Gardner Continues To Work On His Bunting

Back on January 20th I wrote this post about a Chad Jennings article where Brett Gardner mentioned that he was working on his bunting. Well, he's continued that work as we can see from this article from Anthony McCarrron:

Brett Gardner hits during the winter at the Charleston Baseball Academy, about 10 minutes from his South Carolina home, tweaking his swing and keeping sharp. This offseason, Gardner spent a lot of time working on his bunting skills, too, and he'd like to develop that into a weapon this year.

"That's the good thing about hitting off a (pitching) machine," Gardner said yesterday, after his first precamp workout at the Yankees' minor-league complex. "You can bunt 50 or 100 balls in 15 or 20 minutes. No time. I've been bunting a lot, working on that more and trying to bring that back into my game.

"Now it's just a matter of being comfortable enough with it not to be scared to do it in a game and have confidence that I'm going to put it where I want it. Not only can it be a tool to get on base, but it keeps defenses honest and can bring the corners in and maybe I can shoot some balls by them."

To me this is the most important part of Gardner's game. He's already a good defensive outfielder, he can spray the ball all over the field, and has even shown the ability to pop one over an outfielder's heads at time. But he has yet to show the ability to be a great bunter.

I love that he's trying to improve that area of his game because it can be such a deadly weapon with his speed, especially from the left side of the plate. If his work pays off I expect Gardner to impress a lot of people this year. Becoming a good or great bunter will increase his batting average, his OBP and he'll have a chance to steal more bases. In a lineup like the Yankees' that can make a huge difference.