Bunting In Baseball vs. Bunting and Slaphitting In Softball

Bob Roubik

In-depth/Feature draft

In today’s game of baseball, home run hitters are seen as champions, and the heart and soul of teams.

Players like Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard get so much praise from the media and fans.

Guys like Juan Pierre, Rafael Furcal and Ichiro Suzuki might make it on a few highlight reels for their defense, but rarely will there ever be an important bunt or sacrifice bunt that sets up a win appear on a highlight reel.

The only time bunts are shown in highlights is when they are “exciting” enough. Maybe one that results in a collision at the plate would be deemed fit for a highlight reel.

Eastern Illinois coach Jim Schmitz feels it is because players are much bigger and stronger these days and because a lot of parks are smaller these days.

Guys like A-Rod are a franchise owner’s dream. The smaller guys are always in the shadows of guys like him.

It is a shame.

Speed wins championships and to see the stat of the home run be so glorified is bothersome.

Stats such as stealing, triples and bunting are just as important, if not more important than home runs.

Last year, Brett Nommensen, the center fielder of the Eastern Illinois baseball team, led the team in triples, four, and runs scored, 39, while ranking second in steals, 13 in 15 attempts. He batted .350 during Ohio Valley Conference play and reached base 42 percent of the time while leading off an inning.

Nommensen feels that at the college level it is not so much of an issue with faster guys being overlooked by power guys.

“The speed guys are looked at the most at the college level, but upper levels it’s mostly the power guys who are looked at, but if you look at the power guys’ numbers it’s mostly the speed guys who get on and allow them to have those numbers,” said Nommensen.

Home runs do not mean as much if the fast guys do not bunt their way on. The big RBI guys would not get as many RBIs if the little guys one day decided they wanted more home runs and RBIs.

“When you actually talk to a power hitter, the first thing they’ll talk about is how they wouldn’t have those numbers if the guys in front of them didn’t get on,” Nommensen said.

Nommensen looks at it as he is on the team to help them and the team out, and they (the power guys) are on the team to help the team out.

Little, speedy guys are an essential element to a baseball team and so is the ability to be able bunt.

We always hear about home runs, no hitters and great defensive plays in baseball, but we never really hear about bunting.

One would think that these speedy guys might feel underappreciated at times, but this is not the case with Nommensen.

“I look at as another thing for me that I can use to get myself a base hit because I mean it’s like a lot of people don’t look at it as a big deal,” Nommensen said. “Bunting is one of the hardest things to do. You can ask a lot of the big guys, they can’t do it, and someone who can actually do it real well is just another level of threat a team has a whole.”

Bunting is important in baseball and is practiced regularly in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“It’s a segment of what we do as a regular batting practice,” Tennessee-Martin coach Bubba Cates said.

Cates’ runs drills with four guys and a pitching machine where one guy will feed the machine, one will bunt and the other two will field the bunts. The drill is called pepper and allows hitters to practice bunting and fielding at the same time.

Another drill: one guy will bunt and two guys will stand at a distance closer than a pitching mound and toss balls at him and he will bunt to the guy fielding, then the fielder will throw one and the bunter bunts it to the other guy.

Eastnern’s Schmitz has about half of the team go about 30 minutes early to practices to work on their bunting for hits. Schmitz feels sacrifice bunting is not really a concern until players can develop how to bunt for a hit.

What makes a good bunt?

“Plate coverage,” Cates said. “The plate needs to be in front of the body and you need to get the bat over the plate in order to cover the outside. It’s real similar to catching a popup and catching a ball down by your waist where you can see the ball. You need to be able to see the ball in order to make a successful bunt.”

Cates tells his players to try and make the bat be at least a 45 degree angle when the ball contacts the bat during a bunt. By doing this, it is less likely the ball will hit the end of the bat and go foul, and it tends to make the ball go to the ground easier.

Coach Schmitz tells us his take on how to bunt well.

“Placement, placement, placement and more placement,” Schmitz said.

There is a phrase called the “hurry 30” Schmitz heard at a clinic which is if you keep a bunted ball near the 30 foot line down the third base line, no matter how close the third basemen is playing, he cannot throw you out.
“Perfect bunt or foul is the terminology we use when bunting to third,” Schmitz said. “Even if he bunts it foul, it’s successful because that’s just strike one. There’s nothing worse than bunting it five feet down the line and realizing right away you have no chance to make it to first.”

Some guys feel they need to start to cheat to first before a bunt, or they need to hide the bunt better, but a bunt is not successful without getting the ball down where the player wants it.

“It’s not as much the disguise, the lateness of the movement of the bunter, it’s all placement,” Schmitz said.

Nommensen feels that once hitters realize that if they learn to place a bunt before worrying about anything, it will help them be a successful bunter.

“The basic thing is you need to bunt before you run and a lot of guys don’t understand that if you can bunt and place the ball at the right time you can pretty much walk to first base,” Nommensen added.

Bunting to first base is different though because if you bunt it near the line the first basemen can just field the ball and tag the runner. When bunting for a hit to first, you want to try and keep the ball about eight feet off the line.

Typically, it depends on the team’s style of play when bunting is used.

If the team is smaller and faster they will tend to bunt more often than a team with less speed because they have the ability to use their speed and small ball mentality more effectively than a team with less speed players.

“Austin Peay bunts really well,” Schmitz said. “They run well so it all goes within the philosophy. They’re going to steal, they’re going to run, and they’re going to put pressure on you.”

Cates talks about Mississippi State and their style of play.

“Mississippi State rarely bunts,” Cates said. “Unless the game is on the line in the eighth or ninth you really won’t see them bunt. Some teams are playing for a big inning where they get a few guys on and hope for a home run or a gapper.”

It also depends on the type of pitcher.

Schmitz likes to use situational bunting when dealing with certain types of pitchers.

“If I know their pitcher is really good and we got two on by an error and a walk I might sac bunt, but most of the time sacrificing is only late in the game trying to get that run to tie it or win it,” Schmitz said. “I basically tell them when to bunt and which way to bunt unless they get to that senior year where they really are experienced with it.”

Schmitz has his philosophies on how to coach against certain pitchers.

Cates has his own philosophies as well.

“If you’re facing a pitcher like Josh Beckett of the Boston Red Sox, you’re not going to beat him with only one run,” Cates said. “You try to get guys on base against him and hope he throws a mistake to get a few runs off him when guys are on.”

Facing a pitcher like Beckett is very tough and one might think anything that can benefit the home team would be done.

This is where grounds keeping can come into play.

“I don’t think a whole lot about that, but I know some people do, especially professional teams,” Cates said. “Sometimes they’ll soak the front of the plate area so bunts don’t go too far and the catcher can easily get the ball. Some baselines are sloped at the college level where the ball will roll down the line and go foul.”

Tennessee-Martin does not alter Skyhawk Field in any certain way for themselves or for their opponents. However, if they did, Cates would want his lines slanted in so if his fast guys bunted the balls would stay fair longer making it easier for them to get down the line.

“We don’t really do that as it would relate to another team,” Cates said. “We don’t have enough time and effort to figure everything out to prepare the field for that.”

Schmitz coached at Cincinnati from 1987-1990 and Florida State was in the league. Schmitz remembers when you went to Florida State they would add more grass to the baseline. They added one foot of grass on each side of the baseline as opposed to three to help deaden the ball on a bunt and they would also add height to the grass, which also helps deaden the ball.

Schmitz tells a story about when two years ago at Tennessee Tech, who was a great bunting team, and Eastern had been bunting really well all year and had been working on it. When they got to Bush Stadium at the Averitt Express Baseball Complex the height of the grass on the field was so short that every time a player would try and bunt, the ball would just take off down the line.

Another sport bunting is used in here at Eastern and in the OVC is softball. Softball is a much faster-paced game and bunting and slap hitting are very common in this sport.

“Overall, probably bunting occurs more because there is sacrifice bunting and bunting for a hit,” Eastern Illinois coach Schuette said. “Everyone has to know how to bunt.”

There are certain skills a good slap hitter or bunter needs to be successful in softball.

“Good bat control, someone who is able to put the ball in play, and speed because they have to be able to beat out the play,” Schuette said.

In softball, slappers are always left-handed vs. everyone can bunt for a hit and sacrifice bunt said Schuette.

“We have three girls who are slappers and two girls who are right-handed who bunt for a hit, so we have a mixture,” Schuette said. “In softball it is important that you have both. The game is so fast, the bases are only 60 feet and someone who is a fast runner and just puts the ball in play is more likely to beat it out. It’s just starting to come over to baseball with Ichiro who slaps for hits.”

One of the Schuette’s slappers is outfielder Megan Nelson. Nelson led the team in steals last year safely stealing ten times on 13 attempts. She reached base 36 percent of the time when leading off an inning. On average Nelson reaches first base in 2.7 seconds which is good because Schuette’s goal is to have her players to first in under 2.9 seconds.

“I used to be a hitter, and not being able to rip big hits anymore becomes part of your job to just try and get on,” said Nelson. “When I came (to Eastern) they switched me to slapping. I did a lot more hitting and I have a basic idea of the mechanics of slapping and being able to be a power slapper is a good tool to have on a team too.”

Softball is a fast-paced game where power hitters, base hit hitters and slappers are all needed to have a successful team.

“Whenever we do hitting in practice the slappers do both, they bunt, they slap and they hit away,” Schuette said. “And every time we do hitting, everyone bunts.”

However, slappers are not used to just try and get on, but they can also be used to sacrifice like a bunter.

“The most important statistics for a slapper is their on-base-percentage and their sacrifices,” Schuette said. “They are not worried about batting average. They are just worried about any possible way to get on base so that they can get on and we can steal them.”

Another slapper on the team is outfielder Angela Danca. Last year, Danca reached base 32 percent of the time when leading off an inning. Danca recorded five RBIs last year and the Panthers have never lost a game she has recorded an RBI in. She was also recently clocked at getting to first base in 2.59 seconds.

Danca feels that getting the ball down is the hardest part about bunting

        “Bunting is what will sometimes win or lose a game,” Danca said.  “Small ball is a big deal.”

One drill Schuette runs in practice for slappers is where a tee is placed on home plate with a ball on it and the slapper will hit the ball off the tee and sprint to first as fast as they can. This drill allows slappers to work on placement and their speed down the line. Typically, a slapper would like to hit the ball to the left side of the field or to the second basemen up the middle and beat out the play.

        “From what I have been taught and learned over the years just being able to hit the ball on the ground and being fast is what makes a good slapper,” Danca said.  “So speed usually is crucial to slapping.”

Another drill Schuette runs is for bunting for a hit where she holds a stopwatch and she starts the watch the second the bat makes contact with the ball and stops the watch the second the hitter makes it to first base.

“We have all those times from the fall and they’re trying to get less than 2.9 seconds to first base,” Schuette said. “Some of them are as fast as 2.7 seconds.”

Another slapper on the team is outfielder Lauren Brackett. Last year Brackett finished second on the team in sacrifice hits, eight, and stolen bases, nine. She reached base 39 percent of the time when leading off an inning and batted .302 with runners on base. She also scored ten of her 15 runs in Eastern wins.

“A slapper and bunter have to be smart,” said Brackett. “They have the ability to put a lot of pressure on the defense because of their speed therefore they need to look at the field and see where the defense is playing.”

Schuette believes that right now bunting and slapping are more common in softball than in baseball because not as many players use these techniques in baseball as in softball.

Brackett explains some of those techniques used by a bunter or slapper.

“If the shortstop is deep, hit a slow roller to the left side, if she’s in, drive the ball past her,” Brackett said. “Same thing with the third and first basemen, if they are deep, lay down a bunt and if they are in hit it hard at them.”

Also, the bases in softball are 60 feet as opposed to baseball where the bases are 90 feet, so it is more common to use bunting and slapping in softball.

Schuette attributes a commercial from a few years back about how “chicks dig the long ball” which featured Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson. She feels the long ball is big in baseball and is becoming bigger in softball.

Another softball coach from the OVC is Morehead State’s Holly Bruder. Bruder feels that Morehead is not a heavy slapping and bunting team.

“I don’t know why, but we aren’t.,” Bruder said. “Right now I have two slappers. I would like to get some more versatility on our team though. I would say right now about 10% of or offense is slapping and bunting.”

Bruder would like to obtain a few more slappers because slapping and bunting is so common in softball because of the size of the field. She feels that speed is really an issue when coaching a softball team.

So it seems as though bunting, along with slapping are more common in softball than they are in baseball. This could be because of the size of the field. It could also be because men just think it is better to be able to smash a ball over a fence than use small ball to win games.

I do not know the exact reasons why things are the way they are when dealing with bunting in these two sports, but I do now know how bunting is thought of in each sport.