[MicroBob]

bunting is different in college than in the MLB perhaps because of the skill-difference of the fielders.

There is zero mention of how the defense is positioned and which way they plan on rotating/covering (which can change from pitch-to-pitch), if there is a particularly vulnerable spot on the D or not, how solid or perhaps jumpy the catcher might be, if they react to pressure well or appear potentially nervous, even righty-lefty of the batter/pitcher and the subsequent batters can make a big difference here.

If the 3B just made a bobble on a play to let one of the runners or might still be thinking about having struck-out with the bases-loaded in the 8th then that would increase the chances I would try to push a bunt in his direction.

If the catcher's arm sucks or if the pitcher is a lousy fielder and I think might be prone to spinning and sailing it into RF then I'm more likely to bunt.

The actual bunting skill of the batter and the kind of pitcher he's facing is all pretty basic stuff that needs to be considered too.
If it's my very best bunter up there then that kind of makes a difference.

I really believe that all this 71% vs. 69% saber-crap is really just a basic tool that should be used just out of curiousity and perhaps as a very rough foundation.
It should not be the last say as to whether one strategy is supposedly going to always be better than the other.


What if a pitcher gets more outs throwing curve-balls than he does throwing fast-balls? Does that mean that he should just throw curve-balls 100% of the time? Of course not. But it begins to feel like that is the kind of logic being used for a lot of this "is a sacrifice better than swinging-away" type of saber-arguments.