Pros & Cons of bunting with both hands together?

[Ken Krause]

I prefer the hands together. It's easier to deaden the ball, and I feel you're stronger to the ball when it comes in. With the hands apart, the head of the bat tends to get pushed back when the ball contacts the bat. With the hands together it doesn't happen as often. My hitters have never had trouble controlling the bat with the hands together, either. I find it's easier for them to keep the head of the bat up when they go down for a bunt. With hands apart, hitters are more inclined to drop the bat head in my experience, which leads to more popups and foul balls.

We don't pinch the bat with the top hand. I teach my hitters to wrap their hands around it where the taper begins. If you teach your hitters to bunt off the end of the bat, where they should be doing it since that's where the bat is dead, getting hit in the hands won't be a problem.

Generally speaking, I find trouble with bunting to be more a problem of training than a particular technique. With parents paying $300 for a bat, a lot of folks don't spend much time on bunting anymore, especially when they're practicing on their own. It used to be a requirement and a point of pride. Now it's getting to be more like baseball -- something they do if forced to.

By the way, while I will expose hitters who haven't tried it before to the hands together method, it's not a hard-and-fast rule with me either. Some like hands together when they try it, others don't. If they can get the bunt down properly I don't care where their hands are. Neither does the ball.

 

[Ken Krause]

USA Softball Merchandise I suggest anyone teaching bunting or slapping watch this video by Team USA. It covers the above subject. We slap with the hands together, but never bunt that way.

Take a look at the cover of Fundamentals of Hitting Vol. 2. From that angle it sure looks like there's a major case of bat drag happening in the swing. Does anyone have that DVD, and is that the case or is this an optical illusion?

 

[go4um]

I believe the split grip provides the best control and will usually yield the best results IF THE TOP HAND IS PLACED UP NEARTHE BAT BALANCE POINT. However, if the player is reluctant to expose her hand at that location then often the two hand choke grip will get better results because two hands are stronger.

 

[SBFAMILY]

Keep in mind I have never seen anyone drag bunt with the hands together. DD is a lefty slapper and we don't want the defense to know what we are doing. I could understand the hands together if she was a righty and was doing this only to move the runner. As Ken noted, the secret to bunting and slapping is to hit the ball toward the end of the bat and not on the sweet spot.

 

[mrslug01]

I think every kid in the lineup should learn to bunt (whichever way works) and I've coached that way since U10. This is my second time through with my younger DD and U14. We're indoors for 18 weeks this winter and one of our stations for the next 18 weeks is bunting. I remember when my older DD was U14, we won a big tournament and I wrote an article for the paper. We won 7 games and we had 13 sac bunts that weekend. We won on the final play with a suicide squeeze during the international tie breaker.