jonriv wrote:Sam wrote:UmpSteve wrote:MrGeek wrote:Does anyone foresee NCAA or USA Softball enforcing a bat standard similar to the BBCOR standards in baseball? There is a definite problem when 10 year old girls that weigh 80 lbs are able to hit 200' bombs.
Unlikely, in my opinion.
USA/ASA has already discovered from addressing slow pitch that, if/when change is deemed necessary, it's faster, easier and better for the customers to deaden the ball than expect people to accept losing expensive bats just for safety or competitive reasons. NFHS will follow USA's lead (and PGF follows NFHS); and USSSA will do the same, not risk alienating the potential customers they are trying to steal from USA and PGF.
NCAA wants the home runs; they are requiring new fields to be bigger, but that is to add more outfield play and more doubles and triples to the game., not take away offense. The current 190-200' fields have too many singles, they believe, not too many home runs.
They'll wait for a pitcher to be killed by a line drive.
This year the NCAA would have a MLB equivalent of 15 players with 50+ homers and the leader would equate right now to 95 homers. Hard to find an organization that could be run worse than it is right now.
I thought the NCAA rolled out new bat regulations were rolled out back in 2010-2011??
Is the HR increase a DI phenomena or at all levels of college play? They use the same equipment, no? Is it region(east-west, north -south) Climate related(warm vs cold)
The latest/recent bat regulations you reference did little. The exact same bat specs as USA/ASA and high school, actually. The changes kept teams from getting "special" bats from manufacturers, increased the monitoring, testing and checking for altered bats; all good things. However, they allowed the manufacturers to withdraw bats at any time, and that had assumably unintended consequences; first, some manufacturers pulled bats they knew would be found out to be hot (but since not tested and failed remain approved in the other sanctions), some manufacturers pulled bats to force new sales of their newer products, and, most significantly, they pull individual bat models once they get two failed units ("strikes") so that these bats never show a third strike. If a bat gets three strikes and the NCAA removes that model before the manufacturer does, then USA/ASA would act on it and make in nonapproved (which would carry over to NFHS). But the manufacturers are on top of that to keep the bats approved elsewhere.
Same bats in other collegiate levels, but less bat testing (it's the D1 conferences pushing testing before conference series). Less skilled players hitting bombs when they swing from the heels on less skilled pitchers; everywhere, as best I can tell. I work all levels; some D1, D2, D3, NAIA, JUCO; probably see a few (or more) home runs practically EVERY game.
For the record,
dominate is a verb;
dominant is an adjective. Yes, same peeve as Arto.