David Hamilton's Bunts Are Becoming a Major Story

Throughout baseball history, there have been several bunt hit specialists. During the Dead Ball Era, guys like Wee Willie Keeler and Eddie Collins excelled at placing bunts and using their speed to reach base. Brett Butler had 42 bunt hits in 1992 alone. Juan Pierre totaled 201 in his career. I want to talk about the best bunter in baseball, but we need to start by making clear that we won't be besmirching the names of the best bunters in history by pretending that any of them are active now. The game has changed.

To wit, David Hamilton is on pace for over 20 bunt hits in 2026, but that wouldn't even come especially close to the top spot for the last 20 years. That honor goes to Carlos Gómez, who—as a raw hitter and speed demon playing his home games on the artificial turf of the Metrodome—had a whopping 30 bunt hits in his first full season of 2008. However, since Gómez did that, no batter has collected more than 20. That new benchmark was set by Dee Strange-Gordon, in 2014.

It's not a record, then, but Hamilton has a real chance to collect more hits via bunt than anyone has since CC Sabathia spent a summer in Milwaukee. The last time anyone bunted for a hit more than 20 times in a year, Pat Murphy was the head baseball coach at Arizona State University; Jesus Made was one year old; and Giannis Antetokounmpo had just picked up a basketball for the first time.

No one is surprised that Hamilton is fast, of course. He's been one of the fastest people in professional baseball for his whole pro career, and he's exceptionally aggressive on the bases. However, it would have been hard to predict this level of impact from bunting when this season began. That required Hamilton to develop a real facility for the craft of the bunt, and for many a fast hitter in the game's history, that's proved easier said than done.

Hamilton has it down, though—literally. He's become so adept at bunting the ball straight down that he often hits home plate or the hard-packed dirt directly in front of it. That's led to a handful of easy singles, because by the time the ball comes down from a 20-foot initial bounce, there's no time for a fielder to secure it and make a strong enough throw all the way to first base.

Generally speaking, that's not a repeatable skill, but that's been Hamilton's genius. He has seven bunt hits with an official batted-ball distance of 0, 1 or 2 feet, and even that undersells him. Here's a ball on which he so niftily dropped the bat onto a dipping breaking ball that Statcast read the first bounce as upward flight off the bat, calling a ball he clipped straight into the dirt an 18-foot blooper.

That ability to move with a ball and almost lay the bat atop it has been marvelous to watch. Hamilton can also punch it a little, though, when he needs to get it away from an especially athletic catcher or the third baseman is cheating in but not close to the line.

He also shows the capacity to get on top of high fastballs, which can often foil eager bunters with plenty of speed. Getting this down is almost the whole challenge, though getting out of the box well on such a high, hard one can also be tricky.

This skill hasn't turned Hamilton into a star or anything. He hits at the bottom of the Brewers lineup, and he's now in a de facto platoon with Joey Ortiz at third base. He's slugging .322 on the year. However, he's also getting on at a .313 clip, thanks to decent plate discipline, some shielding from tough lefties, and those bunts. Moreover, a bunt single (or a walk, or a plunking, or the time he reached on catcher interference, for which the scoring rules give the batter no credit) is often a double for Hamilton, who already has 16 stolen bases in 21 tries.

His numbers won't be pretty. He won't be promoted to the top of the lineup. He won't even play every day. In all likelihood, the only chance Hamilton has for any national attention this year is if he collects enough bunt hits to claim the most since Gómez or Butler. But because he's used the bunt to augment his skills while he works to develop the Brewers' patented patient, let-it-travel approach, Hamilton has helped the team score at the excellent clip they've achieved this year, no matter what his stat line says. It's great to see him keeping the art form alive, and even leading its revival. It's also (aesthetically) good, old-fashioned fun when he lays one down and beats it out. The Brewers will take the fun, but it's the value he's finding ways to generate that has them happiest of all to keep penciling him in against right-handed opposing pitchers.