Reasonable people can disagree, but I'm not a fan of the bunt except in very few situations. It makes sense when the hitter is weak (such as a pitcher in a National League game). It makes sense in a late inning 0-out situation when you need one run to tie or win. It may make sense if the defense is particularly bad at defending the bunt (rarely).

In my mind, coaching is all about bringing out the best in your players and inspiring confidence in them to do things they didn't think they could do. Asking a batter to bunt may be statistically sound, but it is not confidence inspiring. It sends an indirect signal to the batter that future batters have a better chance of driving home the baserunner than they do. Or, even worse, in a squeeze situation, it tells the batter that the coach is pessimistic that the batter will drive home the runner by swinging. To me, that deflates the batter and in a sacrifice situation, it places more pressure on future batters to drive the run home. From a psychological perspective, I think both outcomes are negative. I'd like to see this team play looser, and be more confident of themselves. One great example of this was in the playoff series versus Oregon a couple of years ago when Christian Stringer was doing the ape scratch motion from the basepaths after getting hits. That might seem trivial, but it was a signal that he and others on the team were loose and confident. That's important to win. When our players are pressing and fearful of making mistakes (looking at you middle infielders) -- that's when we crumble.

We need some yin and yang to the coaching, in my view, to balance out Coach Graham's tough style. Coach Pierce represented that counter balance in years past. I'm not sure we have a substitute for that now. Just some ideas.