Sac Bunt More / Bunt for Base Hit

From the SOMO Wiki

http://somonline.wikia.com/wiki/Maximum_rule:_Bunt_for_base_hit

"This option will allow you to try and bunt for a base hit when the bases are empty. The players ability to reach base safely on this bunt is affected by a number of factors including his bunting ability, his speed and the position of the infield defense."

Still looking for the "bunt for base hit chart"

I see what you mean, and I do acknowledge that my upcoming explanation perhaps goes in contradiction with what's written in the link you posted, but here was my understanding of it.

There are two different things that exist: the "bunt-for-single" strategy and the "bunt-for-single" in the maximum rules.

When you play face-to-face, or against the computer with the CD, there are several "strategy options" that are available: sacrifice bunt, hit-and-run and "bunt-for-a-hit". If you opt for the "bunt-for-a-hit", there is indeed a chart you refer to and the result will be affected by the bunting ability, the speed, whether defence plays in or not (as mentioned in the link you posted).


BUT this is NOT what is involved in the Maximum rules. As quoted, the "Maximum Rules are special rules found only in the computer game (Online and CD-ROM) which enhance the realism of Strat-O-Matic's simulation of baseball by addressing certain limitations that are inherent in a card-and-dice game". Thus, the "bunt-for-single" option in the Max Rules cannot refer to what the "option strategy", since this strategy is widely available when playing face-to-face.

My understanding, as I wrote in the first post, is that the "bunt-for-single" in the max rules refers only to "after-the-fact" adjustments to account for the fact that, for example, Billy Butler would be having 20 singles per year out of the bunt in his best years, and so Strat adds realism in the DESCRIPTION of the game by describing some of the singles obtained on his card as coming from the bunt.

My clear memory from Bernie (the TSN guy who was working for the SOM online platform) is that the bunt option on the "hitter pref" page only applies to sacrifice bunts, not "bunt-for-the-hit". Unfortunately, on this online platform, SOM has not yielded to us, players, any way to influence Hal in choosing more or less the "bunt-for-the-hit", just like SOM did not give us any way to influence the "outfield-playing-in" strategy (which is available playing face-to-face or vs the computer) or the "guarding-the-line" strategy (which is only available from the computer game, if my memory serves well).

I just want to emphasis all I wrote above comes from my memory, and even though I don't sense having lost my memory, maybe I have mixed a few things...as the James Merrill's poem goes

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it...
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

For what its worth, I opened up a box with the 2014 card set, no bunt for base hit table in there! I must have convinced myself that a home brew chart that I borrowed from a face to face league years ago was an SOM original DOH!

I think we all are thinking that the sac bunt will come into play in sac situations only. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out for my team beginning tonight!

I emailed Strat on this one awhile back, and they said that your Sac bunt settings have no bearing on bunt for a base hit. I wish they did, because I really hate it when HAL tries to bunt for a hit. I'm assuming , of course, you end up with a lower OBP than what's on the card (unless the batter is really terrible)

Now that you wrote it, the bunt-for-the-hit might only be available on the CD game.

OK, I stand corrected.

For some reasons, I thought that there were an option to describe after-the-fact singles into "bunt for singles", something similar to "improve out distribution" but related to hits, but I believe this was entirely from my imagination.

I went at length through boxscores, roughly 60 games, and all singles I can see are:
singles (lf), single (cf), single (rf) except when singles come def-x. In other words, all singles are described as if they were hit in the outfield, so clearly, SOM does not bother to take some singles and describe them as infield singles or bunt singles.

Further, no "bunt for single" have readings. So all the bunt-for-single that we see in the description come from the utilisation of the "bunt" option available to HAL.

I found one that one guy made an experiment with Ellsbury, back in those times where Ellsbury was a A-bunter and 1-17 runner:

BUNT FOR A HIT
The "Bunt for a Hit" rule, which TSN uses, allows much more successful bunts than I thought initially. That rule depends on the speed ability of the bunter, so the ideal bunter is a A-bunter 1-17 speed.

In fact, one guy I found on a website who simmed an entire season with J.Ellsbury using extensively the Bunt-for-hit rule. When forcing defense to play back, Ellsbury on-base was over .400. With defense playing corning in, which decreases Ellsbury bunting ability to B, on-base was still at .336.

Fortunately, HAL draws the corners in for all speedy A or B bunters. Still, this move means that some outs to third and first basemen become singles. The advantage is not much (.005, so that a .310 hitter becomes a .315 hitter), but you might still consider it when building your lineup.

I know from playing the CD-ROM a lot that the odds of getting that hit when bunting for one are not good. Even with good speed and an A bunter the odds are very poor, and I would think you would only want to try it with guys with extremely poor OBP.