Stats4Gnats posted:John MacDougall posted:… Metal bats do so many thing to try and avoid "sting" that it is hard for a kid to get a "sense" of where they just made contact and have it filed in their learning memory. …
Can you explain just how getting “a “sense” of where they just made contact” helps a hitter become better? Also, do non-wood bats not give any “sense” of the same thing, or is it that they don’t do it as well?
Sure. First, go here: Performance Charts. You'll see that the location of the highest level of performance (ball exit speed) is at the "sweet spot". This is the point where you actually get NO feedback. "I didn't even feel the ball and it went out". The same thing happens in golf when you stop trying to muscle the ball :-). As you move away from the sweet spot the performance drops off because the bat sucks out some of the bat/ball collision energy and this is felt to an increasing degree by the batter in the form of vibration. The further from the sweet spot, the more vibration, the less exit speed. The more flexible the bat, the more energy is robbed at a given distance from the sweet spot. There is more consistency in wood bats in this feel because wood does not compress and give the way metal bats do. Every method of construction in the different metal bats are going to give different feedback. I can't say this is something I've measured, more that I know it intuitively. Different woods (species) are going to feel different depending on their hardness/stiffness, but its more consistent from bat to bat in the same species.
I'm not going to make the argument that using wood from the age of 10 will definitively make you a better hitter, even though that is the conventional wisdom, if you will. There are SO many variable that go into that equation that it would be impossible to prove. Everyone is going to believe what they want anyway. All I can do is share in insights and knowledge I've picked up along the way in developing my bat and spending countless hours studying the physics of bats and mechanical properties of wood species. One thing you'll never catch me saying is that I'm an "expert". That word always raises red flags for me.
I'd rather make a case for things like tradition, sound, cost and fun. I gave test bats for new youth line to a local coach/head of travel ball and little league. He had his team try them out and they didn't want to put them down. He said that had way more fun swinging wood. It is, after all, what they see "big leaguers" swinging. Maybe going back to wood is what would help bring participation rates back up. It did for adult baseball all over the country. Over the last 8-10 years adult baseball has been going back to wood and is now about 80% to 90% wood. I've had guys tell me it is what saved their league. The state of New Mexico switched to wood for high school 3 years ago. There was a lot of skepticism at the time. After the first year they polled all the coaches and asked if they wanted to stick with it. A coach there told me it was almost unanimous to stay with wood. Coaches were saying stuff like "it's a WAY better game". Well, I gotta get to work! Cheers.