We get it. As many times as you have said it, only an idiot wouldn't know what you mean. The thing is, our coach vehemently disagrees with you, but you aren't willing to accept that.
Mostly agree with you 76... but I listened to the pod and when I heard Forbes vehemently talking against bunting and the hope for big innings... I got worried. THIS team seems to be very vulnerable to GOOD pitching. We can and have been shut down for whole games against just GOOD pitching recently, not even elite pitching. Maybe Forbes stance made a lot of sense when he had teams that could leave the ballpark, hit for high average, or even have a few high slugging percentage guys. The last month or so, this team isn't showing any of that consistently against good pitching. At some point you may have to adjust your approach based on the makeup of your team. I know Forbes is a very good coach... just hope he's not too stubborn to adjust before the regionals if these offensive struggles continue for the last 3+ weeks.
True. But you're better off reaching against good pitching than whiffing, inning after inning, while trying to barrel it up. Get the ball into play. Get a runner. Move the runner.
If you can’t score runs, it doesn’t matter how good your pitching is… a very mediocre dook team was within an infield hit, seeing eye single, flared blooper from winning two of three games and the series. And that wasn’t GOOD pitching imo. This thread is about bunting to possibly score more runs. If you want to agree with Forbes and not use bunting to scratch in more innings, then just say so.
I've said so plenty in the "Offense approach" thread. Regarding this year's team, I'm with Scott. If you wanted to bunt and play small ball, this would not be the group of players to assemble to play that way. Who are you going to have bunt? The top of the order? They are the best hitters and have the highest OBP's. Should the bottom of the order get on in front of them are you really going to ask Jake or Owen, two of your most likely guys to get on base, to waste an out moving them over? Are you going to have your biggest HR threat, Cooper Nicholson bunt only to have to rely on the bottom of the order to score them somehow? Hynek and Howe have two of the best averages with RISP; do you want to take their bat away? Paulsen has probably never been asked to bunt in his baseball life. Hynek probably hasn't either. You'd start now? This team also doesn't run particularly well, so the idea of hit and run isn't really on the table, either. Besides, our best hitters are LH and the whole point of getting a runner from 1st to 3rd using H&R is devalued with LH hitters. Are you going to include stealing bases in your small ball proposition? Won't happen this year. We have two instinctive baserunners (Schaffner and Gallaher) and only one is a true base stealer. Owen can do it too, but he's not instinctive. Stealing anyone else is a gamble. With all that said--as I said in the other thread--I am certain that if we are in "need a run" situation in the tournament, I have no doubt that we will do what it takes to put a runner/s in scoring position. Play small ball and you're guaranteeing a low scoring team.
Forbes said in his interview this week that this is a better bunting team than he's had in a long time and that 1-8/9 (including hynek) could get it done if asked. And he has employed a bit of hit and run this year and as I recall it has been very successful. He went away from it against dook and I'm not sure why given our offensive woes and their subpar catcher...
