if the other team is going to give you an out, take it- regarding bunting.
My take on it is this- the problem wasn't that Polk never bunted, it was that he would play station to station and would rarely try to do anything to create any runs. Bunting is part of creating runs. There were other things that Polk rarely did that could have helped us score runs- lile steal bases, putting on an occasional hit and run, taking an extra base are all things that can be done to create runs. The other thing it does is put pressure on the defense, and maybe more importantly the pitcher. It's a lot easier for a pitcher to concentrate on getting the hitter out at the plate if he knows that he doesn't have to hold the runner on at first, which obviously makes it more difficult for the hitter, which again makes it more difficult to score runs. The other thing that small ball does for you is it helps you to stay out of double play situations. For example, if a guy is on first and then steals second, and then the batter hits a weak ground ball to the right side, instead of it being a double play and at least two outs, you now have a runner on third and two outs and are still batting in a worst case scenario. And then who knows? Wild pitch, passed ball could score the runner, a base hit- a lot of things can happen.
The other problem with Polk's strategy was that we were not aggressive at the plate in general. There were MANY times we would come up to the plate, and you could tell that our guy was scared and basically trying to work a walk out of the pitcher. Now, Cohen is preaching attack the ball, I've seen hitters trying to go with the pitch, and not once so far have I seen anyone look like they're scared to swing the bat. Polk's strategy was also not balanced. We were trying to play Earl Weaver ball with a lineup of singles hitters. Earl Weaver ball works great when you have Clark and Palmeiro, but most of the time you're going to have Russ Sneed and Jet Butler- who have greatly improved by the way, props to them. And you want to be balanced so that you can try to create runs when you are in a pitchers duel, like when you're facing a David Price-type pitcher, and at the same time, you want to be able to have some power guys so that you can survive a slug-fest. I think that's what Cohen is shooting for- balance.
But as far as bunting and things like that as far as calling a bunt- It all depends on the situation, meaning inning, the batter, the runner, the pitcher, the defensive abilities of the players in the field- all factor in as far as when you bunt. If I was a coach, I would have rule as far bunting- if a guy has a better chance of hitting a home run than getting a bunt down, I'm going to let that guy swing away. And vice versa. I don't like bunting when my team is behind because typically, you don't want to give up outs when you are down. I'd much rather try to steal if the opportunity presented itself. It makes sense statistically- a catcher that can throw out 30% of baserunners that try to steal, which is considered very good vs. how often a batter who tries to sacrifice is thrown out. Not sure of that statistic, but I'm sure it's a LOT more than 30%. If I have a player that is struggling and he has halfway decent speed and the third baseman is playing back, I might ask the player to try to bunt for a hit. If the other team has a pitcher that can really bring it- like say 98 MPH- I'm going to be a little more reluctant to bunt. Also if you have a runner that's incredibly slow, like a Cecil Fielder, I would be reluctant to bunt there to.
So, there's a lot that goes into it.
But I think Polk gets lampooned a lot about it because there were a LOT of Polk supporters- the nutty ones who thought that because he wrote a book on baseball, his way was gold. If that was true, Tom Emanski should be in Cooperstown. Polk didn't like that style and kind of discouraged it, and I have heard Polk say that he does not like to bunt. And I think it's just people making fun of the Pro-Polk nuts like KB21 more than anything, because they were saying that Polk's way was right and Cohen's way was "not baseball". And to be honest I like "that's not baseball" a lot better than "that's baseball" so far.
And so far I haven't seen Cohen bunt in a situation where it wasn't uncalled for. It's not like we get a guy on first and then we're automatically bunting.
