The Twins Didn’t Bunt at All, Because the Twins Couldn’t Bunt, at All - Caretaker Exclusive

[Davy Andrews]

The Twins were uniquely bad at bunting in 2024, but they also might have been uniquely good at bunting.

Image courtesy of © Erik Williams-Imagn Images

You probably know that the Twins weren’t big bunters in 2024. But did you know that they had just two bunt hits all season? Two bunts! You can count them on one hand, even if you’re a lobster. As you might have guessed, that was the lowest total in the league. Most teams had more than 10. Forty-nine different individual players had more bunt base hits than the entire Twins team. We started tracking these things in 2002, and if you throw out the short 2020 season, the 2018 A’s are the only team that has ever had fewer bunt hits. They had zero. The Twins bunted just 24 times in total, the sixth-lowest mark in baseball.

Still, while the absolute number is extreme, it’s not surprising that the Twins didn’t bunt a lot. For starters, they weren’t built for small ball. They had a top-10 offense with a lot of power but not much speed. Actually, that doesn’t quite do justice to the reality of the situation, so let me phrase it differently: the Twins had no speed whatsoever. They ranked last in sprint speed, stolen bases, and stolen base attempts, and they ranked in the bottom five in success rate and overall baserunning value. Moreover, the team’s only real burner, Byron Buxton, was also its best power hitter. Nobody would recommend taking the bat out of Buxton’s hands. Plenty of us enjoy watching more of an old-school approach, but with a roster like Minnesota’s, bunting regularly would have been downright irresponsible.

The numbers bear that out and then some. FanGraphs tracks the percentage of your bunts that go for hits, and Statcast allows you to find the batting average of a team’s bunts. The majority of the teams in the league had a bunt hit rate above 30% and a batting average on bunts above .460. The Twins were at 8% and .143, the worst in baseball on both counts. I also made my own bunt success metric. Even though the numbers say that sacrifice bunts aren’t necessarily the smart play, I wanted to give teams credit for succeeding or failing at whatever they were trying to do. To that effect, I took each team’s total number of bunts, then I subtracted their bunt base hits, successful sacrifice bunts, and bunts where the batter reached on an error. That left just the bunts that ended up as regular old outs, either because a base hit attempt or a sacrifice attempt didn’t work out. Then I divided that number by the total number of bunts. For the Twins, it was 50%. Half of the time, their bunts were total failures. Only the Red Sox, whose bunts failed a catastrophic 56% of the time, were worse. Atlanta finished in first place with an astonishing 11%. Just two of their 18 bunts ended up as failures.

Just to recap what we’ve established so far, the Twins didn’t bunt much because they were super slow. And as expected, on the rare occasions when they did bunt, things went very, very badly. You could make a strong argument that when they got a bunt down, no team in baseball was worse than the Twins. But this story has a surprise twist! Are you ready? The Twins were extremely unsuccessful when they got a bunt down, BUT they were the best team in baseball at getting the bunt down!

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[Rosterman]

Sure, not everyone can do it. But.....

Also, putting the ball in friggin' play. Learn how to properly do the hit-and-run if at all possible.

Plus, having a bench guy like Cruz or Thome who could actually hit a fly ball more often than not if you got someone on third with no outs.

[The Great Hambino]

I don't know how to get this data, but I would want to include in the results PAs where the batter put themselves in a 2 strike hole by failing to get a bunt down.  It's a failure of process, even if not always a failure in result - though I'd have to imagine results would suffer as well

[Matthew Trueblood]

38 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

I don't know how to get this data, but I would want to include in the results PAs where the batter put themselves in a 2 strike hole by failing to get a bunt down.  It's a failure of process, even if not always a failure in result - though I'd have to imagine results would suffer as well

Join up as a Caretaker, and see the full story! That's addressed, in part, by the exclusive portion of Davy's piece.

[Riverbrian]

The data says don't give up the out. I can't argue with that. You only get three outs per inning... giving up the out via the bunt may increase the odds of one run but it will severely decrease the odds for a crooked number and crooked numbers win ball games. So I'm fine with the low bunting totals. 

However... Here is what I'm not fine with... and actually kind of pissed off about. 

The Twins went the entire season not bunting. Extremely rare occasions... Rare and I mean rare occasions did they lay one down. 

And then... ALL OF SUDDEN with the season on the line. Needing wins in the last week of the year with the playoffs on the line. They start laying down the bunts in desperation.  

They executed 10 successful sacrifices all season long. Last week of the season... here comes the bunts. 

IF YOU ARE GOING TO BUNT WITH THE SEASON ON THE LINE... OR BUNT IN THE PLAYOFFS. It kind of suggests that Bunts can be useable in the chase for a W. After all... they really needed W's that week and they start whipping them out like a bear coming out of hibernation. 

If that's the case... If you are going to bunt in the playoffs. BUNT IN APRIL... BUNT IN MAY... BUNT IN JUNE... BUNT in JULY... BUNT IN AUGUST... Then maybe you won't look so ridiculous trying to bunt in September or October. 

 

 

[Dawgzilla]

Not only couldn't they bunt, but they had about 20 steals all year...kidding, but not far from truth.  I always like a manager and players that are aggressive, forcing teams to make perfect plays, usually works out for team who is aggressive.  I like teams that are "conservative" to a football team trying to maintain a lead with a "prevent defense" which actually prevents you from winning most times!!!!!!

[CharlieDee]

   I think small ball makes for a more exciting game than waiting for a home run. I'm an old timer, and I miss the bunt and trying to move runners. More bunting please!

[David HK]

As an old fart, this lack of a basic baseball skill is a disgrace.  You don't have to worry (unless you're in the low minors) about making rent, or the grocery bill.  You're not asked to be a student-athlete and keep up in class at the same time.  Your only focus is playing ball.  Why in the hell would you not have the desire within yourself, if not as a team mandate, to hone your game?  Bunting is back in vogue as a strategy, and once again, the Twinks are well behind the curve.

The old Hollywood stars got schooled in all areas, singing, dancing, acting, and could carry any of those skills with competence.  Now we're down to NFL-style one-trick ponies.  Makes me burn.  Get a damn coach to tour those minors and get people down to the task.  Don't we still have a HOFér roaming around somewhere?

[David HK]

1 hour ago, Dawgzilla said:

Not only couldn't they bunt, but they had about 20 steals all year...kidding, but not far from truth.  I always like a manager and players that are aggressive, forcing teams to make perfect plays, usually works out for team who is aggressive.  I like teams that are "conservative" to a football team trying to maintain a lead with a "prevent defense" which actually prevents you from winning most times!!!!!!

This is exactly what the Dodgers did to win that series.  Their scouting indicated that if they put pressure on, put the ball in play, the yanks would muck it up somehow.  As a team on the bubble, I don't know why you wouldn't be at least competent in the all-around game.

[Otaknam]

Baldelli is Earl Weaver reincarnated. Even when the offense is going bad, which it did for the first three weeks of the season and for the last few weeks, Rocco didn’t have enough imagination to try a hit and run or steal a base and put some pressure on the defense. So bunting is not in his playbook either. The team definitely needs more speed, especially on defense, but I’m not sure where you find it  if Larnach and Wallner are corner outfielders. Lewis is fast, but given his injury issues you don’t want him with a hamstring injury trying to steal a base.

[David Maro]

You are asking a team to play baseball and this FO and manager don't want that. All you have to do is watch how many times they had bases loaded with no or one out and everyone swinging for the fences. What this organization thinks is all the lineup is capable of going deep. You also have the booth getting all gitty about so and so going deep instead of getting the ball in play. I saw numerous strikeouts and DP balls. If the new staff plays the same game they will only see all the same problems. All they need to do is look at what happened to the Yankees in the WS,they kept waiting for the homerun.

[Senior Softball Guy]

Help is on the way! I saw Walker Jenkins lay down a perfect bunt, then steal 2nd and third while nursing a sore hamstring. Oh, and he laced a Maurer-esque double to left center.