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There is an interesting Q-and-A today at Bill James Online. Somebody asked his opinion as to why NBA players don't use the underhand free throw, like Rick Barry used, to shoot 90% plus. Especially since there seem to be so many NBA players nowadays with Shaq-like free throw percentages.
Bill answered very charitably, and studiously avoided the answer "Because everybody would laugh at a 280-lb. center flipping the ball up there like a girl."
I think we underestimate the "macho" factor in American sports. We're told "the fastball is the coin of the realm" in American baseball and why is that? Because you're sidestepping the mano-a-mano aspect of the game, to throw soft stuff in hitters' counts.
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Re bunting for a hit: I remember reading somewhere a story that Hank Aaron, in his first couple of years with the Braves, saw Jackie Robinson playing deep at third base and faked a bunt. Robinson didn't move in. Later Aaron asked Robinson why he didn't move in, and Robinson said, "Henry, any time you want to bunt, we'll give you first base." (I don't know if it is true or apochryphal, and obviously if a batter could get a bunt single every time he tried to bunt he should bunt). My questions are (1) are you familiar with that anecdote, and (2) for a power hitter of Hank Aaron's quality, does it make sense to bunt except as a rare tactic?
Asked by: TigerTim
Answered: 12/11/2013
That is one of those stories that is told repeatedly through the generations, with only the names changing. . .Hank Greenberg and Jimmie Dykes, etc. If you can bunt for a hit, it almost always makes sense to do it. That's why this era we are in, with the great frequency of defensive shifts, will probably end in about five years. Young power hitters will figure out that they can hit .700 against it by bunting, and they'll start bunting, and force managers to abandon the shift. It only works because people don't bunt. By the way, I made a similar point this spring, and added that "sometime this year, I expect to see some hitter bunt for a double." I didn't see it all year, and I was thinking I would have to acknowledge my error on that one, and then, the last time the Red Sox played the Yankees, Robby Cano bunted for a double up the left field line.
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SSI has maintained, for years, that Justin Smoak's refusal to bunt is an egregiously selfish decision. I can't think of ANY selfish tactic, in ANY American sport, that costs its team so dearly as this one does.
Smoak's not the only such player, of course; most MLB(TM) players "who are paid to knock runners in" refuse to bunt against the shift. Griffey refused. Ortiz does. Almost everybody does. They run with the crowd to commit evil, as it were.
And so, there is a "Moneyball" field strategy available against these selfish nimrods: Shift the stuffing out of them.
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SSI's first reaction to Robinson Cano, before we had any idea he'd be interested in Seattle, was that --- > even if he is ego'ed out off the field, well ... on the field, he has a delightful lack of ego. ON the field, he seems to have an Edgar-like persona. Very business-like, no overswinging, just take what's there.
So, it's interesting, James' remark about the bunt double. Some guys aren't about "the coin of the realm." Some guys are about scoring more runs than the other team does. Nice that the M's new captain takes this persona.
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