In this episode we talked about all types of bunts and whether or not bunting is stupid in today’s modern game of baseball. PFPs and more were also discussed.
Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube here.
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Transcript: EP55 – Is Bunting a Stupid Play in Today’s Game?
Dan Blewett: welcome back. This is Friday, September 4th is the morning brush back. I’m your co host, Dan Blewett. And Bobby, do you really like to use that much? Like you really juice things that often, how often are you using this chooser that we were just talking about?
Bobby Stevens: Use it’s a handful of, I don’t know, handful of times a month right now.
Like, like we cause juices good. Dan,
Dan Blewett: it gets your micronutrients.
Bobby Stevens: Yes.
Dan Blewett: Why can’t you just eat the fruits though, or the, in the vegetables?
Bobby Stevens: Because the amount of food that is like, if you juice kale, To eat that much kale to get like a shot glass full of juice would be insane.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. But you don’t like kale, you need to eat the leaf.
Like you’re not getting like, here’s my thing with juice. Like the cellular structure of anything like there’s cells and then like the goodies are sort of inside it. So you juice it, you like slicing it with the thing. And then the stuff comes out of the cell essentially, like you’re shattering cell walls.
So, but the cell walls in general, Are healthy for you. Like that’s, that’s like the fiber, that’s the structure of the plant. There’s a lot of stuff in that that I just don’t think you can say that juicing a thing, unless you just completely blend it and drink the entire blended mass, which is just the same as chewing it.
But that’s obviously not what happens in a juicing. You remove a lot of the pulp. I just don’t like, it’s very, well-proven by a nutritionist for like, this is not the best thing. Now, with all just vegetables. Okay. But you get a big dose of sugar too. Like you end up getting all the worst stuff and a lot of the, not the best stuff.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah, I’m not, I’m not eating or I’m not drinking orange juice from as, as Dan’s rigs sick. This is the, the antagonist. And
Dan Blewett: that’s why we were talking about this. I have my carrot, carrot, carrot juice,
Bobby Stevens: but there’s no way for the amount of vegetables that you would put in a juicer to get a glass of just liquid juice that you would be eating that daily, just too much cucumber, even cucumbers that are full of water.
Juicing you’d have to juice three cucumbers to get a full cup of juice. Nobody’s sitting in eating three cucumbers.
Dan Blewett: I hope not. Um, yeah, cucumbers are a waste of time. Do you drink cucumber juice? Is that like a good thing?
Bobby Stevens: Uh, think you throw it in there. Cause it’s got a lot of water and there are vitamins and Newton.
Dan Blewett: Yeah, it’s got some, a number. I feel like it’s like the, it’s like the dinghy of, of, uh, the vegetable world. Certainly not the motorboat.
Bobby Stevens: You’d have to get a cup full of like kale juice. You would have to juice, literally an acre of kale. You have to harvest
Dan Blewett: well, cause there’s no water. There’s yeah. There’s no liquid in it.
It’s a dry, terrible. Yeah, it’s terrible though. But to my point, is that take your kale and throw it in your smoothie, like to blend it up and just completely just like chop the kale up essentially and consume all of it rather than leaving some of the kale out and just getting the kale, water, kale juice.
That’s my point.
I fully support throwing leaves into your smoothie, but this is the only juice diet drink is a character’s cause orange juice is very unhealthy. I like grapefruit juice, but I don’t drink. Cause also unhealthy. It’s like, not really that distinguished. It’s just like having a soda with a little extra vitamins.
It’s like not a good thing. Vitamin soda. It’s a big dose of sugar. You know, this, you know, like a weird bait vegan.
Bobby Stevens: I’ve got an interesting eating habits.
Dan Blewett: Yeah, Sally’s Bobby. So today we’re going to talk about bunting plus more baseball things, which is going to leave our viewer in suspense. So if you’re out there in YouTube or Twitter, thanks for joining us.
Live here today. You have a question or a topic we can discuss or something we can answer for you feel free to shoot us a comment in the text is I’ll be monitoring YouTube. Robert will be monitoring, um, Periscope. So how do you feel about blunting today in today’s modern baseball world? Do your travel teams bond we’ll cover let’s cover a youth baseball first and then we’ll cover major league baseball.
Cause there’s definitely a difference
Bobby Stevens: youth baseball bonding. Absolutely. That absolute necessity. For a youth teams and I do here there’s, as I will refuse to teach funding, there are hitting coaches. I refuse to teach bonding. Bonding is strictly 100% an attitude. Like if you are afraid of the ball, you will put your face in there and you will lay down a bond off the machine, off of a guy throwing.
And at the youth level, it is a hundred percent necessary. You have to, you have to teach bonds and you have to teach it young. Early and you have to establish that there is no fear when you’re in the box, because that is my biggest hurdle to overcome with young players is they just wave the bat and there, you can see the fear when they, when they’re transitioning to, when they’re transitioning the player pitch and maybe they get hit one time.
And all of a sudden, you start seeing guys that are throwing a little bit harder than you’re used to. The fear is just like. Over overwhelming. So the first thing we do is bond. You have to, you have to take the fear out of bunting, take the fear out of being your Kevin, your face, close to the baseball and having the bat right in front of your face and forcing yourself to like actually square it up
Dan Blewett: and prove to that ball that you can.
Push it seven or eight feet out. You get that ball who’s boss. Yeah, exactly. Um, okay. I buy that and that seems like a reasonable opinion. Um, when I was a kid, I obviously you’re like read all the baseball books and in Ty Cobb’s either biography or graphy. He explained that when he was slumping, He would spend a lot of extra time bunting and batting practice because you’re watching it in.
And, uh, it just like kinda reconnects you with the eyes and the ball and the bat. How do you feel about that?
Bobby Stevens: Uh, I I’m on board with that. I think that’s, I think that’s similar to, I, I say it a lot on Twitter is that confidence is your best hitting tool. Like if that’s, what if that’s what, REApps his confidence, uh, when he’s going, when he’s going poorly?
Absolutely. Yeah. Start bunting Bunce
Dan Blewett: a thousand baseballs.
Bobby Stevens: When I, I understate like it’s all mindset, right? One thing is total mindset. Any, any adults putting them off the machine at a reasonable speed should be able to lay down a bunt, even if they’re not a baseball player, because you just watch the ball hit the bat.
It’s not, it’s similar to catching a baseball. I would say most adults could do that with decent hand eye coordination. The reason that a lot of players don’t do it is the fear of it. In my opinion, is they get a little bit nervous of what’s going to happen. If the ball ricochets off their bat. The ball coming in a little bit harder.
Their face is a lot closer than it normally is. So
Dan Blewett: I
Bobby Stevens: will,
Dan Blewett: I also think it probably helps coordination. Like Ty Cobb said, I mean, for example, I was hitting fungos on what day is it on Tuesday? And so I was hitting from the first base side to the shortstop and, uh, you know, a couple of kids were like throwing them too far in like throwing them all the way in where I don’t have my gloves.
So I’m just like, okay. Trying to button it to dead net right in front of me, as we do. You know, and especially as I’m like chased them, like there’s a throw like five feet to my right. I have to chase it and like catch it with my bat. I was like four for four, which was pretty good. Cause it’s hard to judge us, but even as you’re like running and it’s not in front of you and you learn to like catch it on the bat, which is bats now, you know, three feet away from your body.
I feel like that’s a skill that. I don’t know that. I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m going exactly with what I’m saying, but I feel like that was a skill that I developed, not just from hitting, but from bunting when I was young and just having good hand eye coordination, because it’s hard to do to, like, it’s not the, ball’s not coming.
It’s easier when it’s coming at you. You can like wash it into your bath, but then to like, have it away from your body as you’re moving and still catch it on the barrel. Um, I just think all those little, those little things add up to helping you be. Better at baseball.
Bobby Stevens: It’s an over, it’s a skill you should have.
It’s a skill you should have just as just, it says, even if you’re a pitcher you’re only thrown from over the top, but it’s a skill you should have to be able to throw from a different arm angle every once in a while, just to play catch, like broaden your athletic, uh, talent stack. If you will. But it’s at a younger age.
Like you don’t need, you don’t know you need it until you need it. Bunting wise. Like there’s always going to be coaches that want you to lay down a bond with a guy on second, nobody out like, and it’s not a bad baseball play for whatever the metrics say. Like you lay down a button, you get a guy to third base with less than two outs.
Like there is a. Much higher percentage chance he’s going to score than with him on second. So it’s never a terrible play. It’s a bunch of guy, you know, in a situation such as that. Um,
Dan Blewett: and guys wants to do it
Bobby Stevens: lay down once in the summer. It’s stuff that matters. It’s
Dan Blewett: winning tennis ball. Okay, well, let’s go deeper into that.
So I think we both agree that coordination and stuff like that is an important thing you can develop from bonding. And I definitely agree when you’re yeah, young. That seems good. Uh, so as far as strategy wise, how would you use bonding with your like say 15, 16 new teams? Is it strictly for sacrificing?
Is it for, um, you know, push bunting? Is it funding for hits? What’s the, what would be the breakdown? Let’s say sweet. Let’s say the three things are sacrifices, squeezing and bunting for hits. Those are like the three variations. Um, what’s your, what’s your pie chart look like?
Bobby Stevens: So the last tournament I, I was coaching in, uh, our 17 new guys and I made a point to tell the we’ve got a.
We had like three quick guys on the team, like guys with sub seven 60 times. Good speed. And I told them, I said, you need to, in the, in the first two episodes, I was like, you need to at least show bond at some point in the app app and my reasoning and my explanation to both of it’s all these guys was look, if the third baseman is back and I always advocate, if you’re gonna bunt for a hit, it should go to third base, make the pictures and make the longer throw.
Right. He’s got to take some little longer time to get there. Um, but you should show bump because what it does, it does a few things. One, it puts it in the defensive defense’s ear or in their mind that, okay, this guy may lay down a bunt. So every time you come to the plate, those guys have to respect you.
You’re your prowess, your punting prowess, or at least your ability and your willingness about. Two is that you create so many more holes when you, when you can adjust the defense. So with what you’re doing at the plate. So the guy that is consistently late on the fast ball, like you don’t have as many holes because the defense shifts in any, any the majority of where you’re going to square the ball up, the defense is already playing you that way.
But if you’re on someone that’s gonna lay down a bunt. And all of a sudden, the third base needs to respect that. So he’s gotta be in on the grass and the first baseman’s gotta be in on the grass that those holes now are significantly bigger in the infield. And granted we teach y’all hit the ball in the air drive line drives into the gaps.
We don’t always do that. And it’s just the fact of baseball. Like we’re not always in the square, the ball up. Sometimes we roll over. If those holes are bigger, we’re going to have more hits. Okay. It’s, it’s more of a, your plan, a chess game with the defense and to not use the bunch of your advantage is, is not using one of the tools in your toolbox.
Like you have speed, you need to use it. There’s no speed is no good. If you’re not going to use it.
Dan Blewett: What’s the cutoff. How do you determine who’s got speed and who doesn’t? What does speed mean to you? I
Bobby Stevens: think speed down a first is like a four, three or faster four, four. It’s a first base or faster.
Dan Blewett: What does that translate to and do a 60?
I don’t have a good frame of reference
Bobby Stevens: seven, seven. Oh, I mean even seven one gay guys with a good lay down a well-placed Bon for a hit is a hit. I mean, you’d have to be very slow, mainly like a pitcher to not beat out a, but a good been hit. But guys that are six, nine, six, eight, six, seven sixties. That’s that type of speed should be that’s that calls for at least getting in the box, taking your sign and then checking where the corner guys are at.
Dan Blewett: And
Bobby Stevens: you have to, you just have to, as a, as a guy who’s got. You know, somewhat above average speed and above average speed doesn’t mean that you can’t hit. But guys that are slow, that are boppers that have to rely on power as like their one hit tool. That’s, that’s more difficult than a guy who could say, lay down a bunt B one for one, then also then go hit as double in the game.
Dan Blewett: Yeah.
Bobby Stevens: So one thing for a hit, I is a, is an absolute, like you have to check, you have to look. Like the first thing you should check after you take a sinus where the defense is playing regardless as a hitter, because it gives you a frame of reference. When you do put the ball in play.
Dan Blewett: Now, what, if you have a team that’s just like, destroys the ball.
Bobby Stevens: If you have a team that destroys the ball, aren’t even fast,
Dan Blewett: the same percentage of any team, like
Bobby Stevens: one of those, like
Dan Blewett: two in the lineup. Yeah. 20%.
Bobby Stevens: I still think the fast guys need to look and see where the defense is playing. Now. We don’t normally Bunce. So that was been for hit right sacrifices.
Dan Blewett: Oh, I don’t want to get away from that yet.
What is, how far does the third basement need to be back for it to be like, Hey, let’s do this
Bobby Stevens: on a normal field of his, if his cleats are in dirt, you should try. You should try. You should
Dan Blewett: in your fast, you know, that’s fine. That’s far enough just in the air. Not even, even with the bag.
Bobby Stevens: Not even, even with the bag of his feet or touch it, this feed around the dirt, then you should at least attempt to lay one down.
The biggest issue with guys that are trying to bumper hit is they don’t know when to start to bunt for a hit. They, they, the pitcher hasn’t released the ball yet, or hasn’t gotten to the point of like his power position where he’s front foot planted and they’re already showing button, like you’re giving that guy too much time to just sprint in at you.
And Metfield to play like that surprises with the bun for him is huge. You can’t show if you show early, he’s just going to be waiting there for the bot. But if you show, yeah. You know, as he’s getting to that, to his release point, okay. Get ready to bunt for a hit, like you’re not giving that third baseman very much time to break in and get a head.
Start on you. In which case you should be able to beat it out on a decent buck.
Dan Blewett: Well, I agree with all of that, but the difference between like release point and when your front foot lands is like a fraction of a second, like a tiny, so there’s probably not really any real difference there.
Bobby Stevens: No, no, no. Guys that have like show when like the guys in his balance.
Dan Blewett: Yeah, I would agree. I agree. That’s too early. I had to start get me. I misinterpreted what you meant, but, um, they should start to move towards the plate before you,
Bobby Stevens: you, as well as his hands are breaking in the front foot. Plants. I mean, you could probably start at that point. If you could start a little bit later and you’re comfortable and you’re not rushed also, also something you can practice in normal batting practice.
Like it doesn’t hurt to lay down a bunt or two for a hit. If you’re a guy that does that
Dan Blewett: now, given finite practice time, how big of a priority is this? I mean, say you only have two hours, two hours, twice a week with your team. How much time should you spend on bunting?
Bobby Stevens: Um, if we’re hitting during practice, they should at least Funt.
Dan Blewett: I don’t
Bobby Stevens: know one or two every round. Just lay one down. I mean, give you at least give yourself a frame of reference, especially if you’re facing a guy thrown over the top because you don’t always get that at practice. There’s a lot of flips. There’s a lot of machine work. If you’re got a guy that’s going to throw over the top.
Absolutely. You should at least lay one down first, you know, first fall around last ball, around whatever. Okay. Like give yourself a shot, you know, put it in your toolbox as some coaches would say,
Dan Blewett: okay, well, let’s go to sacrificing and what’s your, what’s your deal there?
Bobby Stevens: Uh, I would not sacrifice funds in games that don’t matter early games that met games that don’t matter.
I wouldn’t sacrifice bond at all. We’re just playing scrimmage games. I swing away, gets wrapped bats, high school kids don’t get enough at bats as it is. In a high and a high school season where the coach, the varsity coach is trying to win conference, trying to win games games. If you feel the need to bond and get guys over, do it.
I much prefer guys, but, but runners second or third, as opposed to first a second. I don’t know. See the, I don’t see the bunting, the guy from first base to second base, all that beneficial. I’d rather take my chances on a, on a Steeler and run, but definitely. Lay one down, get the guy second, third, and games that matter in tournament games in the summer, our coaches, every game I’ve ever been to are pretty good early in the game.
Swing the baths. Let’s try and hit the ball. If the, if it’s starting to get close, we need to run at the end. Okay. Let’s play a little bit more strategic baseball, like play the odds. Get to go to third base, especially, I mean, especially when you’re talking, when you’re talking high school baseball, where.
Not all the plays are made, right? Not all the balls that are pitched are blocked. Uh, you know, there’s, there’s much more variance in the D on the defensive side, in a high school game. So getting a guy to third base in scoring, cause one base away from scoring. So many things can happen at a high school game.
So many bad plays can happen. Throwbacks to the pitcher getaway. Like there’s so many random things that happen in those games that you don’t see in the big leagues. That’s why guys don’t button nearly as often in the big leagues, like the defense is so solid and the pitching is so solid. Like these guys know that when the balls put in play, it’s going to be an out, when the ball’s moving, it’s going to be caught.
Dan Blewett: Gotcha. Um, Okay. So when do you use sacrifice bonds,
Bobby Stevens: sacrifice bunting close game late in the game, you know, let’s say fourth, fifth inning, and in a tournament that you need to win to play more games. So we have a coach. We have a, our 60 new coach always uses the phrase free baseball. You know, you go to a term when you get four guaranteed games, we’re trying to get to free baseball.
We’re trying to get to that fifth game, six games, seventh game, hopefully, and play more games. So in the games that can essentially elevate you to the free baseball round, the bracket round, we’re laying down bonds. We’re trying to, we’re trying to manufacture runs, and it’s also relative to. Who you’re playing.
Are you playing a guy? Who’s, who’s shoving it down your throat. Right. And he’s got good stuff. And he gave up a double, like, okay, he’s got one through five and things like let’s try and put some pressure on if we’re facing the guy that we get. Two, three, four hits every morning. We’re probably gonna let the kids swing away.
And the is probably going to dictate that we don’t need to bump guys
Dan Blewett: over. Gotcha. All right. Well, let’s go to, um, uh, squeezes. Do you use these, if, how and when
Bobby Stevens: squeeze bump. Yes. We’ve used them. Not
Dan Blewett: as much.
Bobby Stevens: Uh, the, the issue I have with the squeeze bond is that kids are so bad at taking signs now, like recognizing signs and.
Putting them into action. I mean, I can’t, I can’t tell you how many signs in the last tournament I gave and I only have three signs, but hint around steel that we missed mainly Bundt aren’t excuse me. Mainly steel signs that we missed, but like it coach it’s nerve wracking when, okay. I’m going to give you the squeeze, sign, the bonds, whatever the buns and steal squeeze.
And you’re not going to get it. I’m going to have a kid sprinting straight at you, and you’re just going to take a full on swipe. So I feel like squeeze, you have to have the right guy up that knows what’s happening. At least the guy on third basic or coaching, you can talk to him, verbalize it, but you have to have a lot of trust in that guy that’s hitting.
And at the high school level, I mean, even at the professional level, I don’t know how much trust I have in, in half the lineup to recognize science consistently. Like, I feel like they just force a habit, look at the third baseman third base coach. And I think he’s just waving his hands. Like. You know, performing a silent play, like know these signs sometimes they mean something you should, you should know what they mean.
Dan Blewett: Yeah, no, that’s reasonable. Um, so how many times did your team squeeze last year? Even estimation?
Bobby Stevens: Well, I would say the squeeze was probably used our 16 year team. Definitely did it the most. I would say they probably used it eight times the whole summer, eight times and 30 games. And we had nine high school teams.
Eight was the most, and I would say five or six of the teams probably did it less than two times. It’s just not a, it’s just not a play that’s used that much anymore. Pitchers have gotten so good. I mean, pictures control their body so well, like you see a bump, they’re going to put a ball. It’s unbelievable.
Dan Blewett: Like,
Bobby Stevens: that’s something you guys practice in the bullpens. I would assume I’ve seen it done when I used to play
Dan Blewett: now. No, I’ve never brought that up.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. You’ve never practiced this now on a pitch out
Dan Blewett: a, I mean, throwing a pitch out maybe, but there’s never like practice. Deaking a suicide font. I don’t know.
But I guess that makes sense. I mean, if you pick it up early enough sure. But that’s something that’s also. I don’t know. It’s hard to not prepare yourself to throw a strike when you’re preparing to throw a strike. Like if you’re, you know, your leg is you’ve kicked your leg and now, you know, you’re going towards the plate and you never thought about the scenario of, Oh, what if this guy squares around the squeeze bond?
As soon as he shows button, you’re not going to immediately be like, Oh, this is a squeeze bond. I need to. Throwing at his ear. It’s hard to make those decisions in real time. I mean, certainly yeah, you could realize, Oh, they’re running on third. This is a squeeze one. But to do that and put all the dots together.
Yeah. They’re like connect to all of them and then suddenly throw a ball in his ear. So he can’t, that’s kind of tough, you know, maybe you get lucky and just throw a ball by accident. Are you. Kind of get Yippy and just like go somewhere. But, um, throwing a pitch out is fundamentally different because you know, you’re throwing a pitch out when you throw a pitch out.
So you’re just mentally locked in on throwing out into the space. So the empty batter’s box, whereas in this one, you have to do the same thing, but you have to do it at the very last minute. And you didn’t know you were going to do it. So it’s tough stuff to say the least, but I don’t know. Yeah. I saw it in action a couple of times and I just wondered, so I saw it in action with zero outs and a runner on third, and that didn’t make a lot of sense to me
Bobby Stevens: that does.
Dan Blewett: It’s like you have three, three tries to get a hit. To score him from third or to Tris data, deep fly ball or a ground ball that gets deep enough where you can score. That seems like a poor decision. Um, it doesn’t seem to go with the percentages and baseball cause you score like 88% of the time from third with no one out anyway.
So that seems sketchy. Like it depends on the hitter obviously, and it depends on how important it is, but yeah. Pretty high, pretty high scoring probability from third anyway, with one hour. So that’s why I’m kind of iffy on, on, uh, on squeeze plays personally. But depending on the hitter, it can maybe be the best choice.
Cause there are some kids that are like, this kid is probably gonna punch out,
Bobby Stevens: right?
Dan Blewett: So maybe this is our best shot,
Bobby Stevens: but then you also have like, you want to give your hitters. Like game reps and certain situations run around third, less than two outs. Like those that’s a, that’s a staple of baseball. Like you need to be good at that.
You need to be able to get that guy in, like RBIS matter, you know, scoring runs as the goal, having more points than the other team is the ultimate goal. Like you need to
Dan Blewett: be a guy that’s big in baseball. Yeah. They’re going to make the most points. Yeah.
Bobby Stevens: So you gotta be a guy that, Hey, when there’s a point to be had.
We can trust you to like, have a good at bat and not tense up and,
Dan Blewett: and,
Bobby Stevens: you know, freak out. And it’s when there’s, you know, you’re a pitcher when you’re brought into situations you’ve never been in before. Like you, you have to try and get through that situation. Like if you’ve never been in it before, it’s, it’s more difficult.
So to give a kid. Who is, let’s say 17 years old, every time those guys at third, just keep giving them the squeeze because you aren’t trusting the swing. The bat. If that kid ends up playing in college, like he’s going to have to swing at something. He’s gonna have to swing with a guy on third base and less than two outs.
Dan Blewett: Like you should give him those reps.
Bobby Stevens: And I mean, this kids just do not get enough baseball reps for as much as baseball has advanced. Like they just, you don’t get enough baseball reps like live, you know, tension filled reps. Then then probably you and I have gotten, or our parents generation had gotten when they were just playing outside, you know, playing games.
Like even if you’re playing between your friends, like you’re still trying to win. Like those are reps. Those are good reps.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. Um, yeah. So my feelings that onboarding I’ve waffled over the years, um, in general, I’m not a huge sacrifice Bunner or I wasn’t, when I was a head coach, I’m not a head coach currently.
Um, I, we did more attempted bunting for hits my last season with a team that struggled with the plate. So with guys that were not hitting super well, we were, there was like a constant alert, like third basement. If he’s deep, you’re trying it, like, let’s do this because you’re hitting 200. Like we needed to try to do something to get.
Get guys on base. Like we used to really struggle as a hitting team. Um, and I think there’s value there. And of course you see that, especially like under age 13, you see the chaos caused by Bunning. So there’s merit there. Cause kids don’t like fielding bunts my best season ever. I got, I think one fieldable ball all season as early ever.
I had 50 appearances and only had to like make one comebacker throw all year. It was awesome. It’s my best. It was my favorite. Did you make favor? Yeah, I did, but I, I definitely get a little Yippy getting close for space. I’ve thrown my, share another into the stands. So their best, if they’re hitting right at me or their best of their hits, my right.
And then I get just throw a missile and they don’t think about it. But if you get into that a little weird in between zone where you have to make like a 35 foot throw and they’re really moving fast and you’re like, I can’t actually throw it hard. I can’t throw a dart either. What do I do? And then you can just Chuck in a stance.
That’s how it works.
Bobby Stevens: It’s funny because spring training and, uh, you know, even college baseball practice, like the amount of pitcher fielding practice over months is like totally disproportionate to the number of buns and, and balls fielded by pitchers over the course of this over the course of the year.
Dan Blewett: I mean, that’s like, that’s like anything though. I mean, you need to do it to be prepared. So it’s it’s it becomes a habit and it needs to be second nature. Right? None of that’s big part of that’s building the habit. I mean, think about it when you’re young, you forget to cover first base on balls to the right side, right?
Because it’s not a habit. It’s not because you don’t like, you can’t think about it. It just needs to become a habit. Like you see the ball and automatically you start to do that. So if you don’t do that in pitchers, fielding practice over and over and over, you don’t develop the habit cause you don’t get enough reps in the game to develop that habit.
No,
Bobby Stevens: it’s not even getting reps in the game. It’s just like when spring training, there was always no Oriel spring training. I remember there’s always like you do stretch, you do your, you play, you do your throwing program. And then there was like a 20 minutes of PFPs, you know, pitcher, fielding, practice, whatever it was every single day.
So that’s a, there’s a disproportionate amount. A lot of time spent like with pitchers, fielding the ball. When they don’t really feel the ball. I mean, the amount of plays that and the box for that start off with one like a one flight, one 63, a one three, one four just does not it’s it’s. Does it uncalled for?
Dan Blewett: Yeah. But are you saying disproportionate is unnecessary and wasteful or what are you saying?
Bobby Stevens: I’m saying it’s, I’m saying it’s disproportionate amount of practice time with them.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. But no, but here’s the thing. How many ground balls do you take in a week as an infielder? How many ground balls do you hit to your shortstops?
50. They don’t get 50 ground balls in a game. Do they know they get
Bobby Stevens: significantly more like if they got five and the pitcher gets one, we should spend five times the amount of time hitting the shortstop.
Dan Blewett: That’s not the point. It’s not time. Yes. So game, no it’s to make you better at it. It’s to make you better at it.
Bobby Stevens: Dan, I can’t stress enough,
Dan Blewett: not just pitchers. Your logic is so bad. This is like vaccine logics
Bobby Stevens: lists. They don’t need to be fielding ground balls. Just get out of the way.
Dan Blewett: I agree, but your, but your metrics here determining why it’s useless. It doesn’t make sense. Because again, if that was, if that logic held up, then like, why are we hitting 100 ground balls to a shortstop?
He’s only going to get four in a game. Let’s hit them for like that doesn’t make sense. No, not gonna be as good as shortstop for it. You’re hitting it. You’re hitting suits. There’s a lot of these PFP is so that they’re better at it. The point is not because it actually
Bobby Stevens: matches. The shortstop needs to be better at fielding ground balls than the pitcher.
So if you’re going to split up your time hitting ground balls, the shortstop should have
Dan Blewett: a most not saying it’s finite. We never were saying it was finite pitches, always doing that when every other dog is doing their own thing, it’s not like it’s not like for every ground ball pitcher get is taking away a ground ball from our shortstop.
That’s not how it works. It’s not mutually exclusive. It’s not
Bobby Stevens: for a finite amount of time at practice. So to spend.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. For youth, maybe whatever scent.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. I spend 20% hitting the ground to roll bonds to pitchers.
Dan Blewett: Well, it’s actually, I don’t disagree with doing it.
Bobby Stevens: I don’t dispute you into the youth though.
I don’t, I
Dan Blewett: think the comebacker is, are stupid. Well, here’s the thing for youth kids. They need to understand what they have to actually do when they get a comebacker and it’s a double play. They need, they need to go through it. They don’t know what they’re doing. The other thing, they don’t know what they’re doing is on, is on buns.
They run over, they try to like grab it and throw it and they need to like shove the ball into the ground and like grab it like a starfish with their fingers. They are actually as some technique. Cause if you just run over and try to like yank it out of the ground, You said you ended up leaving the ball on the ground, especially if the grass is thick.
So there’s little things you gotta kind of, you have to really grab it hard. So stuff like that. Does
Bobby Stevens: I disagree with that? I don’t disagree because,
Dan Blewett: Oh, Macker’s thrown a first as a waste of time. It’s like, it’s just playing catch, like, you know how to play catch and you know how to catch a ball when it’s about to hit you.
So like, you don’t really need to come back as the first, but the tweeners, like running to first and like. Catching the ball as this first basins flip and all that stuff does need to be practiced. That’s
Bobby Stevens: that’s a difference. That’s a different practice though, right? Like the three ones
Dan Blewett: are like the we’re talking
Bobby Stevens: about bunting or the topic of the show is bunting.
We’re talking about pitchers, fielding bonds and how pitchers just should practice on their own diamond and get out of the way of the athletes on the field.
Dan Blewett: No one, no one was saying that, that wasn’t no, you’re making an argument against.
Bobby Stevens: No. Um, so, um, so we spend a disproportionate amount of time practicing, like bunting PFPs in relation to other things that would be that happen significantly more in the game.
So I’m saying,
Dan Blewett: yeah, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing though. It’s a weird angle. Run it like it’s, it’s more difficult than you think, unless the bond is pretty easy. If the bunts pretty far where it’s close to the line, you actually have to run over to especially first base baseline. Now you get that ball that runner’s charging.
You have to make a throw that doesn’t hit him very quickly, and it’s an awkward throw. If you catch it on, if you grab it on the first base line, kind of close to the plate as a pitcher. And so it helps, it helps, it helps to have practice with that throw because you can’t just grab it and throw it to the base.
Like any other time, it’s, it’s weird angles and you have to know, all right, I’m getting this year, I have to hurry and I have to throw it out, like up the line. So the first patient has some space. If you don’t practice that stuff, which I know you’re not arguing against pricing in general, but if you don’t price that stuff and one of those bumps or one of those bumps done, they’re done in critical.
Junctions in the game. So if you don’t practice them, now you have this weird angle throw that you almost never make. You have to make it and you have a practice to, and the game’s on the line. This is a really cute spot. And you Chuck it into the corner. Yeah. You know, you throw in the right field. So, so it’s automatic.
Because these aren’t like the simple ones, like the calm backers. We don’t need a practice that thrown into first base, but the double play turns the bonds because those are angles that you just don’t really throw from very often. And sometimes you do need to pick it up and you need to throw a arm or you need to do other stuff.
Especially as runners gets faster, you see these really athletic bump plays the pitchers, making the big leagues cause they have two guys are moving down that line. How are you gonna throw a Billy Billy Hamilton out? If you got to run three steps and pick up his bond. Like, you’re gonna have to grab it home.
And B and B, you know, Troy Tulowitzki for a second.
Bobby Stevens: I think you just moved the infielders and about 30 feet from Billy Hamilton. Cause he’s not gonna hit it past you.
Dan Blewett: Well, the other thing there’s a lot of pitchers that aren’t good at fielding ground balls. Like I wasn’t, as a kid, I was always an outfielder.
So. It was helpful to me to get ground balls. Cause I wasn’t playing shortstop when I wasn’t pitching. So making those throws was not second nature to me,
Bobby Stevens: infield or pet infielder pet peeve. The, the comebacker the one 63 where the, where you get the pitcher that can’t calibrate his fast ball from, from the pitcher’s mound to the base.
So it’s just a 90, 92 with, with a little bit of run.
Dan Blewett: Exactly. Exactly the reason for it. All, exactly the reason you have to practice it because
Bobby Stevens: guys don’t do pictures. And if there are any out there listening, you guys don’t do that. You’re not practicing like from throws. You’re just shocking. It.
Dan Blewett: No, that’s what I’m saying.
You have to practice it. You have to practice it to know what the right velocity is to throw at. Like, to have to have an idea because you also have point
Bobby Stevens: is you guys don’t
Dan Blewett: do it. You guys don’t.
Bobby Stevens: You just throw missiles to the shortstop?
Dan Blewett: No, you, well, no, you throw it the right speed, but how do you know like what the right speed is until you’ve done it?
And a lot of times you don’t and little kids don’t know what they’re doing.
Bobby Stevens: Yes. And in a perfect world, maybe, but pitchers know what they’re doing there. Especially I’ve visited the pro level, the pro level. Like you get the comebacker. And you get those guys like, like when we had, when on earth, I can’t remember when being athletic and just like, you know, it can affirm throw normal speed of the shortstop.
And I can remember our closer, like Gleason. Just in Gleason is a good athlete, but every once in a while, policeman would just decide because he throws 95 to also throw it at the shortstop 95 miles an hour on a double play ball. And he hate him for it because it’s a different example. Cause he’s screwing with you.
But there’s certain guys that cannot tone it down. They can’t, they don’t, they’re not athletic enough to. Maybe they’re not athletic
Dan Blewett: they’re I should say,
Bobby Stevens: but there
Dan Blewett: there’s so many.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. There’s but they’re so ingrained in like,
Dan Blewett: They do miss
Bobby Stevens: things methodically as a pitcher. Like that throws essentially the same distance as, you know, pitchers mountain home, that’s their throwing their speed.
That’s the speed. They know how to throw.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. Which is why you have to do it because it is, it’s weird to throw a ball 95 and then grab the ball and then throw it 72. It just weird,
Bobby Stevens: but, okay. Yeah. I used to practice it, but when you practice it, you’re not practicing the throw at that 75. You’re just shucking it to the dismay of the shortstop.
Dan Blewett: That’s not what most people do at all. That’s what it does. No, no,
Bobby Stevens: no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s there, it’s 30% of the staff minimum throws as hard as I can. This is the day I was standing. I stood at second base.
Dan Blewett: Thousands of the SL. No, not 90
Bobby Stevens: months.
Dan Blewett: Yes, they do. It takes so much effort to throw a ball 90 miles per hour.
No, one’s throwing it. That horse. It just feels like it for you. No,
Bobby Stevens: no, it doesn’t mean
Dan Blewett: 82 tops.
Bobby Stevens: 80. No, no, not 82. It’s a full rear back. When those infielders claws, man, you’ve put on in fillers, glop there’s
Dan Blewett: regardless. Proving my you’re proving my point that it needs to be a part of the practice that it needs to be done because there’s so many little things and the rhythm, I mean, I’m a backfield.
I have a YouTube video about one 63 double plays because kids don’t know when to throw it. They get the ball and they’re like, they just turn, they Chuck it. And it’s like, Nope, shortstop’s not there yet, buddy. You know, the rhythm is you get the comebacker, you collect, you kind of like bringing the ball to your center, you take a one shuffle, and then you throw a firmly to second base.
The one shuffle gives your shortstop time to get there, or your second basement. That’s the timing of it. And you learn that later on or when somebody smart tells you that. But until that point, just get it. And then like, ah, and they want to throw up right away. And then. The guy’s not ready. Cause again, when you get a hard comeback or it’s in your glove and the shortstop hasn’t even moved yet, hardly like he’s made, he’s taken one step.
So if you turn and Chuck it, no, one’s there then if you’re right. And then if you’re ready to turn and Chuck it. And you see no one there. No, one’s there then. What do you do? You get nervous? You like double pump and now you’re in a weird throwing position and you’re waiting for the guy to get there. Then he finally gets there and they’re like, uh, again, okay.
That’s when he Chuck on the outfield. Whereas if you know, to catch it, I bring it to my center. I turn to second base. I take a quick shuffle and boom. I throw it through the middle of the base that gives them enough time to get over there. And that’s the stuff that you practice. And then you learn to not throw a 92 mile per hour bond in the center field either.
Cause then you can’t get that. So that one either like you throw it 70 miles per hour, nice and crisp. And there it is.
Bobby Stevens: We had practice on Wednesday. So, this is, this is a good segue here. You had practice on Wednesday. And I was, I was like standing at second base for the last practice, like playing position.
Uh, we were short a guy, but you know, we, uh, we were doing nothing with situations, you know, fungo situations with runners and guy on first base. And we had a pitcher out there throwing a pitch and, um, you know, pitcher gets the ball, he gets an amount and I’m like, and I’m like, step off Mike, who you’re working with.
And I don’t know, maybe Dan, you could, you could clarify this, like, have you ever not worked with the shortstop on a comebacker unless there’s like, like a shift I would, we’ve always worked with shortstop. Why would
Dan Blewett: you, why would you want the second baseman? Cause they ain’t gonna stop. He’s got to stop and pivot the other way.
Like the shortstop’s going, going that way.
Bobby Stevens: I’m so, okay. So I yell out who you work with and in my head thinking, like, I know he’s, you’re always working with the shortstop, but you know, give him one of these, you know, I’m working with you. And he looks in the picture, looks at me. He’s like for what, what?
And I was like, what are you who you work with? Come back or who you’re working with. And he’s like, for what? And I said, the ball set back. You like, I’m, I’m being loud. Like several. Now I’m like the ball set backs. You. You catch it, you need throw it to second basement or so second base. So the guy at second base can catch it, touch the base, throw it to first base and we can get it.
No play. Like what do you mean? Who are you working with on the comebacker and he had an absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Like he, it didn’t register to him, that guy on first base, he catches, throws the second. And
Dan Blewett: I think
Bobby Stevens: I take like, take for granted, just like these kids just don’t play enough baseball.
Like that’s a natural, like there’s. Can you ever remember pitching in the last, I don’t know, 15 years of your life, where a guy on first base, you didn’t do one of these, the shortstop.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. I stopped doing that because we knew it was the shortstop. Like why we need to keep talking about this
Bobby Stevens: indication.
It’s still it’s it’s
Dan Blewett: it’s there.
Bobby Stevens: If I was playing shortstop and you were pitching, at least I know, you know,
Dan Blewett: Right. I know that’s a strange thing. Are you vouching, are you saying that that needs to be a thing that you need to turn and said, tell the shortstop that, Hey, do the same thing that you always do?
Cause I think that’s dumb.
Bobby Stevens: No, no. I’m saying
Dan Blewett: that
Bobby Stevens: like the, just the, not just the wherewithal, like where the ball is supposed to go. When you, as in the hole, you know, when, when I’m running a practice,
Dan Blewett: Obviously I’ve like
Bobby Stevens: I played for a long time. Most of the coaches I played for a long time, like when the ball we know pretty much where everyone’s supposed to go, right.
So I’ve got kids that are like POS pitcher, only players. And there’s a guy on first when we’re doing situations and I’m yelling out like, all right, like who we working with? Just like naturally just, I’m just talking the game out loud, essentially during practice. And just the fact that he did not know where the ball should be going.
Like if it was hit back to him, And we watched it a few times. So throughout the course of practice, like first and second, comebacker, uh, you know, normal comebacker pitcher just turns and fires are right to third base. Like he gets not the wrong play, but we want the double play, like turn and fire it.
Right. Second and based. So he’d get a double play. Like just the baseball instincts I think are lacking at the youth level. And this is that this is like a segue to, I mean, into. PFPs in general, but it’s like overarching. We always do PFP stuff at the youth level with all the players. Cause they all pitch.
Right. But when you get to the higher levels, PFPs is my point is that they don’t need to be done as much as one. The pitcher doesn’t really feel the ball all that often, if at all. And two you’re taking time away from my ground balls at short
Dan Blewett: is the face I’m giving you. Well, again, it just goes back to what we talked about in our last.
Episode, which is habits. These are things you have to do enough with the kids. Do they have a habit when kids get the comebacker with first and second and they throw to third base it’s because they didn’t develop the habit that I get it. I turned a second. I end the inning on adult play rather than getting a stupid lead out at third base and having an extra hour to get.
Hate the laid
Bobby Stevens: out. Yeah,
Dan Blewett: it’s a, it’s a, it’s a very dumb play. Now it’s safe here. The here’s with one caveat, say it’s like 11, you baseball and you’re not going to turn it all play. Then, I guess I’m okay with it. Right. But, but at the same time you still can turn it all play. I mean, it depends, man. He’s the fat, the fat kid running.
You don’t know, but it’s not like Dell plays are harder to turn it 11 or 12. You, if the throws are made, if you get a comebacker and you throw it sharply to second base, shortstop catches, it, throws it sharply to first base, you can turn it all play. You know, in most scenarios at any level, really, it just depends.
You know, obviously there’s points where kids are getting a little too big for the field and they need a jump up. You know, if you’re at the, essentially the right age, then the game kind of plays the same. Sure. So I have a question for you, Dan, but before you ask it, The big thing is just getting the habit.
When the kid gets the comebacker, he needs to instinctively turn to second base and fire to get his old play rather than catching and having to think about where he’s going with it. That’s when he doesn’t have the habit. Just so with the ball, the right side, the habit that he goes to first base, you can’t yell at the cover first base.
Okay. I’m so tired of coaches yelling that I don’t yell that if you don’t know to do it, then. We just need to hit you more. Fungos like it’s a habit or it’s more, it’s not like get over there. Alright. I’m done. I’m bored.
Bobby Stevens: All right. Well, this asked me this isn’t, this is something I struggled with a little bit.
What, at what age do you feel like you should be teaching real baseball in terms of cutoffs and, uh, positioning. So when I say real baseball, so. No run around second base base at the left field that cut should go straight to home. And the third basement should be the cutoff guy. At what age do you start teaching that to
Dan Blewett: kids?
Bobby Stevens: And at what age do you just do let the shortstop be the cutoff all the time or do you only teach it the correct
Dan Blewett: way? Like I don’t basically don’t cut it. I don’t teach trash baseball personally. No. But I also never coached. I also never coached below 12. You, so I’m not really going to comment there.
Bobby Stevens: Well, all right.
So then there’s the answer? Is that, I mean,
Dan Blewett: yeah, it depends on the strength of the throw off your left fielders throwing like sort of a lollipop. Cause that’s what he’s got because he’s 10 then, you know, you have to figure out what what’s the best angle, like who needs to feel that throw, like if he can’t throw it to the middle of the field, Mill the infield, then it’s not going to make sense for the shortstop to be cutting it.
Right. So like I get that, but, um, I haven’t coached a young enough baseball where that’s gonna matter, like I’ve coached. Did we have a 12 year team one year? I don’t think we did. I think it was always 13 and up so
Bobby Stevens: 13 definitely. But 12 U is like when I start to introduce. Okay. Cause here’s my logic. Is that from basically 11 and under baseball.
Kids don’t necessarily have set positions. They’ll play two, three, four positions. Coaches will throw them out on different spots. You know, you might have like your standard, you know, the kid who always play shortstop or the kid who always catches, but for the most part, kids are kind of bouncing around position-wise.
So my rule is always, if the ball’s in the outfield, the shortstop is the cutoff man, and everybody else covers their base. And then once they hit 12, you, where we start to establish like, OK, you’re our third basement. Like you’re our first basement. Okay. Now we’re gonna start teaching baseball, you know, ball hitting the ball, hit in the gap.
You know, shortstop goes out second basements, the trail guy, double cut stuff. But for the most part, like 11 and under, I mean it teaching the gate, you homeless, you have to like pick and choose what you teach them. Cause they’re not going to retain it all from one and two. It’s like when, when they’re thinking too much, they’re never playing the game.
So I feel like the easiest way is, okay, shortstop has no base
Dan Blewett: in his position to cover.
Bobby Stevens: He’s the cut guy. Everybody else has a base. You cover your base. So we have like this reasonable,
Dan Blewett: I mean, if you have a good reason for doing what you’re doing, I think that’s fine. I don’t like, I don’t think again, because I mean, here’s another thing, a good example to your point is that like double cuts don’t exist at a higher high enough level.
All right. At a higher level of baseball, right? As soon as guys have a strong enough arm, double cuts don’t exist, right? There’s no double cuts in the big, not really. Um, cause the guy gets the ball on the, on the fence and he just throws a missile to the shortstop and there’s a missile to the plate. Right.
And like there was a double cut. I don’t remember hardly double cuts. Ever, right. Doesn’t the shorts. I’ve just sort of trail. And if it’s an overthrow, he’ll grab it or whatever, but there’s no scenario, which the center feeder throws the shortstop. He throws it the second basement who throws the, the plate like that.
That’s not a thing.
Bobby Stevens: Snap, a double. That’s not a true double cut. It’s over cautious that there’s two cut guys out there. One’s backing up the primary cut guy. But
Dan Blewett: when you tell it and you put it, but in youth baseball, there’s definitely two cutoff man. Like ball hit to the wall and like a big field hits, one cut who hits another cut.
Who that makes it throws a plate. That’s a double cut.
Bobby Stevens: I think they just like, we’ll see, we will teach it as like, okay, ball hit down the left field line. Shortstop’s going out second. Baseman’s going to be the trail guy. Like you’re going to get the overthrow you might not necessarily get,
Dan Blewett: which is what I just said.
Yeah. But the youth level, they can’t physically make the throw that far. Especially when they jump up to a big field,
Bobby Stevens: especially when you’re playing,
Dan Blewett: you’ll have two actual cuts. Yeah. They’ll actually have to make two throws
Bobby Stevens: that have no fence,
Dan Blewett: which is just a nightmare. When you,
Bobby Stevens: somebody hits it’s like turf, especially like you play on offense, even a high school field.
Like you play on a field with no fence and turf. Good luck.
Dan Blewett: Yeah, that’s how I grew up. We only have one. No, no, no fence. We only had one fence in high school, a conference. So I’m talking about like a ball. You destroyable, you just start, you just go shuck, just, just, and the funny thing is you can never really get a home run out of it. Like you think that without fences, Uh, now of course, like we had like good average, I’d say high school baseball, not like crazy high school baseball.
So like if you’re having guys in 420 foot. Tanks which happens at certain places in the country. No offense that they’re going to get a home run probably. But then again, when you really hit like a legit home run, that’s high enough. It doesn’t roll nearly as far when it hits the ones that really get out.
There are usually the ones who are like 20 degree launch angle. That would be a legit double, like a one hop. The fence, got a double. Those are the ones where you might have a chance to get all the way around, but it was very rare even playing without fence. And most of the time that. You could lay out a home run.
It was just like a triple. And that was about it. I mean, while, but you wouldn’t have thought in our high school conference, like you wouldn’t have there. It wasn’t like guys at five home runs on the season. They’re all in the park because they got to just keep running. It wasn’t that way at all. Like, I don’t remember laying on a home run once in high school, so I don’t know.
Just an interesting, interesting side note, cause people don’t really, they don’t really play baseball without fences anymore, which is interesting, but it’s just like, not really a thing, but we didn’t have fences at all. Hardly when I was a kid, I remember I hit my first, over a fence home run at some park in Howard County, Maryland.
It literally hit the top of the fence and bounced over. Um, like, you know, it’s like a wooden fence with like a little tiny ledge at the top, but, um, we just didn’t play on the fence fields very often. So you like didn’t have an opportunity to do it. It was weird. There’s
Bobby Stevens: not many fence fields. I mean, that was like the, you know, every day you had pic picnic day or, uh, what we had, we had fill-ins day fill-ins was like a little baseball, baseball stadium fields in one little complex fences with like 200 feet around, you know, literally fields.
But you had villains day and only thing you want to do hit a home run at felons, like hit a ball over the fence. There’s also a fill-ins was like an armored truck company. So they had a big armor truck above the scoreboard. You hit it, you won like 500 bucks.
Dan Blewett: That’s all, which is
Bobby Stevens: awesome. But nobody ever had it.
Cause when you’re 10, that was like a 350 foot shot.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. I guess maybe it was like city planning or something back then that made it different. But like back then, it seemed like all the fields. So where a huge soccer field or two. And then they put a baseball field on the corner of it. Now it’s like how my high school was.
So now fillings are always a nightmare because they would have like pre like JV football practice out there. So it was like naughty you’re running around your head ankles are just as like running on cobblestones. Um, and I think probably when they redid a lot of those rethought, a lot of that planning maybe 10 years ago.
And they’re like, it just doesn’t doesn’t seem like anyone plans out their high school baseball fields that way anymore, where they’re mixed use, where it’s just like two fields blended together. Like no one does that anymore, which makes sense because both fields probably suffer and the youth, the use is probably difficult to manage, but that seems like how it was all done back in the, I don’t know.
I was playing high school baseball on the year 2000. So prior to everything prior to that, it was probably just mixed use. But now everything new is always fence it off and find its own little chunk for it. So
Bobby Stevens: mixed use field. There’s a couple in Chicago or they’re genius for schools that are limited on space.
And also want to use why don’t use turf.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. The turf, the turf makes sense. Yeah. I was just thinking about that. Cause I think there’s one in, um, it’s near Humboldt park. I remember seeing one in Chicago. It’s like right by a whole foods where it’s in a kind of rougher neighborhood, but they got a beautiful turf field.
I think they use for at least two things and they just have a temporary fence. They run through there and otherwise it’s mostly a big open potentially football field or soccer field. Exactly. With turf. It makes more sense with multiple sports. It’s just like our outfield was a nightmare. Like it was legitimately you’re running on these like Tufts of grass, because it’s just so chewed up.
And so then as an outfielder, your life sucks because you have a ground ball hit out to you and right field. And you’re like, Oh God, Oh God bodied up, bodied up, buddied up. Because, because you can’t charge a ball ever, like it’s terrifying, charge a ball and throw a guy out the plate because it’s going to skip over your glove or take a random, it’s like.
Playing with one of those reaction balls. Like it was hard and I was not, I was a good outfielder until I was like 15, 16, then I wasn’t quite as fast. And, um, So the ground balls made me look bad. I was not good. I was not good at predicting the random bounces. Also, you can’t
Bobby Stevens: teach like, okay, like balls sit in front of you, guidance second.
Like you charge one handed, you know, coming up hard.
Dan Blewett: You can’t do that. Can’t teach that down because the closer you get to the ball, the more you see it doing weird stuff. And you’re like, The consequences of me overrunning this ball or flip jump and go, Mike Love very, very significant. You look very bad when a ball goes under over your glove as an outfielder, the night, especially as a kid or outfield, which I was like a right field or in high school, it’s a nightmare to have a ball go into your glove.
Bobby Stevens: Well, there’s no backups,
Dan Blewett: no backups go at least a triple. You look like an idiot and it’s it’s, it’s not good, but then that, but that sucked all the joy out of playing the outfield. Cause the best thing about the outfield is those ground balls where you just get to either throw them out of the play from your chest on a fly ball, or you get the scoop of ground ball and just throw an absolute missile with doesn’t matter, if you get them ever like no one ever expects you to make.
You know, an outfield assist. So for me having a good arm, I just want to throw the piss out of the ball and you just let the chips fall where they may. So
Bobby Stevens: few
Dan Blewett: opportunities. I don’t care if I get you, I’m just gonna throw an absolute missile.
Bobby Stevens: Awesome.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. I’d love the grip on turf fields these days. Cause it was big cherry hops.
Oh man. Oh, it’s
Bobby Stevens: not even fat. Like the turf is when I have kids missing like ground balls on turf.
Dan Blewett: Like know,
Bobby Stevens: cause they’re like topping themselves up. It’s like one, I asked myself like, is this kid playing a really crappy high school field? Like he’s nervous
Dan Blewett: or he should be better at it. That’s what I’m saying.
Bobby Stevens: He’s got like, does he have like a PTSD where it’s like, he’s been hit in the face and the chest so many times he’s like, he’s just jumpy. Like what is going
Dan Blewett: on? Well, though, the bounces on good turf fields are so easy to predict. And of course, so if you play on like Florida or one of those Southern States where all the fields are Bermuda grass, those are even better.
Cause the ball hits and just, it’s just immediately rolling. You know, it’s just nice, easy scoop. Oh, it does snake a little bit. That’s your right. It’s so weird. That’s a weird little thing. Um, But, yeah, well, we got off topic today, but we, uh, had a good, good bond conversation. I mean, back to my thing on bunting as like my little final world word.
It’s hard to be too black and white about it. I wrote an article that actually still gets a lot of web traffic. It’s called why bunting is bad. And it’s about what chronic expectancy and the course of the point of the article is not exactly why bunny is bad. It’s just to help open people’s eyes up to what run expectancy is and wind probability is because, um, yeah, there are times when you’ve been a runner in a second with no one out, for example, that it hurts the amount of runs you’ll score in that, in it.
Like through or through research of all the basics fall out and, uh, based States. So like first and second one out as an outbase state, uh, they’ve analyzed like how many runners score in every one of those situations. So they have data from thousands of thousands of games that say when you have first and second two outs, your team scores on average 0.67 runs.
When you have basis load and no one out your team score 2.6 runs. Like that’s just the average from all these scenarios. But sometimes he’s four, six rounds. Sometimes he scores zero runs. Right. But we know in general. And so then when you start to look at those numbers where we know, okay, runner on second and one hour you score 0.4 runs, for example, runner on second, no one out you are runner on first and no one out you score 0.5 runs for inning.
So you’re like, why would I trade. A 0.5 runs per inning scenario for a 0.4 runs printing scenario. Does that make sense? That’s essentially a stupid trade off. You’re saying I’m gonna put our team into a scenario where we get less runs than, than we would have prior to doing that like first and second is a great example.
You tend to have bigger innings with first and second and no one out than you do with second and third with one out. And that just kind of a reason for that, even though the devil plays an order because, and the main reason is that not making Alice is the most valuable thing you can do in basically every out really hurts you’re in it.
So with no ALS and first and second, you just have a lot more possibilities and you have a minimum of three chances ignoring the double play to get those runners home or second and third and one out, even though they’re closer to scoring position, you still need. You have less chances to get a hit. And I think when those guys get cleared and cleaned off by a single or double.
Now that kind of rallies over, you know what I mean? Like first and second, I was like, you hit a double now it’s first, now it’s second and third. Or maybe just to run on second, like the ending continues to rally, whereas we both know that you hit like a basis clearing home, run it kind of like that’s it for the evening, right?
Yeah.
Bobby Stevens: Right. The rallies is kind of, there’s no pressure on the pitcher anymore. Pressured. You just,
Dan Blewett: you knocked them out. Yeah. So there’s definitely times where you’re like first and second, even in youth baseball, I do not think in almost all scenarios, you should be bunting to get to second and third, because that really does hurt your inning.
Like, okay, maybe you get your single and you cashflow the runners, but first and second is like big time rallying. Like that’s the makings of like a biggest, one of your biggest possible innings. Right? So that’s not a really a good time to bond. Whereas you still see coaches do that a lot of course, again, there’s always, maybe you have Johnny and Timmy who both suck and we just really want to get one of our guys into scoring position.
So we have our good hitters coming up. Like that’s a thing too. There’s less, there’s bigger. Drop-offs in youth baseball and what kids can do. And I’ve had all of the, my lineups to where it’s like, I got three guys that are coming up that all just like really, I can’t hit very well. So maybe we do I’m in this situation.
Whereas most of the time it doesn’t. It doesn’t really make sense. Right?
Bobby Stevens: I would. Uh, and then it’s not just a youth level. I mean, it’s, it’s the professional ranks too, right? Like coaches are essentially being told to coach by the numbers like K first and second is more better probability, but you’re not taking a fact like, okay, this guy knows.
Dan Blewett: You’re getting that little Johnny sucks.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. Right.
Dan Blewett: Little Johnny says you have to take that into account.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. Bunting Mike trout, like we’re bunting Billy Hamilton because Billy Hamilton stinks and Mike trout is good. So we’re gonna let Mike trout swing, like they’re not taking into account that you’re also not taking into account.
Like okay. Uh, you know, it’s a lefty on lefty match up and. Our guy, our guy, you know, our guy hits lefties really well. He doesn’t have righties really well or vice versa, or this guy has been Oh, for his last, you know, 12 or he’s coming off an injury. And, you know, he splits, let’s get his feet wet. Let’s like get them into the flow of the game.
Like there’s so many factors. There’s so many factors in the game. That’s why you need a manager. Like the best managers are the guys at blend. You know what they know about stats with. What they know about their players. Like you’re knowing a lot about your players matters.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. And we’ve got some comments on, on YouTube and good points that the difference between lower-level bunt of any, any type is that the outcome is way less certain to, and that’s a big thing that you have to remember when you’re talking about the run probability tables.
In major league baseball. Like when you put a bunt down for a sacrifice, you’re out 99% of the time, right? Just like you’ve hit a can of corn ground ball to second base. You’re out 99% of the time. So we know that when you you’re giving up that run or you, you, you put the bunt down in a kind of a sacrifice mode.
You’re giving up that out. Almost all the time. Whereas it, as in a youth level, you could sack bond, put down a decent bond and they could either not make the play, throw the ball away or whatever, or you can kind of have that hybrid, like where it’s like, Hey, let’s definitely get the bunt down, but show late.
And maybe you get a hit out of it anyway. Right. You kind of like help kids find a balance where it’s not like a do or die type, like last second show where it’s, maybe they’re less likely to get a good bond, but it’s kind of like, I’ll kind of show medium and kind of bummed for a hit, but kind of a. Um, I’m happy if I get the bump down and we sacrifice that’s fine too.
Um, those scenarios are, but yeah, like, you know, you put down a decent bump in youth baseball. The outcome might be an out 75% of the time versus 99% of the time. And that’s a big difference too. So that changes the run probability tables over the course of a season. Anyway. So if you’re in that scenario 10 times and you put that sacrifice.
Font down 10 times you get three base hits out of it or you get two basics out of it. That completely changes the entire complexion of like, was this a good move for the whole season? So, you know, that’s, that’s part of it as well. Not to mention grass is different. All the different field conditions are different, you know?
And, uh, you have fat kids pitching. You could don’t can’t, don’t get over there that, well, that changes it. Um, You know, you have kids that can’t make a strong throw or they can’t pick up, make a side arm, throw it. They have to with a really fast runner. So there’s just a lot more variables play in the youth game versus major league baseball, which is when you put a sacrifice bunt down and major league baseball, you’re definitely out.
Yeah.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. So yeah. So good comments appreciate you on a YouTube. Um, there is, there is, there’s just a lot of context and it’s hard to like demonize and again, like for the, have you have maybe read my bunting article on my website? Um, it’s a little more black and white, but again, like sometimes when you write articles to be perfectly Frank, like when I wrote fitness articles, um, for a couple of different websites, I did that for like a two or three year period.
And I’m pretty balanced. You kind of want to, Oh, you could do this, but you could also do that. They’re like, eh, you kind of gotta like give it yeah. Opinion. It’s kind of like talk radio. Like if you write an article, it’s not like here’s the seven things you could do and maybe seven other things you could do.
And maybe this was, it’s always, it’s kind of like tell people what to do and have a strong opinion. That’s kind of like more the way you’re right in general. So that, so that article is structured that way a little more, where some people have been like a little cranky about it and I’m like, look, this is not reflecting my complete and utter views of, of wanting.
It’s just like, it’s an article to get you thinking if it pisses you off a little bit. That’s okay. Um, because a lot of coaches have no idea that Bunning a runner to second, which they do all the time. And like the first inning is a kind of stupid thing to do. Right. Like there’s coaches who are very ingrained in the past where they’re like, Oh, I want a score first.
So lead off guy gets on. And the first day we bombed a second, that’s a, probably a very dumb play because your second hitter is really good. Your third hitter is really good. Your fourth year is really good. Now you’re giving up an out to get like, to scratch across a single. So you score first like that.
That’s not, that’s not realistic. Like if your lead off guy gets on to start the game, you have a chance to start the game with a four spot. Right. You got two, three and four coming up and then your five guy,
Bobby Stevens: those should be your better
Dan Blewett: hitters. Yeah. If he can steal second. And to your point earlier, which was a good one, stealing second is also a lot easier in youth baseball.
So bonding to second, it makes a lot less it’s a lot like you don’t have to, it’s not as hard to get a guy to second base and amateur baseball as it is in pro ball and pro ball. You have to be legit like legit it’s stealing bases or you’re out. Right. Whereas in youth baseball pitcher can forget about you.
Pitcher can be really slow. The plate pitcher can be terrible at. You know, holding you on in general, bad pick off moves. Um, you can get a kid who’s not very fast to steal a base. Pretty easy. Catcher can have a terrible arm, terrible foot work, you know, ball in the dirt kid throw just like the way they catch the ball.
It takes it out of the zone. Like there’s so many extra factors that make it really easy to steal a base. Whereas like stealing, like bonding and a second almost isn’t necessary. Like let’s let them steal a second first and then we’ll buy them to third. You know, like that’s kind of the thing to do a lot of times.
So not all the other factors, but yeah. Any final thoughts, Robert?
Bobby Stevens: Uh, no. My only question is, well, you don’t watch, you don’t watch TV. So
Dan Blewett: I was gonna say, or
Bobby Stevens: what, what are you gonna, what are you more inclined to watch this weekend? That Kentucky Derby or the tour de France
Dan Blewett: I’ll be enjoying none of it. None of it at all.
Uh, but it would definitely be the, actually those boats sounded really doll who would ride, who would watch bicycling. Oh, these guys, these, these guys are going to be going a consistent 24 miles per hour for the next four hours. Get excited. Folks who cares. Oh, I’ll watch them. I’ll just turn it in the last 30 seconds when they’re sprinting to the finish.
And then I can listen to the guy that I’ve never heard of. Who wins? Give us a good,
Bobby Stevens: it’s a good obscure sports weekend. You got a horse, you got prominent horse racing and the biggest bikes bike race in the world.
Dan Blewett: At least there’s. I mean, Fastest
Bobby Stevens: two minutes in sports.
Dan Blewett: Well, every year they had the Preakness stakes in my hometown of Baltimore, but I’ve never been because every year when they, every time they hold it in the spring, it was baseball season.
So there was never, ever an opportunity for me to go, um, But that’s just been like this crazy party thing where people would just get super drunk and in the Enfield and like don’t even watch the race or there’s like a sleep in the mud by, by time and the race happens, but I’ve never been, does that sound awesome?
Kentucky Derby sounds cool. Where you go drink a men’s jewel, but I think my jolts are too sweet. They’re a little, I need my mental more dry, maybe. I don’t know, but either way to answer your question, I will be watching neither of these things. I hope I hope the horses are socially distance though. I do hope that the jockeys, maybe that may they run in health.
Um, I did have one thing to say, but I now forgot it. Oh, on Tuesday, Bob, we have some interesting stuff to talk about. I have been reading this article that well, here’s the, what its title from ESPN. Why MLB is minor leagues. As you know them will end September 30th. So they have like passed some stuff about contracting from 160 teams to one 20 and they’ve like, kind of like outline what’s actually gonna happen.
Cause they were talking about it. Yeah. But now it’s like, I guess a done deal and that basically there’ll be 120 affiliated teams, four per major league team. 42 teams will lose affiliation. That’s 42 minor league teams. While some independent teams could become affiliates and they, and MileIQ owners don’t know which teams are on the shopping list.
So they don’t know they’re will no longer be rookie level. And there will no longer be class, a or short season class a, so there’ll be a ball high AA, AAA.
Bobby Stevens: There won’t be rookie ball. They won’t have a ACL or. GCL team.
Dan Blewett: It doesn’t sound like it. So, um, there’ll be a revenue split of 50 50 between, uh, and is MLB will take over merchandising, broadcast and sponsorship rights, splitting net revenues, 50 50 with league clubs.
But basically major leaks taken over. So like own Marley baseball. Really. It’ll be interesting to see how this jives with hopefully like, as Rob Manfred again, and get fired or what, like the doc needs to get fired. Right. So, yeah.
Bobby Stevens: Has anybody been so bad at their job
Dan Blewett: that he’s, he has no bags? Or does he have any backers,
Bobby Stevens: like do the owners think he’s doing a good job?
Dan Blewett: I don’t know at this point, who knows, but I mean, again, I think this makes sense. It doesn’t seem to make sense on the service while you have seven minor league teams. When, so if you guys make it through, it does seem to make sense to contract and to pay guys better, to have a higher standard for everything.
Um, I think which is kind of what they’re pushing too, but, um, it’s a really long article by MLB, so it’ll be interesting to, uh, to see what happens, but.
Bobby Stevens: I’ve got some, I got some big thoughts on a sale for Tuesday. Cause there’s
Dan Blewett: so many things minor league
Bobby Stevens: baseball talk about.
Dan Blewett: Well, and there’ll be a lot of opinions voiced this weekend.
I’m sure. Which is why I didn’t want to cover it today. But, uh, you know, people will talk about how important these teams are to their communities and that’s all well and good, but it is still a business. So.
Bobby Stevens: Definitely.
Dan Blewett: We’ll see. All right, well, thanks for tonight today. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere you listen.
Thank you for being a loyal brushback listener. Feel free to share the show, leave us a review on the Spotify era podcast platform of your choice. And Robert say goodbye.
Bobby Stevens: Thanks, sir. Everyone. If you’re still listening we’ll uh, we’ll see everybody Tuesday with some minor league baseball team. .