Rambling On About My Glory Days: Role Reversal – Major Leaguers Learning From Little Leaguers

I promise not to turn my posts into a rant on the Major Leagues and how baseball used to be played better, meaning more fundamentally sound, back in the day.

But, I have seen enough of major league hitters attempting to bunt. I have been there and realize it is not as easy as it looks, but also realize it is not as hard as most big league players and teams make it, either. At least, at that highest level, fans deserve to see the correct fundamentals.

As is often said about everything that goes wrong in the game at the big league level, “Hey kids are watching and they are going to do the same thing.” One of my favorite sayings that I use when teaching the game for the past twenty one years is, “Fundamentals are fundamentals, they don’t change for the big leaguer or the little leaguer.” The point I am trying to make is that the way the best players do things is the same way young players should learn and attempt, also.

Young players may not physically be able to do things exactly the same as the pro players, but that does not mean they shouldn’t be taught the correct way. However, in this instance, “Please, baseball youth of America, do not try to copy the way most big league players perform a sacrifice bunt.” It is time for a role reversal, where big leaguers copy the way young players are taught to bunt.

When I taught bunting to baseball players, ages 12 and under, I taught them to square totally around, meaning they would take their rear foot and place it even with their front foot. This method is opposed to the most common big league method of allowing hitters to just pivot on both feet. The former technique, squaring completely around, ensures that the hitter gets the bat out in front of their body, which is usually necessary to place a good bunt down in fair territory. This “old fashioned” method also makes it easier to create good bat angles to lay the ball down either baseline.

I have noticed that when big league batters use the pivot method, more often than not, they leave the bat barrel back even with the middle of their body, creating a bad bat angle for putting a bunt down. When the ball gets to their bat they usually jab at it and bunt the ball foul continually. Once again, I know it is not a simple task with balls travelling towards them at upwards of 90 miles an hour, and squaring around may put hitters slightly more vulnerable to getting hit by a pitch, but the success rate should be much higher at the highest level of baseball.

As mentioned, the squaring around method automatically puts the bat out front of the hitter allowing for a better bat angle and a greater chance of putting the ball down in fair territory. Maybe it is time that a big league manager puts his foot down and changes the current technique being taught instead of doing it the “same way it’s always been done.” After all, performing this skill better could mean winning a championship.

Generally, as young players reached a higher level of ball, I gave them the option of using the bunting technique they felt most comfortable with, only if they demonstrated the correct fundamentals when using the pivot method.

Just had to get this off my chest.

Former major leaguer Jack Perconte is the author of The Making of a Hitter (www.themakingofahitter.com) and has a baseball instruction blog that can be found at http://www.baseballhittinglessons.com/baseball. He has recently published his second book Raising an Athlete – How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport and has an additional blog at http://www.positiveparentinginsports.com