Better Living Through Bunting

July 9th, 2008 by ubelmann

42 bunts, 21 bunt hits -- Carlos Gomez, 2008*

So Gomez has been successful (and by successful, I mean successful in reaching base, not successful in the productive out sense) half of the time he's bunted this year. What happens if we divide his plate appearances into bunts and non-bunts?

.235/.276/.352 -- Gomez, 2008, not bunting
.500/.500/.500 -- Gomez, 2008, bunting
.266/.301/.370 -- Gomez, 2008, overall

In general, bunting gets a bad rap because, in general, a player is going to give up an out when he bunts. But Carlos Gomez is a freak. When he bunts, it's to increase his OBP, and thus far, bunting has gotten him on base more than frequently than swinging away has.

*Statistics through July 7th, 2008

This entry was posted by ubelmann on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Featured Articles, Minnesota Twins. It is one of 749 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.

11 Letters to the Editor

SBG replied on July 9, 2008 at 6:40:32 am

Bremer is right! Bunty McBunterson should bunt more! Boy, he sucks when he's not bunting.

Rhubarb_Runner replied on July 9, 2008 at 6:47:43 am

It's a useful spice to have on the spice rack, when added to the proper foods.

(trying to find a good analogy to help bS out here)

Andrew replied on July 9, 2008 at 8:23:39 am

Quick, someone apply the "food metaphor" tag.

Rhubarb_Runner replied on July 9, 2008 at 8:55:43 am

heh. If tags applied down to the comment level, WGOM would collapse under the weight

Banjo replied on July 9, 2008 at 7:02:49 am

Gomez looks like he could use the All-Star Break or a few days off.

SBG replied on July 9, 2008 at 8:32:31 am

I agree. Anyone else notice that Dell-Mon's uptick kind of coincided with his having a few days off?

Beau replied on July 9, 2008 at 9:17:39 am

"Kind of coincided." Is that like a moderate correlation?

Beau replied on July 9, 2008 at 9:22:11 am

Do these stats include Gomez striking out during bunt attempts?

kg2005 replied on July 9, 2008 at 9:57:26 am

Plus the other at bats when he attempts to bunt, gets a couple strikes called, and changes his mind?

greenmachine replied on July 9, 2008 at 10:50:51 am

Who would have thought you could reach a 1.000 OPS through bunting?

Obviously if he bunted every at bat infielders would just stand right in front of him, but ....

Dread Pirate Will Young replied on July 9, 2008 at 11:09:57 am

and then he could learn the Casilla method of bunting to centerfield!

Sorry, the LTE form is closed at this time.

Cup of Coffee

Happy Birthday, Uncle Sam!

My Dad used to say that the summer was "half shot" on the 4th of July. I never could figure that out -- we had only been out of school a month and had two months of summer vacation left. I notice, though, that the Twins have played 81 games. Maybe that's what he was talking about.

As I have documented several times before, I went to my first professional baseball game on July 4, 1973. It was a glorious night with 49,000 people crammed into the ballpark and fireworks afterward. Do you remember your first game?

What's on your mind today? 2 LTEs

Horrified that the Best GM in all of Sports is your avatar? Go here to set up an account and right the wrong that has been done unto you! (Use the same e-mail account that you signed up with here.)

Links

Twins Blogs	Citizens	Basketball	Baseball
Aaron Gleeman	Booting Life's Grounders	Basketball Reference	Baseball Reference
SethSpeaks	Andrew in Ireland	NBA Salaries	Baseball Prospectus
Nick's Twins Blog	FirstTimeLongTime	82 Games	Cots Contracts
Twins Geek	Lost Forest After Dark	Canis Hoopus	Hardball Times
Coffeyville Whirlwind	Knowledge Dropped	atdhe	USS Mariner
	Yickit	T-Wolves Blog	Baseball Analysts
	Daneeka's Ghost
	Greet Machine
	Twayn's World

Twins Blogs

Citizens

Basketball

Baseball

Aaron Gleeman

Booting Life's Grounders

Lost Forest After Dark

Canis Hoopus

Hardball Times

Coffeyville Whirlwind

Citizens Online

Users: davidwatts, ubelmann, Dread Pirate Will Young, 14 Guests, 5 Bots

Recent Letters to the Editor

In Response to WGOM Wellness Challenge 2009-June,

GreekHouse wrote: Sorry about that, I just missed it. It's up there now.

cheaptoy wrote: Did my update not get to you? I did forget to put "cheaptpy" at the end of it, so if you have one from some weird person with no username, that's me.

brianS wrote: public shaming!!! heh. way to call out the … weekend's recipe: swiss chard frittata. 1 bunch (about 8 large leaves) swiss chard. Trim the stems, strip the leaves, wash both well. chop the stems and…

In Response to Emergency Game Log,

Jeff A wrote: Nathan only pitches well in save situations. Much like Luis Ayala only pitches well when used as an eighth-inning set-up man.

Beau wrote: Nathan's fastball was erratic, but his breaking pitch was nasty. That's what's great about Nathan...even on a bad night he's pretty effective

Dread Pirate Will Young wrote: Sheenie and I enjoyed all 16 innings last night. There were two men behind us with a baby who lasted the entire game. Talk about good parenting. One of them kept saying,…

Beau wrote: Wow...Dickey gave up more hits than every other Twins pitcher COMBINED. That is all. Good night

Beau wrote: About five hours ago, I wrote that we'd break a record for number of LTEs. Turns out, I was right.

ubelmann wrote: I hear fireworks outside right now, so I assume that the game has been sufficiently blown up.

ubelmann wrote: So tomorrow in Pittsburgh, the Mets-Phillies game will be televised, but not the Pirates game. Which of course makes total sense.

ubelmann wrote: Pirates/Marlins -- the start time is 6:10 ET, which conflicts with FOX's window of … MLB saying... go enjoy the … I wanted to enjoy the holiday with a Twins win. :) It's mainly…

sean wrote: Ah, true. Forgot Tigers scored in the half-inning before he came into the game. Drat.

ubelmann wrote: I think that's the thing with these long games. In order for the game to get this long, some people on the team have to do some good things, so I can't get totally…

In Response to Cup of Coffee: July 3, 2009,

Moss wrote: How is that different than listening to Dazzle do play-by-play?

Moss wrote: Toronto is quite cosmopolitan and is a true melting pot. Moss was surprised on visiting Toronto for the first time that it is nearly as large as, and possibly larger than, Chicago. And yet, it…

ubelmann wrote: I wouldn't completely dismiss the possibility that his wife thought Portland was too small, culturally homogeneous, and far removed from "important" cities for her taste. I don't really know much about how Toronto compares…

brianS wrote: so, Portland is not a European-type city. Pfft. Little Beirut isn't euro-ish? Socialist land-use planning, heavy investment in public transportation, breweries, … say it was about the money, Hedo. Because it ain't about winning -- you…

ubelmann wrote: Check front page for emergency game log.

Beau wrote: Tying run at the plate!

spookymilk wrote: I feel for you, but I swear, it was worse actually having to watch it.

davidwatts wrote: the delay on Gameday drive me nuts. it says "in play, run(s)" and then it seems like 15 years before a description of the play shows up

ubelmann wrote: I don't think it's quite that simple, but it's probably a good rule of thumb.

Beau wrote: We may have to blow up Friday

In Response to Cup of Coffee: July 4-5, 2009,

davidwatts wrote: Slowey to the DL, Potsy McSmokesalot called up

Jeff A wrote: A pair of ex-Twins are included on the Independence Day birthday list: United States of America (1776) Mickey Welch (1859) George Mullin (1880) Chuck Tanner (1929) Bill Tuttle (1929) Hal Lanier (1942) Jose Oquendo (1963) Vinny Castilla (1967) Jay Canizaro (1973)

The WGOM