the discussion.
When you were talking about run expectancy
and win probability, here's what you should know about bunting.
So when you give up an out, you're almost always reducing your run expectancy.
So for example, and this is based on major league data,
and this is not exactly cannot exactly be extrapolated to use data
or even college data because the fielding is so much different.
It's incredible how well they feel that the major league level
and, you know, a sacrifice bunt is pretty much a guaranteed out,
whereas a sacrifice bunt in the youth game is not a guarantee.
You know, you all know that.
So but in MLB data, if you have runners on first
and second, for example, and no one out,
you're going to score on average, like, I don't know,
I don't have exact numbers in front of me, but like high ones or low twos
in that scenario, given many, many scenarios.
So no one out first and second, you have an x amount of run probability.
Let's say it's two runs.
Now, if you bunt and give up an out and now you have second, third year
run expectancy actually goes down,
maybe the likelihood that you score a run increases
because you rely on second the guy on third.
But your overall expectant amount of runs for that inning in that scenario
is going to decrease because you've given up an out
and you're closer to the inning ending.
So having fewer outs is incredibly important.
And basically,
the outs is the most important currency in baseball
and this is what they talk about in Moneyball.
The number one thing you can do to help your team is not get out.
It doesn't matter how you get to first.
If you can just not get out and get on base,
you're helping your team's run expectancy significantly.
However, that varies from win probability.
Obviously, if you need one run into the last inning
and you've a runner on second,
bunny him to third, yeah, that's going to buy the run
expectancy tables decrease the run expectancy for that inning .
But it's also going to increase your probability of winning
because you only need that one run.
So obviously,
there's times when it makes sense, times when it doesn't make as much sense.
So if you have a big inning
and you want the beginning in the second or third inning,
it probably doesn't make sense to bunt runners
from first and second to second and third because it's going to decrease
the likelihood of having a really big inning that inning
because again, more outs
to play with means more potential for a lot of runs that inning.
But again, there's also caveats in the youth game
where maybe a player is just like not going to get a hit off
this pitcher
like you've a really dynamite pitcher you're facing
and you have a really weak hitter at the plate and he's just overmatched.
So maybe asking him to bunt even in a situation that doesn't make as much
sense might be the best chance for having a good outcome for that hitter.
That's obviously a consideration
in the youth game, too,
as well as just like, Hey, you got a fat slow third baseman, let's bunt down there
and kind of exploit
the fact that maybe he's the wrong person to be playing that position.
That happens to right.
So there's a lot of different and.
Areas in the amateur game, not just a youth game,
but the amateur game in general,
because it's tough to make that throw from third base on a decent bunt
that no one Aaron Auto makes like it's his job.
And in general, there's just a lot more variance in fielding quality
and throwing the ball away puts pressure on the defense.
Players get nervous, you know, third baseman makes one error.
Now he's going to make two more because he's in his head.
So you keep bunting.
All that stuff makes good sense in the amateur game.
It's just less relevant in in the pro game because guys aren't
there are throwing away ground balls.
They're not throwing away many bunts at all.
Right?
They're fielding, they're filling positions and is incredible.
So when we talk about when you should not bunt, it really can hurt a beginning.
So I know a lot of times teams want to get the first run of a game, for example.
So maybe in the first inning, they get the leadoff
guy on the bottom to second because they really want to score first.
Well, if you bunt that guy to second there, it's hurt.
We know it's hurting your run expectancy from the Major League Baseball data,
but also now you have 234 coming up.
You want as many guys on in that situation as you can, rather than just trying
to play for that first run.
You should really be thinking about getting three or four runs
that inning
because when you get the leadoff guy on, it really sets the table for that.
So don't hurt yourself with the beginning and let pitchers off the hook.
Yeah.
Run expectancy does decrease, but it does make sense later in games.
So just remember that.
And remember, Major League Baseball doesn't pay players to bunt.
No one's getting paid by their bunt.
So when they go to arbitration,
when they go to try to get that next salary bump and all those different rules,
you know, super to their arbitration years.
That's why guys are OK having a lower
batting average today in exchange for more power numbers, right?
They can hit 25 homeruns and hit 240 runs.
OK with that rather than hitting 270 and with with 14 homeruns.
So no one's getting paid to bunt.
So no one really wants to bunt, and teams would rather have guys swinging,
no matter the count.
Even that means a strikeout and, you know, swing for it and see what happens.
Play for multiple runs rather than trying to bunt and get one.
Obviously, you'll still see late in game sometimes,
especially when the pitcher is up,
because the pitchers are pretty much a guaranteed out.
But again, if we're talking about should this still be in the youth game
and trickle up, the answer is yes.
Does this need to be a huge part of your youth game?
I think it depends on your team.
I think it depends on your level.
I think it depends on what skills your squad has.
If you're really fast team and you're really good base running team.
Then more bunting probably makes a lot of sense
and you can win a lot of games that way.
I've seen it even high levels.
We're really fast teams.
We want to put the ball on the ground and move steal bases, bunting for hits.
You know the guys over.
They just want to create havoc that can work really well
for some teams and colleges are always looking for leadoff type players.
And if you're a 1289 kind of hitter, being a good bunter
being a guy who can be a table setter and get on base multiple different ways,
push bunt one to first.
That can be really impressive,
especially because there's fewer and fewer players like that in today's game
than ever, because again, no one's really stressing one thing as much.
So I wrote a long article all link to it in the description below.
If you want to read more about run expectancy and about some of those tables,
they're all linked in there as you can see the graphics.
So definitely check that out in the description.
But again, leave a comment.
Are you a new Coach?
Do you?
Do you coach bunting?
Is this something that you really spend a lot of time on?
Do you do it every day and BP?
Is it sort of an afterthought in BP?
Let's talk about bunting, but anyway, thanks for watching today's video.
I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you in the next one.