Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

How much do you actually use Bunting or Hit & Run? If you do use it, do you tweak it on the individual cards or the team settings (or both)?

Team Settings: I set Bunting to Conservative and H & R to Extra Conservative.

Individual Cards: I always set it to Don't Sac Bunt & Don't H & R

I hate the hit and run, even good teams have poor percentages of success in SOM. Bunting depends. Weak scrubs who are good bunters I tend to mark bunt more. I also bunt more often (and run more aggressively) if I play in a pitcher's park.

I love the H & R, but the above is correct. To get a worthwile percentage when using it alot, you really need a good H & R team and I set it to extra conservative. Even when I've used conservative the success rate is not too good.

I use both hit & run and the sacrifice bunt a good bit -- but I'm not sure how to assess the success. For those players who have a talent for either of them, I try to use these plays as much as possible.

For example, I took a look at my keeper league teams from last year (3 teams playing a total of 4 seasons). They averaged 89 wins and won 2 titles, with the following results for this topic:

Hit & Run: Only .231 batting average for the hitter, but 70% advanced the runner.

Sacrifice Bunt: 76% were successful.

So how to assess? Those numbers seem worthwhile to me. Should they be better?

The H&R number looks good to me, the bunt number not so good. Considering you're sacrificing an out for a single base, I think you want your sac % to be very high (maye close to 85%). Bill James or someone has probably determined the threshold at which these decisions are good ones. It's a good question.

On my [url=http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=261828]new team[/url], I've set bunt and hit&run to conservative. I've also set "don't bunt" and "don't hit & run" for my better hitters.

[b:7acece164d]However, I'm considering breaking habit and setting Omar Vizquel to "bunt more" and "hit&run more". Any thoughts?[/b:7acece164d]

I don't know if this is a DH league or not. If you have Vizquel hitting 8th or 9th, I would set him at "bunt more", but would not set him to "hit & run more" Hit and run is not successful enough to suit me. Also if you have him hitting anywhere but 8th or 9th, I would just leave him alone.

I would set the player to hit and run more if he has a B rating and a batting average below .250. I play hundreds of games a week on the CD-ROM and sometimes the player has a better chance of getting a hit, with the Hit and Run, than he does off his or the pitcher's card.

One more thing I suspect. You can believe me or not. I think Computer Hal favors the hands on small ball manager. I would never hit and run or bunt with a good hitter, but a Vizquel or sub .250 hitter, I may even hit and run with one out. They may have a better chance getting a hit on the hit and run than off their card or the pitcher's card. This is true more in "As Played" games with more life like rosters (that feature more scrubs, than here at a TSN league)