Few tactics in baseball fuel more debate than the bunt. The sabermetric community has argued against the bunt for decades with its most famous face, Bill James, telling NPR in 2011 bunting is “usually a waste of time.”
“I mean, if you think about it, (a) bunt is the only play in baseball that both sides applaud,” James said. He explained further: “The home team applauds because they get an out, and the other team applauds because they get a base. So what does that tell you? Nobody’s really winning here.”
And it was around that time that the bunt started to decline in usage.