Anderson Bat Q & A

[RT4ever]

One cannot deny the placebo effect! Thanks for replying.

[RT4ever]

Hmm, looks like it's just me and you right now, Mr. Anderson

I cannot speak for others, but I must say that I'm VERY excited for the NanoTek (which will hopefully be available as a fastpitch bat, as well).

Is there any more information, teasers, specs, etc. you can give us while we eagerly await its release?!?!?

[wpanther]

Daughter has an 08 Tech and loves it. End cap came out and they fixed it no questions asked. Bad thing is we was out today doing some hitting and it seems the end cap is coming out again, not sure what I can do if anything.

[KekambuS]

Thanks for letting the Outlaws join the Anderson Family. Looking forward to a great season.

[Tumblebug]

Hmm, looks like it's just me and you right now, Mr. Anderson

I cannot speak for others, but I must say that I'm VERY excited for the NanoTek (which will hopefully be available as a fastpitch bat, as well).

Is there any more information, teasers, specs, etc. you can give us while we eagerly await its release?!?!?

All I can say is that it is on the drawing board and the release date is not yet known.

[Tumblebug]

Thanks for letting the Outlaws join the Anderson Family. Looking forward to a great season.

Welcome! I am removed from a lot of things that go on (I only own the place) and I don't remember some of the details. I would like to have you remind me about the Outlaws.

[Tumblebug]

I got a reply back from Dee Abrahamson and the word from the NCAA Softball Rules Committee is that they are concerned about bat performance and the particular challenges that composites bring but, at this time, they are not proposing an immediate and indefinite moratorium on any particular material as NCAA baseball just announced. Instead they are focusing on their research regarding batted ball exit speed and the correlation with barrel stiffness. Their hope is that they will have a scientific, legal and philosophical comfort level with the pre-participation testing they have proposed and the post-participation testing they intend to continue.

So for now, they are included in the ASA grandfather clause negotiated when testing switched to ASTM 2219 but they could (as well as the ASA could) approve a sunset date at some future time. They are aware of the stop production and stop shipment dates and the latitude it created for some companies to saturate the market so a sunset date certainly is a possibility.

I said I'd get back on this. So there you have it.

[Tumblebug]

Dittoz,

I may be stepping on a land mine here but I have been ruminating over the picture of your daughter’s mechanics and the discussion that surrounded it and I didn’t really comment because I am not really here as a coach and if I were it would have to be as a baseball rather than a fastpitch softball coach. But it has been bugging me. In my opinion your DD’s picture is a nearly perfect example of a bat that is too long.

So many say that a softball swing is different than a baseball swing and I don’t really want to start that argument but certain aspects are simple physics mechanics. So what I am going to do is evaluate your DD’s swing in the picture from a baseball and physics point of view and let the debate begin.

At contact the bat should be parallel with the shoulders on the x axis (back shoulder drops to compensate for bat head drop) and the hip should be parallel with shoulders on the z axis (equally turned, which is actually pretty good). What I see in your DD’s picture is a classic “knobs up” hitting example where the bat head lags behind and drops. The top hand (trailing) elbow should not be dramatically below the top hand at contact. The back of the top hand should be facing down and the back of the bottom hand should be facing up with both wrists extended, not bent. The bottom hand elbow should be extended but not locked. In the picture if you imagine lowering the top hand to the same plane as the ball it all straightens out. If this is an example of a good swing, then that bat is either too long or too end-heavy for her.

Here is an example of a ten year old boy hitting the same high pitch. His mechanics are near perfect.

I hope this works, I've never added and image

[DunninLA]

Tumblebug,

Regarding dittoz' daughter's swing picture and the 10 yr. old you just posted, I want to point out that the baseball pitch is more than 6" higher than that of the softball clip.

That makes a huge difference. On any pitch below the letters, the bat DOES and is supposed to go through the zone on a downward tilt. Just have a look at major league hitter clips. The tilt of the bat goes from very tilted on a low strike, someone tilted on a belt high, and little or no tilt on a letter high ball which is nonetheless swung at.

The hands should stay as close as possible to the hight of the back shoulder. The tilt of the torso brings the end of the bat down to a low strike, with less tilt for a belt high strike, and so on.

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Now, it is quite possible, as you imply, that arms and wrists that are week will have trouble keeping the proper tilt of the bat through the swing, causing the bat to tilt too much... don't know if that is the case with the softball clip, but apparently not since the bat and ball seem to be on a pretty square collision course in the pic.

And of course a bat can be too long to handle, or too end loaded to handle for a person with small arm and wrist muscles. I just don't see that happening from the one pic dittoz posted.

To have a level bat on a low strike would make it necessary to drop the hands below the belt during the swing... something I doubt any of us have seen any MLB hitter do.

[DunninLA]

One more comment about RT vs. Easton purple/white stealth vs. Demarini Phenix/CF3/CF4 --

A 31" RT end loaded swings about the same as a 32" Stealth... a 32" Demarini does not swing the same as the Stealth... it swings about like a half size smaller bat... more like a 31.5" stealth or a 30.5" RT (2005 model) would.