Ten Reasons the Bunt Was the Wrong Play

[Guest Edgy DC]

1. It's playing for the tie --- at the expense of the win --- at home. Ugh.

2. Let's be generous and say it's an 80% play. Reyes stealing is an 80% play. This season, it has been a 100% play.

3. If it's successful, it takes .500 batting average to tie the game. If Reyes stealing is successful, it takes a .333 batting average to tie the game.

4. Wright, you may notice, hasn't been hitting. You need your outs.

5. You take a guy, bump him up to the number two slot, get him excited that he's got the stuff and he can show the world, and then flash him a sign that says he sucks and you just want him to make an out.

6. It's not an 80% play. Look at a game. It's just not. Yet we call for it like success is guaranteed. It's anything but.

7. It's not just the guy. It tells the whole team: "You suck. Now let me try and gimmick my way to a bullshit win to save you sucky sucks some face." It wrecks confidence when it's successful. It absolutely murders confidence when it... happens to happen like it happened.

8. It inspires the Murphys and the Pagans to kill themselves with overagressivness trying to make something happen when their manager is giving outs away like the E.E. Ford Foundaiton of Outs. "Are you the manager, now?" he screamed at Murphy. Well, some part of him had to have been thinking, "grumblegrumblecan'tdoanyworsegrumbleleastIdon'tgivethegameawaywithbuntsgrumblegrumble."

9. Baseball. It's not about you. My God, did nobody tell you about Jerry?

10. Playing for the tie and extra innings? Do you suddenly want this game decided by your bullpen depth?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Edgy DC wrote: 3. If it's successful, it takes .500 batting average to tie the game. If Reyes stealing is successful, it takes a .333 batting average to tie the game.

Or a contact-y .000 batting average.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yup.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Or fouling off fastballs, and taking everything else. Lyons didn't throw a single breaking ball for a strike, and tends to walk guys in bunches.

[Vic Sage]

****bunter strikes again... makes me long for wee willie small balls.

[Ceetar]

Well, I'm not totally against playing for the tie, the idea is it awards you three more outs, which is valuable.

For better or worse, I think the players think the bunt is the right move too. It's probably been so ingrained into them that that's what you do.. So I don't think it's killing their confidence, and I think i t's the losing that's causing Pagan and Murphy and whoever to press.


You do need a hit anyway, but if it's Thole that gets the hit you've got a guy on third with no outs. Even if Thole makes out, if Wright gets the hit you still probably have a runner on third with less than one out, which is still better than bunting him to second.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

I wonder how much of this is attributable to AL managers believing you must bunt to be successful in the NL?

Watched the game with a Mets bro who remarked:

Trying to find a way to blame all this bunting on the Wilpons. Haven't quite managed to figure it out yet, but I'm sure someone will.

[G-Fafif]

The Second Spitter wrote: I wonder how much of this is attributable to AL managers believing you must bunt to successful in the NL? Watched the game with a Mets bro who remarked: Trying to find a way to blame all this bunting on the Wilpons. Haven't quite managed to figure it out yet, but I'm sure someone will.

Jeff Wilpon commissioned a study that proves bunts save wear and tear on bats versus swings. Every nickel counts.

[Ceetar]

Bunting keeps souvenir home run balls out of the stands! (And I think they give away a signed one too!)

Mets are asked if they're going to toss something to someone in the stands, make it something overused. chewing gum, Pedro Feliciano's arm (I think it's probably still there somewhere) broken bats..

Or toss something of the opposing teams.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Ceetar wrote: For better or worse, I think the players think the bunt is the right move too. It's probably been so ingrained into them that that's what you do.. So I don't think it's killing their confidence, and I think i t's the losing that's causing Pagan and Murphy and whoever to press.

The bunting and the losing are not so distinguishable.

[Frayed Knot]

Even before getting to the arguable premise about the upside of even a successful bunt, it's the (quite false) assumption of guaranteed success which has long been my main bone of contention with those who reflexively call for it in such situations. Then throw in the part about using it without consideration for where you are in the lineup and you have last night.

[Centerfield]

I guarantee you if Reyes tries a straight steal there it doesn't end up in a double play.

[Ceetar]

Centerfield wrote: I guarantee you if Reyes tries a straight steal there it doesn't end up in a double play.

Wish he'd at least gotten the chance.

I'm assuming someone must have asked him at one point over the years "wouldn't you like to steal in that situation?" And i assume he gave a bland response... but if I had to single out a player that didn't like the bunt, it'd be him.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Frayed Knot wrote: Even before getting to the arguable premise about the upside of even a successful bunt, it's the (quite false) assumption of guaranteed success which has long been my main bone of contention with those who reflexively call for it in such situations. Then throw in the part about using it without consideration for where you are in the lineup and you have last night.

Frayed Knot with more on number six and adds a number 11. I want to say that I didn't have to stop at 10 last night, but I ran out of fingers. I lay awake last night and more reasons not to bunt started coming to me. And coming and coming. Strategic reasons, psychological reasons, financial reasons, philosphical reasons, religious reasons, technical reasons, artistic reasons, manly reasons, womanly reasons, reasons that have to do with my heart, reasons that have to with my bile, reasons that only the simple understand, reasons that only the brilliant can fathom, reasons that are best explained in a foreign tongue, and reasons that are best explained by computers. Oh, my sleep was unquiet!

I guarantee you if Reyes tries a straight steal there it doesn't end up in a double play.

Unless he steals with two strikes, but yeah. But then we're confronted with the false truth that stealing is fraught with risk while bunting is the safer, more conservative play. Arm yourselves with data and and case studies to explode this position. I beg you.

And sheesh, if we're going to be cutting the legs out from under our players asking them to bunt and bunt and bunt in game situations, why did we release Luis Castillo?

[A Boy Named Seo]

On the surface, Reyes owned Towles during the game, which really annoyed the shit out of me. 2 for 2, 100% for the night (and a perfect 8-8 on the season). Towles has caught just 1 of 7 stealers this year (14%) and just 27% for his career. The risk there is a good risk to take, sez me.

Looking at win expectancy, the bunt doesn't put the Mets in a better position to win anyway. Per Fangraphs, the Mets WE went from 17.5% to 30.7% after the Reyes single. That's something anyway.

Using Tom Tango's win expectancy matrix to figure out the what-if's, after a successful bunt, the Mets down 1 in the bottom the 9th with a runner on second have a 28.2% chance of winning. Yeah, it seems their likelihood of winning decreases there. If he steals second successfully (again, a pretty good fucking risk to take right there), their WE goes to 43.7%. He gets thrown out and the WE is just 11% and you're fucked anyway.

Fast dude. Shitty armed catcher. Let him try to steal.

That game really put me off, man.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Here's one thing: I've been shouting (and not alone among Poolers) into the void for years, hoping against reason that my voice would reach the Mets organizaiton. Where is Keith on all this. He's written that he loved when opposiing teams bunted. Shouldn't he be mercilessly abusing this play when he sees it, even without himself on defense?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Another point to make is that the #2 slot in the batting order isn't (like many managers play it) for the leftover guy, the batter that's not quite awful enough to bat eighth. When the guy at the top of the lineup leads off by not making an out and your #3 hitter is on deck, you're poised for a big inning. If Collins doesn't have enough confidence in Thole to get a hit in that situation, then Collins shouldn't have Thole batting second in the first place. Because, why put what you believe to be a severely flawed hitter in between your leadoff hitter and the meat of the lineup? The #2 slot is no place for a crappy hitter.

Trying to find a way to blame all this bunting on the Wilpons. Haven't quite managed to figure it out yet, but I'm sure someone will.

Here's something: Small ball became a large component of the Mets offense instantly as soon as the Wilpons acquired a 100% ownership interest in the Mets. It's been that way ever since*.


*Except for the Jerry portion of the 2008 season.

[Ceetar]

Edgy DC wrote: Here's one thing: I've been shouting (and not alone among Poolers) into the void for years, hoping against reason that my voice would reach the Mets organizaiton. Where is Keith on all this. He's written that he loved when opposiing teams bunted. Shouldn't he be mercilessly abusing this play when he sees it, even without himself on defense?

If they let us talk to Collins again, or even Alderson, I would expect at least Amazin' Avenue, if not someone else, to ask them just that. I'm sure we'll get a BS type answer out of it, and some blogger spouting off on a conference call is not quite going to be taken as a baseball guru.

[nymr83]

bunting to ADVANCE runners, as opposed to SCORING a runner, is a bad play 99% of the time. The other 1% involves situations where you have a pitcher at the plate and its too early to pinch-hit and he is a much better bunter than he is a hitter (think Al Leiter.)
Bunting to SCORE a run is a better play, but still over-used I think.

I would have given Reyes green light and ordered Thol to take a pitch. I'd do the same on 1-0/2-0. If the count went to 0-1 I'd give Thole the green light to swing with Reyes still having the option to steal if he felt he could. on 1-1/2-1/3-1/1-2/2-2/3-2 i'd have put the hit-and-run on, figuring that even if he strikes out Reyes has a great chance at 2nd.

I HATE bunting.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

Here's something: Small ball became a large component of the Mets offense instantly as soon as the Wilpons acquired a 100% ownership interest in the Mets. It's been that way ever since*. *Except for the Jerry portion of the 2008 season.

Jerry also rejected "the virtues of bunting" for a brief spell last season around the end of May until Luis came off the DL (I think Edgy post some stats to this effect). Funny what effect this had on the NL East race:

[Ceetar]

http://www.tedquarters.net/2011/04/20/stop-bunting/

Ted Berg wrote: I mean, holy crap. Even if sacrifice bunting were guaranteed to be successful, you�d still be giving away an out, an offense�s most precious commodity. And it�s not guaranteed to be successful. Hell, with this particular Mets club, it actually seems to be a freaking longshot. And let�s forget for now that Jose Reyes is one of the best basestealers in baseball, that he already had two steals in tonight�s game and that he was 8-for-8 stealing bases on the season when Terry Collins called for Josh Thole to bunt him to second. Say for the sake of argument that Reyes couldn�t have stolen a base there because, I don�t know, he couldn�t get a great read on Brandon Lyon or something. Why are you playing for one run anyway? The leadoff hitter was on with the middle of the order coming up, including a red-hot Carlos Beltran. Why not aim for a crooked number and a walk-off win? So you can tie the game and put more innings in the hands of your powder keg of a bullpen, the same one that�s blown basically every lead for two weeks? Is that the plan? Tie it up and turn it over to Tim Byrdak? C�mon. Just� c�mon.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Bring back Davey Johnson!

[Guest Edgy DC]

A great comment from Tedquarters:

Devon Edwards 13 hours ago Fire Terry Collins. Sandy Alderson for Manager/GM. Or Lisa Simpson. Look, I've known since I was 7 that I'd never be a pro athlete. I doubt I have the business acumen to be a superb GM. And I don't know what goes on in clubhouses. But tactically, I'm 100% positive that I would be the best in-game manager in baseball. And that scares me. Because I wouldn't be a perfect coordinator in football, and I couldn't diagram a play in basketball to save my life. But ask me what the play is in the bottom of the 9th, and it's beyond obvious. Run Reyes early, then maybe, MAYBE consider bunt him to third, depending on the count.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

bunting to ADVANCE runners, as opposed to SCORING a runner, is a bad play 99% of the time. The other 1% involves situations where you have a pitcher at the plate and its too early to pinch-hit and he is a much better bunter than he is a hitter (think Al Leiter.) Bunting to SCORE a run is a better play, but still over-used I think.

Having watched, listened to, or followed/reviewed virtually every inning of Mets baseball during the last half-decade, I don't recall Manuel-- even in situations where he was expressly playing for one run-- running ONE squeeze in two-plus years. He bunted to set up runs, then wouldn't bunt to score them.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Of course not. A squeeze fails, it generally falls on the manager.

The goal of building your team by setting up an elaborate system of strategic initiatives isn't to win, but to make them all plausibly executable enough to have falure hung on the guy who doesn't execute, delaying as long as possibly having yourself to answer yourself for the fallibility of the actual system, and thereby sustaining your job as long as possible.

Now excuse me while I update my 280-day goals.

[smg58]

I think reason #10 was the best reason not to play for a tie -- our pen just can't be trusted right now. Of course, the first nine reasons all hold, too.

[Ceetar]

smg58 wrote: I think reason #10 was the best reason not to play for a tie -- our pen just can't be trusted right now. Of course, the first nine reasons all hold, too.

Well, our pen wasn't overtaxed last night or anything. Even if Izzy doesn't go for a second inning, I trust Frankie to at least give us 1 or 2. I'd be okay playing for a tie if I felt like there was a chance going for more than one run would be detrimental to scoring even one, but that's not the case.

[batmagadanleadoff]

If you're playing for one run with the top of the lineup ... If you're playing for one run when your leadoff hitter leads off the inning by getting on base, then you might as well just forfeit the game. Don't even show up. What's the point?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Exactly . You want a tie? That pretty much means asking for four or five shutout innings from your bullpen. Because (1) you're looking for only one run from the top of your lineup, (2) the batters get worse after that, (3) you're going to try and win in the subsequent innings by advancing any available baserunners with outs, and (4) experience tells any objective observer that the best you can hope for is to get that right on the second or third try.

And experience tells me that asking for four to five shutout innings from my bullpen is not the way to build a winning team. Letting your batters batter is.

[bmfc1]

This is the best thread in a long time. We've been unified and nobody has been snarky or snippy. It's been instructive and an example of what team message boards should be like.

Yeah for us!