Your team’s ability to bunt in pressure situations is crucial to your success in big-game situations. We all know that bunting is a valuable skill, yet many of us fall short in the time we invest in helping our players become better bunters.
In any case, coaches are counting on their players to develop skills away from practice and I believe that is part of the problem. Many players go to hitting instructors to polish their swing and to help them improve their offensive production. However very few of those players are asking their hitting instructors to improve their bunting. They want to hit bombs.
So what’s the problem? Many school-ball coaches and travel-ball coaches are taking for granted that bunting is part of what their players are working on in their lessons. While most hitting instructors plan on spending all of their time helping their kids hit better, most parents want to see their kids hit missiles all over the field so they don’t ask for bunting help in lessons. Most kids are so focused on their hitting that they don’t want to take time away from it to work on something they often already don’t value.
Communication would go a long way to help solve this problem. Coaches, you need to speak with your players and parents to understand if there is any bunting instruction taking place in lessons. As a coach, once you know what is being covered away from team practices, you can make the adjustments you need to make.
If your players are not getting bunting instruction then you need to increase the amount of time you spend on it in practice. You can increase the emphasis you place on the value of bunting in your interaction with your team so they can work on it more on their own. You can ask players to ask their instructors for help to improve their bunting. And then you are in a position to have a great deal more faith in your team’s ability to bunt.
