jimmer

No, I am not, but I am not going to continue to explain it.

No. It says 2/3 of the bunts put in play worked, not 2/3 of bunts attempted. Only 38% of bunts were put in play and two thirds of those worked (so it is still only 25% of all bunts laid down). So below a .250 BA on bunt attempts. And that's a small sample size. Imagine if there was an average of only 3 shifts per game. Almost 5k games, that's about 15K PAs and only 200 attempts. And only for batters that the manager was comfortable enough with to even try.

I want to elaborate on the info provided below: 'It won’t surprise you to learn there haven’t been all that many bunt attempts against the shift. This is the very reason certain people have been complaining. I came up with just over 200 attempts over two years. Of those attempts, 38% were bunted fair, and 25% of the bunts resulted in the batter reaching base, either on a hit or an error. In other words, one of four attempted bunts put the batter on, but two of three bunts in play worked out, which isn’t a shock. Thing about the overshift is there’s not really anyone in the vicinity to do the fielding.' So based on what is written above, there was only 200 or so PAs over 2 seasons where a batter was asked to try to beat beat the shift by bunting. They got on base 25% of the time (and that's not the batting average cause that includes errors). So that's below a .250 average for the batters who tried. Think about all the batters who were never asked to try because they are so bad (or slow) it wasn't even worth the attempt? If it was easier to bunt than to hit, certainly way more would have been asked to try and bunt while a shift is on. Again, only 200 PAs over the course of about 4900 MLB games did a player attempt to bunt against the shift. And for those even comfortable enough to try, the BA was below .250. Imagine if all the batters tried how low that number might be? Now, over the course of a whole season, overall league batting averages range between .255 and .260 right? This doesn't include those who gets on base due to errors. And all batters contribute to this, to include some pitchers, right? Not just the ones comfortable enough to try, but everyone. The average is still quite a bit higher.

but, but, it's against the unwritten rules. The defense can set up their defense unnaturally to try and play the odds, but you're not supposed to take advantage of it cause you're down by a lot. Just give up boy, learn from the veterans :-)

And that theory is based on what? All the successful bunts that get put down? All the hitters who proclaim it to be easier? If it was easier to bunt for hits than take full swings for hits, there would be way more bunting. During batting practice, and during most at bats in games, hitters take full swings. Their timing techniques are based on taking full swings at pitches a huge majority of time. But you think it's easier for them to completely change that timing up so they can turn their bodies to face the pitchers more, adjust their feet and just put the bat out there and not swing? I don't think your theory is based on any reality. Bunting goes completely against what is practiced and then applied in almost every at bat that counts. It might, MIGHT, be easier to get ball on bat, but not easier to actually do it well enough to put it in play AND get on base with any regularity for most if not all players. Most practiced bunts are likely for sacrificing. And if you aren't worried about actually getting on base when laying one down most of the time, I imagine that makes trying to bunt for an actual hit even harder.

and I imagine many of those guys who reached we're very fast players. Some act as if pitchers are going to groove the batters a meatball with a shift on so the bunt will be easy. Curves, changeups, sliders. Those are fun to try and bunt on. Bunting at the MLB level against MLB pitchers is hard especially when you rarely bunt. If it was really easy, teams wouldn't do the shift. The shift is about playing the odds.

From a Fangraphs article in 2014: 'It won’t surprise you to learn there haven’t been all that many bunt attempts against the shift. This is the very reason certain people have been complaining. I came up with just over 200 attempts over two years. Of those attempts, 38% were bunted fair, and 25% of the bunts resulted in the batter reaching base, either on a hit or an error. In other words, one of four attempted bunts put the batter on, but two of three bunts in play worked out, which isn’t a shock. Thing about the overshift is there’s not really anyone in the vicinity to do the fielding.'

I think most teams don't bunt more for a couple reasons. Its very hard to properly bunt for a hit and they just don't practice it enough.

Could drop the amount of games played by each team to 154 and schedule some true doubleheaders in there. Show they care a bit about the fans.

It's only a routine grounder if a player has shown a proclivity to hit the ball there.

His goal should be to get on base, especially down by so many. That makes the bunt a perfectly good option especially when the defense has shifted. Now, if you feel that he should have been swinging away because that was his best way to get on base, that's fine. But Dozier is complaining cause he broke an unwritten rule by bunting. It was a perfectly good strategy to get on base.

You know, from a visual standpoint, I agree. But I prefer baseball to be played as intelligently as possible, so if that means that sometimes those balls are fielded, it is what it is.

Ah. I guess that makes sense. Thank you.

From an article on ESPN 'So let's talk about Minnesota Twins star Brian Dozier, who took Stupid Unwritten Rules to a new level this weekend. Dozier is, in his words, "getting hammered" for his complaint against the Baltimore Orioles, which he should be if you consider the point of "unwritten rules" to be enforcing a rational code of play that exists for the good of the sport. Dozier's claims, in that interpretation, do not stand up, not even a little bit. But that's the wrong way to think about unwritten rules. Unwritten rules are a scam that players run on each other to trick their opponents into acting against their own self-interests. They are stupid, of course, but more than that, they're brilliant, on multiple levels, and they seem to work -- and ever since I realized this, I've been a lot less annoyed.' And more: '"When they didn't hold our runner on [earlier in the blowout], they conceded to the fact they didn't want us to steal, so we didn't steal," Dozier explained. "We could have very easily stolen and put up more runs, so therefore in return, you don't bunt. That's what everybody is missing in this whole thing." In other words: We weren't trying, so he shouldn't have tried.' Of course, Dozier's logic prima facie was bad: The Twins kept throwing breaking balls, they kept positioning their defenders in elaborate shifts and so on -- so they were still trying. Intuiting some fluid and ambiguous code about how much to try is a lot to ask of players who are merely attempting to play baseball well, for money, in front of a large audience. Complaining about this -- as other Twins did, as well -- is comically sensitive. So most will hammer Dozier. But Dozier's goal isn't, I'd argue, to get Chance Sisco to respect the game. It's to get Sisco -- and other Twins opponents -- to go easy on the Twins. It's to get them to not try extra hard to come back when they're trailing by seven runs. It's to get them to not force Dozier and his teammates to run any harder than they have to. It's to get them to be afraid of offending, embarrassing or tricking the Twins. (Or, alternately, to get them to be afraid of offending, embarrassing or tricking veterans, such as Dozier, who use their clout and seniority to steer young players toward certain types of non-threatening behavior.) It's to weaken their opponents or to cause their opponents to weaken themselves -- more complicated than but otherwise consistent with every other baseball strategy.' http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23005962/brian-dozier-take-baseball-unwritten-rules-silly-brilliant-same

Any idea why there is a day off between a Monday day game and Wednesday night game? Or for that matter, why the series in Seattle starts on Thursday, SKIPS FRIDAY, then continues on Saturday and Sunday? Who made these schedules?

When you see the game played in central and south america countries, they play the game with passion and they have a lot of fun. As more and more players from those countries make the majors, the more fun you'll see. I like it. I like it cause it's a game. It's not study hall in a library with a librarian telling you to shush.

So in another thread when someone doesn't like Dozier's comments about the bunt, it's okay to make a post defending Dozier's comments and defending unwritten rules in general by saying you like unwritten rules they 'keep the game closer to what you like to see', but when someone mentions they don't like the unwritten rules in a thread created about an unwritten rule broken, you say you don't want the thread to be turned into slamming unwritten rules? Only your point of view on unwritten rules is allowed to be posted?

All of this. All of this hailing back to old school ways in the game need to die. Most of the unwritten rules are pretty ridiculous. So many of them are there to supposedly avoid hurting the feelings of someone (usually the pitcher) when they fail. Here's an idea, don't fail, but when you do, be a man and accept responsibility instead of looking for a way to deflect blame off your mess-up because someone broke an unwritten rule. Don't want people to bunt when you shift, don't shift. Don't want people to watch their home run or flip a bat when they hit a HR, don't give up the home run. Neither action of the batter means they should have to get hit by a 90 plus fastball. I mean seriously, a pitcher fails, a batter celebrates, and then he gets hit? BTW, ever notice pitchers can do whatever they want to celebrate on the mound and somehow that's NOT against unwritten rules?

yup, should have been an error.

it's also not magical when you pay 800 bucks for a flight, 400 bucks for 3 nights in a hotel, and another 300 bucks for two people to go to three games and 2 of the 3 get rained out and postponed to a later date.

The last time the Twins had three starters consecutively go at least 6 scoreless was June 2014. Correia, Hughes, Gibson.

90%

many years ago, I did that with Johan Santana's changeup, but pitches always cheat man. It's not worth it ;-)

So Buxton's running catch in the 8th, that looked seemingly easy since he caught it shoulder length while charging in, was a 5 star catch according to statcast. He covered 92 feet in 4.8 seconds. That hit ball only gets caught 21% of the time.

Yeah, I don't really understand. Maybe it's an old school unwritten rule that I've never heard of?