I just don't get the bunting obsession

Disclaimer first: I was raised on American League baseball. I like the DH. I like to see players swing the bat. I like to see balls scream through the infield or over an outfielder's head. I love to hit.

My daughter is on the jr. high team this year. I get to go to a double header on Sunday. The coach calls for bunts no less than 15 times per game. In 6 plate appearances, my daughter got the bunt sign 4 times. It doesn't seem to matter what the situation is. Runners can be on any base, or completely absent from the bases and he calls for a bunt. Runners on 2nd and 3rd with #4 batter up...bunt. Previous 2 batters drill the ball to the outfield? time for a bunt.

I'm in the stands biting my tongue...I know different coaches have different styles. And I don't have any problem with the strategic bunt. Slow runner on 1st that needs to get into scoring position; I'm good with that. Close game with a good runner on 3rd? Sure. I'm not anti-bunt, I just prefer to use it for specific purposes rather than as the meat and potatoes of the offense.

Mid-way through the game, the score-keeper leans back to me and asks: "does this make sense to you? Why is he bunting the #4 batter with runners in scoring position?" "I don't know," I reply. "Maybe it is just early in the year and he is trying to find out who can lay the bunt down with consistency." Dad behind me leans forward: "nope...it was like this all last year."

My daughter has hit over .500 in each of the past 3 years. In regular season, she has struck out a total of 4 times in the same time frame. This year, she has 1 hit in 3 games (a bunt) and 2 strike outs. Her confidence is in the crapper. She gets the bunts down and almost beats the throw (which is why I think she keeps getting the bunt sign...if she were out by a country mile, then the coach may not keep having her bunt) but in the end there is an out at first, and daughter gets more frustrated.

We are going to start going to the cage after school and work on changing her hitting philosophy. I've always taught her to be patient at the plate...when there are no strikes, you look for that pitch that is in her zone...if ump calls a low or high ball a strike, that is fine; she has 2 more pitches to drive. But now, (coach usually waits until the 2nd pitch to put the bunt on) she has 1 pitch to drive. She'll need to expand her zone if she wants to swing the bat because otherwise there is a good chance she'll be told to bunt.

So, since this is in the coaching part of the forum, someone please explain to me why the bunt should replace hitting as the dominant offensive philosophy. What is the benefit of playing for 1 run when you are in 'big inning' situations? I see this kind of thinking in many teams. Is there a justifiable reason for this, or is it just coaches trying to micro-manage to show that they can sneak in runs?

I'm with you. The bunt has it's place in softball but not as the primary weapon.

Maybe he comes from a 10U back ground where bunts often turn into hits but unless you have a good fast bunter or are trying to do one of the things you mention, no need to go bunt happy in my opinion.

I'm with you, I don't understand why some coaches seem to bunt for the sake of bunting and don't take the hitter's skills into account at all. I'm curious to see what the forum says.

I'm curious as to the coaches background.

If he is a longtime fastpitch coach, he may still believe that FP is a pitcher's game and you advance runners any way you can.
For so long, this was a pitcher's game and 1-0 or 2-1 scores were the norm rather than the exception.

In todays game, the pitcher, for the most part, is not the dominant force that she once was. The bat technology and the proliferaton of teams have lessened the frequency of the lights out pitcher. I'm not saying that there are not good pitchers out there, it just seems like there are fewer than there have been in the past.

Echoing Osric's plea, I'd like to hear from other seasoned and knowledgeable coaches, expanding to the short game in general. I feel a lot of coaches try to "force" a slap game when they don't have players with the speed to get down the line fast enough. If you want to get the infield moving, why not fake a bunt on the first or second pitch, or have a hitter pull back a bunt and swing away. How important is it to have the right kind of speed to make slapping an effective strategy? I generally prefer to see hitters hit (even pitchers, Osric, being a national league guy...)

Is the team winning?

Just a word of caution, do not get drawn into the group that wants to complain. I have been there and it was awful. These dads and moms will start complaining about every little thing, quickly.

Ajaywill said:

I'm curious as to the coaches background.

Click to expand...

I don't know his full background. He was a coach in the local instructional league until his daughter was 10 at which point he pulled his daughter (and most of the other "good" players) out of the league (mid season) and formed his own tournament team. He strongly believes in the philosophy that girls from the same school system need to play on the same team from an early age and did not want to follow the organizational philosophy of mixing girls from different schools with different coaches from year to year.

He kept that team together until the 16u level, at which point he took on the role of middle-school coach. Beyond that, I don't know a lot about his background.

It wasn't like he was incompetent...he did several things that I like over what I've seen before (not bunting the 1st pitch all the time, mixing up when in the count a runner would attempt a steal) it was just such a heavy reliance on the bunt game that at least for my daughter, it is eroding her confidence as a hitter.

One of DD’s coaches did that to her. She is also not too good pulling the bat back on a bunt, she tries to bunt anything thrown. To many times she was down 2 strikes before she was allowed to swing the bat. It drove me, and was starting to drive her nuts.

It didn’t help that I agree with you. Bunting is a tool. If we bunt early in the game and the defense does not do a good job they are going to see a lot of bunts. That is OK. Bunting for the sake of bunting never made sense to me.

With my 14U team we have two girls at the top of the order who can fly and are much much smaller than the other girls. If they can get bunt on the ground they are on base. So, I have them bunt a lot because they are much more effective that way and it doesn't make a lot of sense to have them swing away when that only helps the defense. That being said, I think I may have given the bunt sign to our #4 hitter twice in the last two years, both times in situations late in the game when one run would win the game and we needed to move a runner over. We bunt a lot at the top and bottom of the order but the number of bunts you describe does seem like a lot.

Is 3B playing deep?
Can 1B field the bunt?
How successful is the bunting?
Can your team hit?
Are you strong defensively?
Do you have good pitching?
Are you winning games?

Those are all reasons to bunt and bunt often.