Baseball Q: why is bunting specially treated in MLB rules?

The Game Room
1

In baseball, you can swing for a hit, or try to bunt for a hit. Usually bunting is done as an intentional sacrifice play, but there certainly are speedsters out there taking advantage of infielders playing deep and dropping one for a hit.

Even when there is a man on base, there is even the option for discretion on the part of the official scorer to give the batter an out instead of a sacrifice (i.e., an at-bat that counts for diluting his batting average statistic) if he feels the batter was not truly attempting to give himself up, but was trying for a hit.

Yet just moving into bunt position does not count as a swing. The bat must still cross the plane of the front of the plate, just as a swing attempt would, in order to be called a strike (if the pitch itself was not in the strike zone).

There are also “swinging bunts”, where a player checks his swing midway or simply makes very incidental light contact and puts the ball into play weakly.

And yet, the rules of MLB make one curious (to me) special exception for bunts. If he bunts a ball foul, it counts as a strike just as it would for any other batted ball. But once there are two strikes, a player can swing and foul off as many pitches as necessary until he records a hit or an out (see: Mookie Wilson, 1986 World Series Game 6), but bunting foul with two strikes is a strikeout.

Why is this? Most “special case” rules in baseball were created in response to some perceived imbalance in the game. The infield fly rule was created to address the possibility of intentionally dropping a pop-up to get an easy double play. The “balk” rule was created to prevent the pitcher from “deke-ing” the baserunner (we’d basically never see a stolen base attempt). But why penalize bunting?

It’s not like it’s any easier to “bunt foul forever” than it is to swing for foul balls forever, and why would a batter intentionally bunt foul forever? (Was that ever done in the early days, by Ty Cobb or some other skilled but assholean player, to wear out the pitcher?)

If the idea is to discourage sacrificing (which seems odd), and there is already a judgment distinction being made between sacrifice bunting and bunting for a hit, then shouldn’t one be allowed to bunt foul with two strikes IF it’s clearly a bunt hit attempt (for example, if there’s nobody on base)? On the flip-side, if it really is a rule to make hitters take “legitimate” swings, why make a distinction between a swinging and “true” bunt attempt?

2

It is much, much easier to bunt a ball foul than it is to hit it foul. A bunt doesn’t count as a swing attempt, so you can’t strike out on a ball outside of the strike zone. The intent of the rule is exactly as you say: to prevent the hitter from bunting off every ball, to wear out the pitcher.

3

None of the above. The “perfect” bunt is one that dribbles perfectly on the line. That’s the farthest away it can be from all the fielders. If bunting foul wasn’t a strikeout, then players could bunt down the line all day until they got the perfect bunt. The point is, if you want to bunt with two strikes, you have to either risk the K or bunt toward a player.

Not having that rule would be like having a pop fly not count as an out if it was on the warning track. In other words, just shy of perfect shouldn’t net you a do-over.

4

The rule wasn’t always that way. It’s specially treated like that because it was being abused and they had to make the change. Players like Wee Willie Keeler, he of the Baltimore Chop (where he’d bunt the ball directly into the ground so it had to be played on a high hop) used bunting as basically the primary method of hitting, and it was getting out of hand with players either deliberately wasting pitches or just bunting down the line repeatedly and eventually reaching base.

5

Wear out the pitcher, or simply wait for the pitcher to make enough mistakes to earn you a walk.

6

An hour at your local batting cage likely will change your mind on this. It’s MUCH easier to intentionally bunt foul; a professional should be able to do it almost at will.

7

OK, so part of my original premise was wrong (that it’s either not easy, or would not be worthwhile for a batter to intentionally bunt foul forever), now it all makes sense.

I sometimes wish it were possible to “steal first base” though, without waiting for a dropped or passed ball for strike three. Under normal circumstances it’d be ridiculously impossible anyway. But I can imagine a play where the first baseman is rushing in to field an expected bunt, and how it’d be very interesting if the batter could just suddenly toss the bat and try to run past him to the uncovered base.

8

The second baseman would probably be able to beat him to the bag with reasonable vigilance, though.

9

I’ve got to ask for a cite on this point. A bunt attempt, in my understanding, is absolutely a swing; I’ve witnessed many unsuccessful bunt attempts on bad pitches that were called strikes.

10

I guess that’s the real problem with “stealing” first base: it’s a force out at first so it’s not really a steal scenario, unless the batter would be allowed to try to retreat to home plate to resume his at-bat if he’s not tagged. Now that would be insane. It’d allow for a new form of the squeeze play with a runner on third as the batter tries to get in a rundown between home and first :eek:

11

Yes, a bunt counts as a swing unless the batter withdraws the bat before the pitch crosses the plate.

12

I hate it when the official scorers do this. They are basically (A) attempting to read the guy’s mind and decide if he intended to actually try for a hit, vs. “selflessly” giving himself up, and (B) penalizing the player for making a great bunt and thus performing a smart percentage play. Fortunately I haven’t seen such a scoring decision lately, but I have seen them before.

13

Sacrifices in general are based on giving credit for one’s intentions. If you bunt, and are put out, it’s an at-bat and an out, you were up at bat, and you got out. The scorer is told to give you a sacrifice (under specific conditions), and remove that at-bat from your statistics, under the assumption that you intended to get out in order to help the team.

Bunting for a base hit is not unheard of, it’s a totally legitimate tactic with or without men on base. Bunting for a hit is a great tactic for traditional bunt situations, you can get good upside with a hit, and reduced downside with an out, the runner can advance either way. That doesn’t mean the batter should get a freebie, with the only scoring possibilities being a hit or no at-bat.

14

People!

The idea behind the distinction of bunt vs. swing with two strikes on the batter is that the bunter should be able to put the ball in play, i.e., bunt the ball into fair territory.

If you can’t do that, you deserve to strike out.

Simple, really.

15

I fully understand the rationale behind the bunt scoring rules. And I fully disagree with them. Again, I dislike having some mindreading person in the pressbox guessing as to what the batter intended/attempted (or not), and how it may affect the stats of the game. He got the bunt down, he moved the guy over; who cares what his “mindset” was? His goal should be to try to get on, settling for the sacrifice if he doesn’t-that’s just smart baseball.

But again it’s mostly a moot point because this situation comes up very rarely (tho I will be examining any sacrifice situations involving Jacoby Ellsbury this season to see how they score it).

16

What mindreading? A bunting stance and grip and a swinging stance and grip are very different. I’ve never seen a situation where there could be any confusion as to what the batter was trying to do.

BTW, a “swinging bunt” (the bat makes just enough contact to make the ball dribble a little way) is a swing, not a bunt, even though it has the same effect.
John, Jacoby has typically been taking off on his own without waiting for a batter to sacrifice him. It works better that way - witness his recent straight steal of home, and the time he scored from 2nd on a wild pitch.

17

Roy Thomas fouled off 22 pitches in one at-bat. Luke Appling fouled off 17 pitches in one at-bat. Legend has it that Appling did it deliberately because he had asked the team for a box of baseballs to pass out to fans, and was refused.

18

Agreed. A sacrifice fly is not counted as an at bat – to be consistent with the bunt scoring rules, shouldn’t there first be the determination of whether or not the batter intended to sacrifice himself, or actually get a hit?

19

I was discussing the difference between “bunting to sacrifice” vs. “bunting to get a hit.” The overall facts remain that, if he moved the guy over via a bunt, it is ultimately meaningless as to what his “intent” is.

It’s the same pet peeve as when they decide if a pitch which gets by the catcher is a wild pitch or a passed ball. When Wakefield is on the mound the frequency of the latter rises significantly, for some unknown reason. Just record what happened without registering your opinion (that includes moving people up via other types of outs than SHs or SFs-count them as an at-bat if you must, but if you got your team a base out of the deal that should be recorded somewhere. Same thing for reached-on-error from the batter’s perspective). Of course many people and organizations do record such things (as well as outs on the bases other than CS).

I’m talking about him bunting with someone else on. He’ll lay it down to give himself a chance to get on; just curious what Mr. Know-It-All in the press box will think when/if that does happen.

20

I beg your pardon, but it most certainly does.

A swing is defined, albeit vaguely, by Rule 2, which defines a strike as a pitch that “is struck at by the batter and missed.” Contrary to popular belief there is no official parameter; not “Breaking the wrists,” not crossing the plane of the plate. It’s generally defined by precedent and the discretion of the umpire, and attempting a bunt has always been called a strike.