No news is good news in the early days of Spring Training as practices are getting underway and the Indians camp (outside of the Trevor Bauer drone controversy) has been silent so far. One point of interest before position players are even officially supposed to be in camp is that Nick Swisher has been working specifically on his bunting skills (see video below) every day after normal batting practice.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bgNl5nxbM0]Without making too much out of this, as it is likely that Swisher is trying to become a more well rounded player, but there is a chance this work is in preparation for the extreme shifts he could see during the upcoming season. As a left handed hitter against right handed pitching (more than 2/3rds of his at bats in 2014 came that way), Swisher has a slight tendency to hit balls to the right side (the following spray chart comes courtesy of FanGraphs).
Source: FanGraphs
Ok, maybe he has more than a slight tendency. In fact, of his many infield ground balls hit, only three were hit the other way from the normal short stop position to the left and none were bunts. Because of this, it seems an obvious solution to play Swisher with an extreme shift, turning a few more of those hard hit, pulled grounders into outs without costing anything on the ground to the left side. As Carlos Santana attempted multiple times in 2014, Swisher appears to be looking to take advantage of that shift by pushing a ball down the third base line every now and then.
If this is the case, Swisher is using great foresight by starting now. Given the general amount of space down the line during these shifts, all a pull heavy right hander would have to do to get a base hit is place the ball in fair territory beyond the pitcher. While the video above shows that he has a way to go (and that Mike Aviles and Lonnie Chisenhall are as fairly humorous), by working on this now, he should have the ability to call upon the bunt when necessary in the future.
Given Swisher’s .208/.278/.331 line, he may be best off bunting in any situation until the fielders play him honestly, but more realistically, there will still be plenty of opportunities. With runners on, Swisher would generally still be better off swinging away, but when leading off an inning especially, he will have a good chance to test it out. While a lead-off home run would be more exciting, a bunt single where he could be safe more than 50% of the time would be worth a lot more than the home runs he hit in 1.9% of bases empty situations in 2014.
Of course, there is a chance that Swisher wants to keep this secret to maintain the element of surprise, but more likely, he will use it as a way to decrease the extremeness of the shift so he can go back to swinging to pull and be able to pick up a ground ball single every now and then. Just a couple bunts every month could be enough to keep the defense a little more wary. If it isn’t, Swisher should take advantage of the defensive holes as long as possible.
In general, this situation only affects at bats from the left side of the plate, bunting down the third base line. While he does have almost as extreme of a spray chart from the right side (as seen below), because the first baseman stays in place during the shift, it isn’t as easy to place a ball in the safe zone, although there still is a large hole between first and second. Since so many more of his at bats come from the left side, Swisher should really just work on bunting from the left side.
Source: FanGraphs
Free from injuries and player additions, all we have in Indians camp is the returning roster attempting to improve themselves and this is one instance of a player going the extra mile to fix a hole in his game. While Swisher can’t run yet due to the double knee surgery during the off-season, he is making the most of his time, taking throws at first base, hitting in the cage and bunting down the third base line, no matter what Mike Aviles has to say about it.
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