from Amazon
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Should a great hitter bunt against the shift?
Take the case of two excellent hitters: Ortiz and Hafner. They both lead in defensive shifts. What is the counterpunch to a defensive shift? Bunt to the opposite side. Ortiz has bunted 7 times in the last few years, and reached base 4 times. Hafner has yet to ever bunt in his career. Let’s say that a truly horrible bunter, with the shift, hits .500. With 1 out, the run value of the hit is around .26 runs and the run value of the out is .18 runs, meaning that the bunt is worth around +.04 runs per PA. A great hitter would be worth around +.06 runs per PA overall (meaning +.04 with bases empty and +.08 with runners on).
As you can see, it’s close to a breakeven point as to whether a great hitter should bunt against a shift, or simply swing away. But, to the extent that a hitter CAN bunt better than .500, he should definitely bunt. Suppose that the 2B, SS, and 3B are all playing a deep outfield, so that you have 6 legitimate outfielders, and only your 1B is in the infield. You’d be nuts to hit away against that. Your +.04 hitting away runs per PA would plummet to at least +.03 runs if not worse. It should be fairly easy to improve your bunting to the point that maybe you are now a .600 bunter (meaning that you are now a +.08 runs per PA bunter).
At those levels, it pays to bunt, because now they won’t shift so ridiculously. Basically, it should all be a balancing act (by the fielders and hitters), to the point where your bunt rate and your hitting away rate should be somewhat close to the league average (or more accurately, proportional to the difference in your bunt and hitting away skills). By not bunting (or at least not learning how to bunt somewhat effectively), Hafner allows his opponents to set up a fielding alignment that really hurts his hitting away output. Ortiz bunting 7 times looks like Francona is at least aware of game theory that he’s trying to keep the fielders a bit more honest.