Baseball bat issue that may one day migrate towards softball

[fasterpitch92701]

I wonder if anyone has kept track of all bats used verses all HR's hit in recent seasons. Hummm.... there must be some statistician weenie/weenette out there who had done it.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/20 ... t-problems.

Just an FYI...

[DunninLA]

It already has. College softball this year used a compression test on every bat used in the post season. HRs in the WCWS were down about 40%.

As to College Baseball, I cannot find the WEENIE post I made originally at UCS, but the change from composite to aluminum between the 2009 and 2010 seasons resulted in 3% fewer HRs... a surprisingly small difference compared to what I expected to see. It is clear that an aluminum bat CAN BE, and clearly WAS, just as hot as composite. The issue isn't one of materials, it is an issue of engineering. Speaking in terms of Softball standards, you can engineer an aluminum bat to have an exit speed of 102 mph just as easily as a composite. The issue is that engineers have to engineer to 98mph no matter what material they use.

I have not taken the time to look at 2011 season vs. 2010 or 2009. However, a quick Google search brought up http://www.kettering.edu/physics/drusse ... stats.html which seems to indicate that 2011 dropped about 40% vs. 2010.; Pay particular attention to the May, 2011 updates to this previously published paper, and to the Home Runs Per Game chart in the middle of the paper. I'll bet somebody started doing exit-speed testing and put the cabash on the hot aluminum used in 2010... that was just about as hot as the composites used in 2009.

I wouldn't want to be the collegiate baseball player who as a freshman in 2009 grooved a HR fly ball swing that was rewarded with balls sailing 20' over the fence, where now those same balls are being hit just to the edge of the warning track... DEATH = WARNING TRACK POWER.

[PDad]

College baseball instituted the BBCOR standard in 2011. CA HS baseball was rushed into using BBCOR in 2011 by CA lawmakers, a year before it becomes the NFHS standard for baseball in 2012.

BBCOR bats not only perform similar to wood bats, they also sound more like them when they hit the ball. Nike obviously didn't come up with a very good BBCOR product.

It will be interesting to see how much performance bat companies are able to regain in future years after having more experience with the BBCOR standard.

[Tumblebug]

I wonder if anyone has kept track of all bats used verses all HR's hit in recent seasons. Hummm.... there must be some statistician weenie/weenette out there who had done it.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/20 ... t-problems.

Just an FYI...

Nike has always had a problem with performance. Their issue is an internal organization structure and attitude that ultimately gives the final say on product configuration to a product manager (a marketing function) that doesn't actually understand the product technology. The underlying problem is their outsourcing paradigm.

[Tumblebug]

It already has. College softball this year used a compression test on every bat used in the post season. HRs in the WCWS were down about 40%.

As to College Baseball, I cannot find the WEENIE post I made originally at UCS, but the change from composite to aluminum between the 2009 and 2010 seasons resulted in 3% fewer HRs... a surprisingly small difference compared to what I expected to see. It is clear that an aluminum bat CAN BE, and clearly WAS, just as hot as composite. The issue isn't one of materials, it is an issue of engineering. Speaking in terms of Softball standards, you can engineer an aluminum bat to have an exit speed of 102 mph just as easily as a composite. The issue is that engineers have to engineer to 98mph no matter what material they use.

I have not taken the time to look at 2011 season vs. 2010 or 2009. However, a quick Google search brought up http://www.kettering.edu/physics/drusse ... stats.html which seems to indicate that 2011 dropped about 40% vs. 2010.; Pay particular attention to the May, 2011 updates to this previously published paper, and to the Home Runs Per Game chart in the middle of the paper. I'll bet somebody started doing exit-speed testing and put the cabash on the hot aluminum used in 2010... that was just about as hot as the composites used in 2009.

I wouldn't want to be the collegiate baseball player who as a freshman in 2009 grooved a HR fly ball swing that was rewarded with balls sailing 20' over the fence, where now those same balls are being hit just to the edge of the warning track... DEATH = WARNING TRACK POWER.

You would lose that bet. You've over simplified the development issue here and eliminated the real issue. Just like softball, composite baseball bats improve with use. The rules response was almost entirely due to non-compliant bats being found in sanctioned play. There is only a very minor difference in performance (not always positive in favor of composites) if the bats are within spec. The real and perceptive rise in composite bat performance was exaggerated by cheating (both unintentional and otherwise). The knee jerk reaction of the BBCOR adaptation will eventually need some adjustment to the reality on the field.

The BBCOR test is fundamentally flawed. Many wood bats, the supposed performance standard, would fail the test. A simple standard deviation has not been identified. The test is a random number generator, meaning the only way to reliably pass the standard is to design the performance to be well below the prescribed limit. The result is, at first pass, a performance standard below that of wood. Depending upon the hitter, wood may very well be a better performing choice than all but a very few engineered products.

The engineering challenge has not been to optimize the performance but rather to defeat the non-existent standard deviation. The newest BBCOR bats are much better than the first examples released but there will need to be better controlled constraints in both the test requirement and the design variables before the consumer gets a reliably consistent product category.

I guess my point is that this issue goes well beyond the production materials chosen by the product engineer and somebody noticing that a particular material works better than another in play.

On a related subject, it would be interesting to see the incident rate of injuries is affected now that the performance has been curtailed.