It’s no secret that I love to sing in a big band. The best and worst belts often populate my Five Things column. I’ve written about the best and worst buntings you’ll see in the season, the right strategy for adding extras, and any number of other interesting things related to bunting – or at least, things related to bunting that interest me. And there is another great topic to write about right away. You see, bunts are making a comeback, and for once, they’re doing it for the right reasons instead of the wrong reasons. So let’s celebrate the return of the bunt – and think about why it’s back.
So far this year, hitters have tied the ball to play (or put out a foul) 640 times. That’s 0.9% of all plate appearances in the majors in 2026, and while that may not sound like a lot, it’s a new high in DH time overall, 25% more than the 2025 season, which was the worst year in that 0.7% stretch. There were plenty of bunts in the days when pitchers were hit in National League parks, of course. But if you limit the search to American League parks and reach into the past, a clear trend emerges. Bunting declined as the parties thought more about how bad sacrifice was. But then it went downhill, and now the groups began to meet more often:
This is just a chart of how many jackets there are, not how good those jackets were. In fact, the reason the bunt started going down in the first place is that most of the bunts were not productive. Giving up a runner from first to second at the cost of an out is usually a bad decision in scoring runs. It may be a good case of failure – if you fail to get a hit and give up an error, that’s not so bad – but pure bunts only make sense in limited situations.
This season’s belts have been excellent, perhaps the best in history. To show you what I mean, consider another convergence graph for AL fields. This is the average run count per 100 bunts – in other words, it takes into account how many outs, how many runners were on base and where, and what actually happened on the play to determine how many extra bunts are added or subtracted from the team’s expected run score. It’s a good time to have bunting:
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That chart, which only considers AL parks, shows that bunts in those parks were worth 5.2 runs above average per 100 bunts in 2026. For all parks combined, they were even better, costing 6.0 runs above average per 100 batters. That sounds good, but how good is it? Well, the average batted ball in 2026 was worth 4.7 runs above average per 100 balls played (avoiding strikeouts, turns out to be good). That mark has fluctuated between 4.5 and 6.0 over the past decade. An average bunt actually better there is a ball-in-play average, and a ball-in-play average might be a home run. That’s amazing, honestly.
What changed to make bunts so dang cool? Two things, mainly. First, nearly one-third of the bunts in the majors this year have resulted in base hits. That’s amazing – and it’s not all that new. In six years of DH coverage, bunts have only turned into base hits less than 30% of the time. The 2026 season beats the average of those six years, actually. But that’s still really good, and it’s an important part of what has begun to change the reputation of the bunt. If you just give in, it’s probably a bad idea. But if you can hit .333 in belts while also occasionally giving up when your belt is worse than expected, that’s pretty interesting.
Second, even bunters who don’t reach base safely, effectively move runners over more often. This season, 41.9% of bunts have passed the runner successfully, either through pure sacrifice or a fielder’s choice that defenders couldn’t change (think trying but failing to find the lead runner). Chuck in errors and hits, and 74.1% of the bats produced something good for the batting team. That is the highest mark of the DH era of the universe.
Okay, so bunters get on base safely more often, and successfully move baserunners more often even when they fail. But it gets even better! Bunters are also picking better conditions to set one this year. It is wrong to bunt if you only have a runner on first base, because your bunt may advance multiple runners or advance a runner to third with less than two outs. Good news – the bunt attempt rate with a runner on first and no other runners on is one of the lowest in history this year. Similarly, it is good to meet a runner in third place, because even the outfielder can score points in this runner. Guess what? More than 10% of bunts this year have come with a runner on third place, the highest mark in history by a mile.
Even those bunt squeezes are coming in better spots than before. Like no one else, I’m not a big fan of the compression game. With two chances to drive a runner home, giving up isn’t all that tempting; why not at least let the first batter go? Turns out the parties agree! Squeeze bunts with no one moving this year. Most bunts with a runner on third have occurred in one-out situations.
Even better from a case perspective, the good guys are doing the bunting. This year’s hitters produced a weighted wRC+ of 82 in non-bunt plate appearances. In other words, the average bunt is laid down by a below-average hitter, which means bunts are even better than raw run count numbers. Interestingly, that 82 wRC+ is a 2025 game, even though there have been plenty of bunts so far this year. It wasn’t that the big hitters were balking and quitting; it’s because the increase in belts has come from the slowest hitting team in the league, as it should.
Who is leading this bunting boom? You’ve already heard about the Rays’ bunt-happy ways, and they actually lead the league in bunt rate, with 2.1% of their plate appearances. Eight other teams have exceeded 1% so far: the Brewers, White Sox, Diamondbacks, Reds, Cardinals, Rockies, Red Sox, and Royals. These groups are very fast, and very small, but there is no clear line beyond that.
The best bunting team on a bunt basis? It could be the Braves. But that is misleading; they’ve only dropped 10 bunts this year, one of the lowest marks in baseball. They succeeded by choosing their places. The best high-volume team is the Nationals, which is just under 1% of the nine teams hit. Led by the regular and excellent bunter Nasim Nuñez, who has more than half of Washington’s attempts, they have produced a ridiculous 10.5 runs above average per 100 bunts. A lot of that comes from successful tight ends, but that’s true for all teams. The Nats have been very successful in their pitching recently – and they have a lot of team speed, and a lot of hitters who might consider hitting the ball.
Will this trend continue until the end of the season? I sure hope so. It is difficult to predict, because this is not a static equilibrium. Defense can change what they do. Summer weather can change the motivation for a slow hitter who is deciding whether to hit it or not. But for now, this is the best bunting has ever been.
