As a former Fastpitch coach who now coaches baseball, I want to discuss the OP's reference to bunting in baseball now, at the high school and college levels and I have been fortunate to have coached at both levels (baseball). The landscape of the two levels of the game offensively has changed dramatically due to the BBCOR bats. The days of grip and rip especially at the high school level are over. The days of the check swing liner out of the infield is gone. Small ball is a very effective offensive tool in baseball at this time. One big reason is a lot of today's young high school coaches grew up in the grip and rip era of the game, watching the LSU teams making gorilla ball famous and they do not teach how to defense a team that plays an aggressive small ball team. Therefore a lot of errors are made and it creates big innings.
I say this because I strongly will argue that the bunt game in baseball is more productive now than it was 5-10 years ago, due to the BBCOR bats, especially in high school baseball. I personally use the bunt, steal, and aggressive base running philosophy in the teams I have had the past few years. I took over a program that it's players had such terrible swings, it would have been impossible to fix their swings. So in order to try to compete, I took the resource of overall team speed was above average, simplified their swing to make contact, but got them to buy into using the bunt as a weapon. We basically developed into a team that played a Fastpitch style game, on the baseball field. Teams would play their 3rd baseman even with the mound like they do in Fastpitch. This style of play led to the 1st winning season in 7 years for the program, a play-off appearance for the 1st time in 9 years, and a play-off game win for the 1st time in 12 years. The following year that style led to a 16-5 record, and two playoff series wins before being eliminated. So I strongly feel the bunt game, in baseball is in a window that the bunt is more productive currently than the OP stated. And as far as College Baseball, UCLA won the National Championship with a team batting avg of .244 I believe. So if taught properly it is even more effective still in the Fastpitch game due to more girls working to have better swings and coaches playing for the big inning because the overall hitting ability of girls in the sport has improved.
I say this because I strongly will argue that the bunt game in baseball is more productive now than it was 5-10 years ago, due to the BBCOR bats, especially in high school baseball. I personally use the bunt, steal, and aggressive base running philosophy in the teams I have had the past few years. I took over a program that it's players had such terrible swings, it would have been impossible to fix their swings. So in order to try to compete, I took the resource of overall team speed was above average, simplified their swing to make contact, but got them to buy into using the bunt as a weapon. We basically developed into a team that played a Fastpitch style game, on the baseball field. Teams would play their 3rd baseman even with the mound like they do in Fastpitch. This style of play led to the 1st winning season in 7 years for the program, a play-off appearance for the 1st time in 9 years, and a play-off game win for the 1st time in 12 years. The following year that style led to a 16-5 record, and two playoff series wins before being eliminated. So I strongly feel the bunt game, in baseball is in a window that the bunt is more productive currently than the OP stated. And as far as College Baseball, UCLA won the National Championship with a team batting avg of .244 I believe. So if taught properly it is even more effective still in the Fastpitch game due to more girls working to have better swings and coaches playing for the big inning because the overall hitting ability of girls in the sport has improved.
