[chazzycat]

Yep - that's a good one. He's got the extreme pull grounder tendency, and pretty good, but not elite bunting ability (75 rating). I plugged that 75 rating into the test and it did really well, only 2 points below the elite bunter I had tried earlier. So I guess they don't really need to be elite to beat the shift with bunting.

I ran a few more tests with various bunting abilities, and I think the break-even point is around a 60 rating. Players with at least a 60 "bunt for hit" rating and extreme-pull grounder tendency should (slightly) outperform a "spray" hitter of the same skill level, assuming the bunt slider is moved all the way over and your opponents shift slider is the same. This held true over hundreds of thousands of simulations.

At the very least, in my mind this carves out an exception to the "avoid extreme pull guys" rule. If they have a 60+ bunt rating they should be fine, or possibly even better!