Saunders and Bunting
Last night, Michael Saunders laid down another perfect bunt, getting himself on base for the sixth time this season by bunting for a hit. He’s now tied for the team lead in bunt hits with Ichiro, and he’s only been on the roster for about a month. It’s not like he’s collecting these hits through sheer volume, either – he’s just been successful in reaching base six of the eight times he’s put a bunt down.
Saunders is a good bunter, there’s little doubt about that. He’s also fast and left-handed, which gives him an advantage in getting down the line before the fielder can get the ball to first base. Being able to drop one down for a hit is a nice weapon for him to have.
However, the M’s aren’t grooming him to be another Endy Chavez. He had 30 extra base hits and a .234 ISO in Triple-A when they called him up. There’s power in his bat, even if we haven’t seen it at the major league level yet. This is where my concern comes in. The whole point of having him up here right now is to attempt to evaluate his ability to help the team win next year as the club’s regular left fielder. He’s not going to help the M’s if he doesn’t drive the ball with some regularity, and he can’t do that if he’s bunting once every ten times he comes up to bat.
I’d like to see Wak tell him that he’s proven his point, showed he can get a bunt down, and that they can now trust him to handle himself in a situation if necessary. But, for the rest of the year, they’d like him to try to get the ball into the outfield, and he can feel free to put a ball or two in the stands if he wishes. He needs to learn how to work counts at the big league level, get himself into situations where he can expect a fastball and turn on it. Every time he lays down a bunt, it’s one less opportunity for him to learn how to hit big league pitching.
Being a good bunter is a nice bonus, but his value to the team will come through racking up doubles in the gap. More swings, less bunting please.
I think it would be a mistake to have Saunders bunt less at this time. As you pointed out he has been wildly successful when he has bunted. Pitchers are going to have to adjust the types of pitches he sees and their location. Infielders are going to have to cheat and play closer to the plate. Until those adjustments are made, Saunders should keep on bunting. When the infielders show proper respect for the bunt, and play even closer to the plate, Saunders will have more places to put the ball in play when he does swing away. In the meantime, let Saunders build up his confidence on being able to get on base and show off his base running skills.
I take it his 75% success rate is a small sample size fluke? Otherwise it would seem like a great way to get on base.
When I was in Cleveland, I saw him put 6 consecutive bombs in the stands during BP. He has pop. His AAA numbers show it too. He needs to start turning on balls and actually showing off what he will be able to do with the bat when he has the full-time job in left field next year.
Being a youngster and all, my expectation would have been that he’s been getting the bunt sign from the coaching staff. Are all those bunts really his decision?
I can see where Dave is coming from regarding evaluation – but I am not sure that I agree with asking a player to take a tool out of his toolbox at the major league level.
To take it to an extreme: what if the Ms had asked Ichiro (during his rookie campaign) to stop slapping the ball around the field quite so often and to try and get and get a few more shots into the gaps because of the BP exhibitions Ichiro! can put on?
I guess to me the question is: has Saunders been bunting 5%-10% of the time throughout his minor league career (making this a regular part of his offensive repetoire – a la Ichiro legging out grounders) or is this just a technique that he is using to keep his avg/OBP afloat in the majors? I’m ashamed to say that I don’t follow the minors nearly close enough to know the answer.
I agree with it completely. My Mom is a math teacher and growing up she used to make me do math in my head.
At the grocery store she’d make me tell her how much these three things would cost, or ask if she could buy them with a $5 bill. I used to wonder why she wouldn’t just let me use a calculator, which she carried in her purse.
Now I know that there are times when a calculator Isn’t available to me and I have to add things in my head so I can tell if a $5 bill is enough to buy the 5 things on the grocery list that my wife gives me, or if I need to use the card or get more cash.
That’s what Dave is saying in this post. It’s time for Saunders to work on his hitting at the big league level because most of the time a bunt simply won’t be an option and he’ll have to hit in order to be successful.
I agree with the earlier post — it all depends on where the infielders are playing him. If they’re playing him deep at the corners, he should keep bunting periodically. When scouting reports get around and they start playing him in at the corners, he’ll get a lot of ground balls through when he swings away.
If he’s bunting one out of ten times, that means he’s swinging away 90% of the time, which won’t deprive him of all that many extra base hits.
As long as the M’s are trying to compete in the Wild Card (and at 7.5 back, I’d guess they will be for at least another week or two), I think you should let Saunders continue to bunt as long as his success rate is as good as it has been. He’s obviously a talented bunter and must be picking good situations in which to bunt.
As long as it represents a good choice for getting on base (and the situation doesn’t call for for swinging away), I don’t see the point yet of telling a player to do something contrary to his instincts for the purpose of development. After Labor Day, when we’re still 5-7 games back in the WC? Sure.
When the infielders show proper respect for the bunt, and play even closer to the plate, Saunders will have more places to put the ball in play when he does swing away.
Saunders isn’t getting on via bunts because of bad defensive positioning. His bunts have just been remarkably good. Positioning wouldn’t have mattered. The defense won’t adjust. He’s not Endy Chavez – he’s a 6’4 guy with power.
Are all those bunts really his decision?
Bunting for a hit is almost always the hitter. Sac bunts come from the bench.
To take it to an extreme: what if the Ms had asked Ichiro (during his rookie campaign) to stop slapping the ball around the field quite so often and to try and get and get a few more shots into the gaps because of the BP exhibitions Ichiro! can put on?
It’s all about maximizing a player’s skillset. With Ichiro, bunting is obviously a great idea. With Pujols, it’s an awful idea. Saunders is obviously not Pujols, but he’s not Ichiro either. The best version of Michael Saunders involves him whacking the ball into the gap and using his speed to rack up doubles. Bunting gets in the way of that development.
As long as the M’s are trying to compete in the Wild Card (and at 7.5 back, I’d guess they will be for at least another week or two), I think you should let Saunders continue to bunt as long as his success rate is as good as it has been.
If the M’s were serious contenders for a playoff spot, Saunders wouldn’t be playing. He’s clearly an inferior player to Ryan Langerhans right now, but the team is putting the future ahead of the present by giving Saunders the LF job.
2009 has already been sacrificed for 2010. That ship has sailed.
Do 8 ABs in which Saunders bunts rather than swinging away really matter to his development? I agree with Dave that, in principle, Saunders should be working on improving his skills for 2010 and beyond, but it’s hard for me to get worked up over this.
@ charlie brown
I think your example of learning basic arithmetic is even further “out there” than mine regarding Ichiro, but since I started the outrageous comparisons I suppose I can’t complain.
Saunders isn’t learning how to hit from scratch (as you were learning basic math). He is learning how to hit big league pitching, and its not like he is only bunting up there. If Saunders is taking advantage of fielder positioning to get on base then that is a skill a applaud him for and want to see used – the 90% of the time when the fielders are not asking to be backdoored by a bunt *then* Saunders can practice lining balls into the gaps.
If the guy can get on base consistantly with bunts, why discourage it? In he prime, I wouldn’t want Griffey to have wasted time bunting. But, early in his career, before he established himself as a power hitter, I would find nothing wrong.
Saunders needs success, of any kind, more than trying to change his game. Hits are hits. And, if you’re a good bunter, it keeps teams from cheating on you.
Three years from now, if he’s putting up power numbers, I’d agree. But, he’s not even close to generating power at the major league level, and having him swing-away, isn’t necessarily going to improve his odds.
Teach him to be successful, but don’t discourage it. He’s being a team player, trying to give his team the best chance to win. Don’t teach him to be selfish.
Just to throw something else out there – if a player is an efficient enough bunter (in terms of bunting for hits) that the infield has to start coming in on him, won’t that in turn increase his BABIP because there is a larger uncovered area in the field of play?
Dave wrote:
There is a fine line there – “seriously” contending. The M’s (players and front office) are certainly giving lip service to the idea that they still think they’re in the WC race. I agree that WC contention is far from likely, and in a matter of days/weeks it won’t even be an optimistic consideration, but right now, what kind of message would your suggestion be sending to the team?
I suppose what you say is true, but giving a slightly inferior, younger player who probably has more of a future over a useful journeyman type sends much less of a message of “giving up” than doing that AND specifically instructing a player not to do something that is clearly helping him get on base (which is always good). And, as others have said, it’s not like he’s bunting every time up. He’s still getting plenty of opportunities to try to drive the ball, and I would argue the confidence gained from success of any kind in getting on base will probably help him get there.
That’s just my opinion, and it isn’t even a very strongly held one. Give it a couple weeks first.
Let me play a little Devil’s Advocate and turn this around on you, Dave:
Saunders is an excellent bunter. I think we can all agree on that. However, it’s a skill that requires practice to keep sharp. Saunders needs to be able to keep putting down the bunt on a regular basis in order to keep that part of his game functional.
So it’s good for him to drop down bunts on a regular basis to keep his bunting game sharp. He bunted frequently when he first came up to demonstrate that he could (and to work on that part of his game on the ML level), and he should continue to do so on occasion just to keep that skill intact.
Bat him higher than 9th, then. The job of the lower third of the order is to get on base. Saunders has been doing that adequately for the short time he’s been here.
If you want him to learn to hit, have him hit somewhere meaningful, and try to be driving in runs.
I’m in agreement with Dave. More than anything, we’re trying to assess just what we have already in the fold for 2010.
The FO needs to see just what Saunders’ ceiling for OBP and power-production is. Right now, the most strident of projections for him doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight due to small-sample sizes and different ballparks/atmosphere/level of competition.
They need some cold hard facts on Saunders even more than they need “bunt singles” to help win games this year. His overall worth- to others, not just for us- needs to be established.
He can practice bunting during practice.
Dave’s approach to this seems to be that Saunders is marginal to the Next Great Mariner Team, perhaps contributing in a bench role as a fourth outfielder. Thus the Mariners should have different immediate goals than Saunders might have himself, emphasizing development of the best possible version of him, a version which could someday start (or at least get 400 PA in a season).
I agree with somebody above that Wak may be trying to get defenses to change position to improve Saunders opportunities. I don’t know enough about that interaction, which teams do what and why and/or whether any of that matters to evaluate it.
A player with his current skill set would be a pretty interesting bench player to have.
There is a fine line there – “seriously†contending. The M’s (players and front office) are certainly giving lip service to the idea that they still think they’re in the WC race. I agree that WC contention is far from likely, and in a matter of days/weeks it won’t even be an optimistic consideration, but right now, what kind of message would your suggestion be sending to the team?
There is no reasonable sense that the Mariners can be described as “seriously contending”- their comments notwithstanding. They’re 7.5 back AND three teams back (with them having punted a series with the team directly in fronted of them quite recently). If they were seriously in the race, Ichiro would be playing- Wakamatsu said (paraphrasing) “well, Ichiro’s available, but I’d rather not rush him” in yesterday’s pregame show- the implication being if this was a playoff-critical game, he’d be playing, but it’s not, so they’d rather get him 100%, and made similar comments about Beltre.
I agree that saying the Mariners are “seriosuly contending” (which I did not, BTW) is unreasonable. And I concede that some actions taken lately, like starting Saunders over Langerhans and not playing Ichiro (and possibly Beltre) at the earliest possible opportunity, speak to the realization internally that the Mariners realize they are not “seriously contending.”
But, to prove my lack of abilit to make a coherent point by trying to explain myself a third time, let me put it another way:
All of us who were at the offseason USSM event at the library heard the consistent emphasis this front office and mangement team places on the mental side of the game. In my view, whether the front office believes they are in or out of the race, they want to foster both a winning attitude and confidence at the plate, and I don’t see how encouraging a player to do something that in the short term will reduce his chances of getting on base will do anything but the opposite. Again, at 7.5 games back it is one thing to start a marginally inferior player with a future over a journeyman, or to wait a few extra days to let an injured player heal, and it is another to start asking players to stop doing something they’ve had consistent success doing for the sake of development.
I’m not saying that this is never appropriate; far from it. Of course, there is a continuum of sorts at work here, and all I’m saying is IMO it is a bit too early to do this. You want your players to believe they can succeed and overcome even fairly large deficits (like 7.5 GB and three teams) until it becomes obvious that can’t be done. When is that? The rational answer (now) and the emotional/team confidence answer (1-2 weeks?) might very well be different.
ferocious,
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your post, but Dave made it pretty clear that he expects Saunders to be a starting OF for the M’s next year. That’s why it’s important for him to adjust to the big leagues now – he’s going to be relied upon next year to perform.
Pete,
I would imagine the M’s accepted reality when Washburn was moved. Furthermore, I imagine if phrased properly the discouragement of bunting could be delivered as a vote of confidence in his overall hitting ability – his ability to get farther than first base.
I think Dave’s right on the merits (not that anyone should care what I think!)
However, baseball is a head game, especially for a youngster in his first exposure to the bigs. I think building confidence by tasting success probably helps Saunders more than the lost opportunities to try and get doubles hurts.
At 5-10% of attempts, I’d recommend a bit of lassez faire. (At 25% or something, I’d say a bit of government regulation would be in order.)
One corner outfielder who specializes in the infield single should be sufficient. And, yes, why is he batting ninth? The M’s are going to finish in third place around .500 no matter what so put Saunders in an rbi position and see what he can do.
The point is Saunder isn’t showing what he’s REALLY capable of doing he’s a 5 tool player but he isn’t showing that gap power he’s capable of. The bunt singles are nice and watching him run is amazing but it doesn’t give the team a true indicator of his abilities and tools. Leave the bunting for BP hit some balls out of here now.
I know that it’s small sample size, but 6/8 is an OPS of 1500. If Saunders can even get an OPS=1000 bunting, why not see how far he can ride this @5-10% of his attempts?
Are you saying that batting in front of Ichiro is making Saunders’ at-bats more difficult than batting in front of Hall or Hannahan? It seems to me that he’ll be getting more good pitches batting ninth than batting fifth.
I agree with SCL – it’s not like bunting is something he can do without practice either. Every major league player puts down bunts in batting practice, but the guys who never do it in a game are crappy bunters. I’d suggest, however, that he save the bunting for when he’s down in the count. He’s not going to be at 75% most of the time, and batters have a much higher OPS on their first pitch. But behind 0-1? A bunt might be the perfect weapon. With two strikes? There’s the risk of bunting foul, but still worth considering?
The M’s aren’t winning the wildcard. Even if Boston plays .500 ball for the rest of the time, The M’s would have to go 23-9 to tie. That’s a win percentage of 718. Also, the other teams ahead of the M’s also have to play around .500. If Boston continues to perform at their current level, they win 93 games. The M’s could only lose 4 of the rest of the games this season. The odds of that happening are zilch. There are still good reasons to watch–Saunders is one. Contention is not.
To steal a line from Mike Holmgren, Michael Saunders run like a giraffe on roller skates.
And does it surprisingly well.
What Saunders’ ability to bunt adds is the opportunity to put men on base when we need base runners. If we’re down by a couple or a few later in the game, and he’s the leadoff guy in the inning, I don’t have a problem with him bunting.
And I seem to recall that most of his bunts are with the bases empty. And I don’t have a massive problem with this. But I don’t want to see him bunting for a base hit with guys on first and second with an out, either.
And no bunting on 3-1 counts, either.
Once again, I am NOT suggesting the M’s are going to win the Wild Card, or that the FO doesn’t know exactly what their (slim-to-none) chances are.
Oh, never mind.
Regardless, I would not get too worked up about Saunders bunting in 5-10% of PA,at least for now. If he can’t show you what you need to see over the remaining 90-95% of PA (plus ST next year), he probably won’t figure as prominently in their plans as they once believed he would.
One shouldn’t confuse “never” with “highly unlikely”. The 2004 Astros were 7 games back in the wildcard with 3 teams to catch on August 26. Their playoff chances (according to coolstandings.com) were 0.6%. After ripping off 12 straight wins their wildcard chances were up to 29.8%. They went 28-7 after 8/26. On September 25 their wildcard chances were back down to 3.7% but they closed the season with 7 straight wins to win it.
Obviously the likelihood of something similar happening with this team is very, very, very small. But not zero. You can’t run up the white flag (not officially, anyway) as long as it is statistically possible.
The M’s probability is about 0.1%.
And that is with a LOT of things falling our way early in the season.
Look at it this way: Michael Saunders has two battings skills. One of them is the sort that can make him a marginal player with a longish career, and one is the sort that can make him a major league regular. Which of those two skills ought he to be working on, assuming that in any particular at-bat he is free to use one but not the other? I think the answer is obvious: any player built the way Saunders is (and the kid is only 22) and who can demonstrate gap power is going to have a long career as a regular. Endy Chavez’s can be throw-ins in multiplayer deals and replaced by Ryan Langerhans for a bag of balls. Saunders should be looking to lead the league in doubles one day. I’m not saying he can, I’m saying that’s the direction he should be heading.
If the Mariners were so worried about Saunders not wasting 8 precious at bats, then the answer would be to bat him 2nd (or leadoff while Ichiro is out) rather than 9th. He would quickly acquire the extra at bats that would allow him to both swing away AND do something that is currently getting him on base 75% of the time.
But I don’t think the Mariners are worried about it, and neither should we. We should be glad we have a young player who plays fundamental baseball, and has the added weapon of bunting every so often. In the long run, bunting will have little affect on his ability to hit for power.
Saunders, while a big man, does not have the kind of power to consistently put balls out of center and left-center. His homerun power will be almost exclusively to right and right-center with doubles power to all fields. He will not have homerun power at all in the majors until he adjusts to the inside fastball. His stride is straight towards third and while this allows him to pull outside breaking pitches down the first base line it limits his ability to quickly turn on an inside fastball. I have seen some progress on this front and it is an adjustment he has to make to be a success. But, it will not happen overnight and it won’t happen when he is attempting to bunt as often as he is.
One shouldn’t confuse “never†with “highly
Soo, your saying there is a chance! (a la Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber)
I agree that in general, Saunders’ focus should be on his power. However, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to make a hard-and-fast rule like “stop trying to bunt for hits” without taking into account the situation.
Sanders’ first bunt hit was against Ricky Romero (a left-handed pitcher), leading off the 5th inning, Mariners down 2-3, top of the order coming up behind him. In his first AB that day, he hit into a DP. That seems like a reasonable bunt for him, because it’s probably a tough match-up for him and getting on base there helps the team.
Saunders’ second bunt hit was against Roy Halladay, leading off the bottom of the 7th, Mariners down 1-2, top of the order coming up behind him. In his first two AB, Saunders struck out swinging and lined out to CF. That also seems like a pretty good choice to bunt there. Yeah, you want to work on power, but you probably want to start against the sub-Halladays of the world.
Saunders’ third bunt hit was against John Bale (a left-handed pitcher), Mariners down 4-5, leading off the 6th inning, top of the order coming up behind him.
His fourth bunt hit was against Ron Mahay (a left-handed pitcher), tied 6-6, 7th inning, runner on first base, no outs, top of the order behind him.
Saunders’ fifth bunt hit was against John Danks (a left-handed pitcher), tied 0-0 in the bottom of the 3rd, leading off the inning with the top of the order behind him. A little early in the game, but again, he’s leading off an inning facing a LHP.
Saunders’ bunt hit yesterday was against Brett Anderson (a left-handed pitcher), tied 0-0 in the bottom of the 3rd, one out with the bases empty.
(I’m not sure when his failures have been, though one of them seems to be Aug. 22nd, tied in the 9th inning against the Indians and that may have been ordered as a sac, since Wilson was on first.)
So all of Saunders’ successes so far have been against left-handed pitchers and Roy Halladay. They’ve all been in tied or one-run games. Four of the six have been leading off the inning. Only one of them has been with a runner on base (so he’s rarely giving up power in a situation where power is most helpful.)
I don’t think that Saunders has the luxury of swinging away in all of those situations. Yes, the Mariners believe in him, but he doesn’t really know how much. Especially with Langerhans around as a legit option, Saunders probably feels the need to perform or ride the pine. Against that set of pitchers, Saunders is probably likely to go 1-6 or so, which would have him hitting .190 and in danger of getting many fewer chances to work on his power game. (I know it’s a small sample size, and you know it’s a small sample size, but Sanders can’t count on Wak to keep putting his name in the lineup if he’s below the Mendoza line.) Another way of stating this, I suppose, is that every time he bunts, he misses one opportunity to work on hitting for power, but every game he sits, he misses 3-4 chances to work on hitting for power. He’s got to do what he can to stay in the lineup.
Yes, Wak could tell him that he doesn’t have to bunt for hits in those situations, but Wak probably feels a responsibility to try to win games, too, and in those situations, against that set of pitchers, if Saunders can get a single at even a 35-45% rate, he’s helping the team out.
I think that Saunders’ bunt attempt rate will probably go down, but that’s because just by chance he’ll probably not find himself leading off so many innings against LHP in one-run games. One thing that might help is to not hit him back-to-back with Ichiro (and definitely not line him up with Ichiro and Branyan), which could minimize the number of times he winds up facing a LOOGY.
Is bunting for a hit a marginal skill at the major league level? Although it might matter in a specific situation, is it generally not a useful strategy to pursue? If I’m a league-average position player and I randomly replace some PAs with highly skilled bunt-hit attempts, can I improve my overall performance without getting lucky (i.e. if my success rate falls within the likely range)? It seems like the faster good players (especially left-handed ones) would be attempting it a lot if it actually worked. On the other hand, baseball players and teams don’t necessarily know or do what’s most effective.
Do people seriously think he could bat .750 on bunts sustainably, at will? If that were the case, he’d project to be the greatest baseball player in the history of the game.
Do people seriously think he could bat .750 on bunts sustainably, at will?
So far, zero people have suggested that so I’m guessing that the answer to your question is no. He doesn’t need to be 75% successful for this to be a good strategy in high-leverage situations where he might not fare well against a pitcher by swinging away.
If he picks his spots, he could hit for a very high percentage on bunts. Joe Mauer, for example, is 19 for 29 on bunt hits in his career, and Saunders is probably a lot faster than Mauer. If you want to look at someone really high volume, Juan Pierre is at about 161 for 448 in his career, about 36%.
So if Saunders is reasonably selective, it seems possible that he could hit safely on something like 40% of his bunts while he is young and fast, maybe better. He’s got a ZiPS-projected OBP of .301 for the rest of the season and assuming a typical platoon split, he’d be making outs even more often against lefties.
The question here is whether or not Saunders should change his approach so far, and I personally don’t see anything wrong with it to this point. If he starts bunting against Sidney Ponson in blowouts, then I could see the need for a change.
The management runs the M’s well enough that Dave is expressing concern about what they are/are not telling Saunders to do with 10% of his PA. A comparable post during 2007 or 2008 was about something truly egregious, like whether Bavasi even understood why he should start a younger player. In 2009 we debate whether the Rorschach image resembles an Arabian or Bactrian camel.
This is a good problem to have.
I like to think of it as having something constructive to nag about as opposed to having to repeat Carthago delenda est every we type on our keyboards.
So after seeing how other players have responded after posts by Dave this year should we expect Saunders to hit 3 doubles and a HR tonight?
if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it… if he gets on base even at a 50% clip while bunting, there is absolutely no reason not to let him bunt. I agree with some of the earlier sentiment…
do you really want Saunders to pull a Balentien and wildly try and hit everything out of the ballpark? Or since he has found a way to get on base, something that many of the Mariners have struggled with.. why the hell would you quibble about that?
Or to put it another way – a bunt base hit > a walk (because there’s a chance of an errant throw that could lead to an error)… Everyone everywhere loves BB and OBP as a way to get on base… the Mariners obviously with their defense oriented approach are going a different direction… so why is there any resistance to this?
Of course, if his bunting rate becomes less successful or if he starts laying down sacrifice bunts instead of bunt base hits, then I’ll jump aboard the power train… but until the base hit bunting train stops… I’ll keep riding
No, actually, it’s 1.2% according to baseballprospectus.com and .7% according to coolstandings.com