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question about Montero's bunting

Trachsel My Tears Aug 24 2014 05:32 AM

Did you see last week where Montero tried to bunt against the Cubs? He put one knee on the ground, and ended up popping the ball up. Keith seemed to think this was causal, and criticized his technique. He said that if you held the bat too close to the ground when bunting, you were going to be unable to get the bottom half of the bat on the ball, hence the pop-up. I don't see that. I figure, no matter how low you hold the bat, it's always still got a bottom half, and you can always hold it so the ball goes towards the ground and not the sky. It was a coincidence, and an after-the-fact connection, that validates Keith's criticism. What he DIDN'T complain about, and that was valid, is that the odd stance wasn't legal, or rather that it didn't legally change Montero's strike zone, which is based on the batter's NORMAL stance (otherwise everyone looking for a walk would just lie down in the batter's box and challenge the pitcher to get the ball over four inches above the plate.) So the pitcher can throw high strikes up above Montero's eyes, where it's very hard to bunt the ball. If it were legal, btw, what I would have liked about it was that the pitcher would be forced to throw very low, and cause more passed balls and wild pitches with a runner on (which the Cubs pitcher did anyway--another coincidence: the pitch got away from the catcher, though it wasn't low). But it's not legal, or doesn't change Montero's strike zone, so it's merely a bad move. Did he think this one up on his own? Did anyone hear about TC or a coach speaking to Montero about this gambit afterwards? Any chatter at all? It was an odd sight to see.

Frayed Knot Aug 24 2014 06:32 AM Re: question about Montero's bunting

AFAIK: - as long as the batter is fully within the box there's nothing illegal about his stance - the crouch shrinks the zone but, like you said, the ump is still supposed to call balls & strikes via his normal stance. IOW, it would take some estimating on the ump's part but the high strike would still be the same high strike even if it happens to be at hat level at that moment - batters do want to get their eye level down towards the ball when bunting but where Montero got odd was in the degree to which he got low. - as far as coaching, I think most techniques talk about starting the bat at the upper level of the zone and working downward, so to that degree Keith is right in that some strikes are going to be above where Montero's bat starts out and therefore more likely to be popped up.

Trachsel My Tears Aug 24 2014 07:02 AM Re: question about Montero's bunting

Frayed Knot wrote: AFAIK: - as long as the batter is fully within the box there's nothing illegal about his stance - the crouch shrinks the zone but, like you said, the ump is still supposed to call balls & strikes via his normal stance. that's what I meant by "illegal"--that he was unable to create a new strike zone based on his new stance. It's not a crouch, but rather a lowering of the entire zone, virtually from the ground where the knee is resting to what would have been around his crotch-level in a normal stance--except he can't do that. That's what I was calling illegal, establishing a new strike zone. Probably an imprecise wording on my part, thanks for the correction.