Dear Pete Crow-Armstrong: Stop Bunting, Dammit

Bunting for a hit is awesome. As someone who grew up as a very undersized but fast baseball player, I have always appreciated the art of a good bunt. You should be trying to get on base any way you can, and something about a professional player laying down a bunt to claw their way to first base never fails to put a smile on my face. 

Now, as baseball becomes more focused on power and strikeouts rise, I also find myself enjoying the chaotic nature of a bunt for a hit. You might see a perfect bunt placed right where the defenders aren’t. You might see an awesome play by a third baseman to record the out. He also might chuck the ball down the right-field line, resulting in complete bedlam:

This brings me to the bunter in that highlight and the bunter in question: Pete Crow-Armstrong. When does bunting go too far? When is someone bunting too often? Allow me to share a screenshot with you from the Cubs’ 1-0 loss to the Brewers coming out of the All-Star break:

PCA was the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning, yet the Brewers were defending against a bunt. To clarify, he never squared around to bunt in this plate appearance, so perhaps the issue is more about how helpless he has been offensively than him bunting too much. He has hit two ground balls to the opposite field this season, so the Brewers might as well stick Joey Ortiz that close to the plate to defend against a possible bunt because there likely isn’t any other batted ball going that direction. He is way too easy to defend. Part of the reason that bunts are successful is because they are surprising to the defense. The Brewers weren’t going to be surprised here.

The Cubs’ rookie center fielder has come to the plate 195 times this season. He’s either struck out, walked, or been hit by a pitch 63 times, so 132 of his plate appearances have resulted in him swinging and making contact with the ball. According to Baseball Savant, he’s bunted 13 times. Almost 10 percent, 9.8 percent, to be precise, of PCA’s balls in play this season have been bunts. 

On one hand, one could argue that this is great! Crow-Armstrong is incredibly fast, and as I’ve already discussed, I love watching players do anything they can to get to first base, especially when they aren’t a huge home run threat. On the other hand, he’s not very good at it! Four of those 13 bunts have been a sacrifice bunt. He has just two hits on the nine bunts that weren’t recorded as a sacrifice. That would be a .222 batting average and a .222 slugging percentage since you’re setting your ceiling at a single when you attempt to bunt for a hit. 

Those numbers rank very poorly when you compare them to everyone else who has laid down more than ten bunts so far this year, all stats per Baseball Savant:

This list is about what you’d expect. It's not exactly a murderers' row of power hitters, but mostly a list of smaller, quicker guys willing to do whatever it takes just to get to first base so those big power hitters can drive them in. As a matter of fact, Turang and McCarthy are the only two players listed here who have been above league average with the bat this season, and Turang is the only one with the prospect pedigree that PCA does. 

In a season that has otherwise been devoid of excitement, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s continued development might be one of the only things that will keep bringing me back to my television screen daily. This is a guy who was an above-average hitter at every level in the minor leagues. As fans, we all want to see him swing the bat so we can hopefully see him evolve into at least an average offensive player. Given his elite defense in center field, that might be all he needs to become an All-Star.

I know it’s been a struggle for him so far in the majors, and his .222 batting average on his bunts is higher than his season average of .180, but keep in mind, he can’t get anything more than a single on a bunt. He has a .196 wOBA on bunts this year, vs. an overall wOBA of .231. It hasn’t been effective. Are we already at the point where he feels the need to bunt for a hit at the same rate as low-offense players like Michael Siani? At the very least, if he is going to bunt so often, could he at least be better at it?