First HS Varsity BBCOR observation

cball - any info on the model bats used?

How warm was the weather? As the dad of a son who plays in Illinois, where spring weather can be brutal, I am curious to see how the performance will be in colder climates.

Son used a Maruicci Cat5 last fall in 60-70 degree whether and I was impressed at how well the bat performed. I saw modest differences versus the old technology but the bats' performance was superior to wood.

It will be interesting to see performance in 42 degree weather.

Several Demirini's a Marruci and I noticed one red Nike.

quote:

Originally posted by Proud Dad 24:
How warm was the weather? As the dad of a son who plays in Illinois, where spring weather can be brutal, I am curious to see how the performance will be in colder climates.

Son used a Maruicci Cat5 last fall in 60-70 degree whether and I was impressed at how well the bat performed. I saw modest differences versus the old technology but the bats' performance was superior to wood.

It will be interesting to see performance in 42 degree weather.

It was cool...probably low 50's

well, we saw a differnce....There was prob a 15-20ft difference on balls hit to the outfield from the BESR bats. We still had several extra base hits (even had a couple of triples), but there was a difference. Also, I do not think that as many hard hit ground balls will get through the infield this year.

We've had ~3 scrimmages and 4 games so far and I would say I notice a huge difference. There are extra base hits for sure. But they are only coming from the alleys. Very few balls are being hit over the heads of outfielders directly. So far in all the games/scrimmages, the team that has walked the fewest number of hitters has won the game. There just are not the same number of big innings like the last few years. Pitchers that throw strikes are winning...whether they are throwing in the low 80s or high 80s...you just don't have to have a dominant arm to overmatch the juiced bats like you use to.

BBCOR has leveled the playing field. Those with good mechanics and a solid swing will still produce balls hit deep, hard hit ground balls and extra base hits. Others players may have had imperfections masked by the BESR and its MASSIVE sweet spot.

Pitchers more confident to pitch rather than throw and true hitters being rewarded! Sounds great, I can barely wait for Feb. 27. I say this with with light snow on the ground here. I am jealous of you warm weather guys!

quote:

Originally posted by Tx-Husker:
Pitchers that throw strikes are winning...whether they are throwing in the low 80s or high 80s

I am very interested in seeing how these bats impact the low 80s/high 70s pitchers.

It seems like every pitcher will get some significant innings.

So, which pitchers in this group will be dominant? Do you just lay an 80mph fastball up in the zone, and go for the lazy fly ball? What about a kid that throws 70 mph FBs? Or do you go for ground balls throwing curve balls?

Will there be more strikeouts, since pitchers will have less fear of throwing inside?

We went to BBCOR in Ca last year and given this is only one year’s worth of data, but we saw a drop of 0.057 in team BA and a 0.146 drop in Slugging. Extra base hits dropped by 30% and HR’s by 50%. Infielders had to play in a bit more and the OF played in quite a bit more and went back on more fly balls. Good OF play made a big difference as more balls were tracked down.(coaches out there really work on this early and you will be rewarded) Fewer flair hits, but squared up balls still went out. Pitching velo made little difference from what I remember. ERA dropped by 1.2. Overall I thought it was a better game, but the fundamentals were still the same.

Great feedback, BOF. My guess is that pitchers' mistakes will still go far and the oppo power will become more of an exception than the rule.

I know the numbers don't lie and maybe the ball was just carrying last night. There was no wind to speak of and if all the balls that traveled to or nearly to the fence had gone another 25 feet we would have had 6 or 7 HR's in the game.

There was a lengthy thread on this topic in the Fall of 2010 when the College players were introduced to the first BBCOR prototypes. You can reference that thread.

This years models are far better from what I've seen this Spring "pre-season" scrimmages and the three games played this past weekend. However, they do not perform at all like the BESR models.

Here are last year's NCAA DI BBCOR numbers (vs. the prior year's BESR numbers):

-Team batting average dropped from .305 to .282

-Team ERA was reduced from 5.97 to 4.07

-Home runs were cut in half from 0.93 per game to 0.51 per game

Maybe a little bit of that was due to the Nike BBCOR bat issue, but the difference between 2010-11 numbers and 2009-10 numbers is not insignificant.

Just goes to show how different things can be from team to team and year to year in HSB. Although there were some teams up here in NorCal that experienced similar results to what y’all did, some, for some like us, the experience wasn’t very different at all.

What I did was run a report game by game that compared last season to the 4 previous seasons. You can see the final results here. http://www.infosports.com/scor...r/images/compare.pdf

As can be easily seen, while there were differences, there weren’t many things that were truly significant, and most things were better in 2011 than previous seasons.

Now had I compared 2011 to just 2010 or any other single season, I’m sure things would have looked much different, but when you look at several years averages combined, compared to only last season, things probably don’t look so bad.

My school many easton bats and the new rip it. The rip it has a giant dent and I think there might be an easton that has dented already too.

My son's team had thier first scrimage this week. Notwithstanding the huge number of strikeouts it is apparent that the new bats will change the game. A few balls were hit very hard but all of those hits with the exception of one ball looked like a bird that was travelling fast until it got shot by a buckshot. Two balls that would have gone out ended up being warning track balls. I agree that the game has changed for the better. Fundamentals such as defense, good pitching, base running, minimal walks, bunting and hitting line drives will rule the day. Oh what a coincidence that is baseball.

The game changed dramatically when one of our pitchers started walking guys. Pitchers who throw strikes, pitch inside will have the most success. Hitters who hit line drives or hot grounders, are patient and willing to take a walk will have success. Fundamentally sound ball players who are athletic and know how to use their athleticsm will have an advantage. Teams that play good defense, bunt, steal bases and can execute hit and runs will be succesful.

One the other hand, teams that have lived by the long ball because of being blessed with power hitters or because they play in a small ball park will suffer because the long ball will become special again and not something you see all the time. Pitchers who throw hard with no command will really suffer because runs will be hard to come by when they are having a bad day. One tool non athletic power hitters who can't continue to hit bombs will need to make adjustments to thier overall game or become the next dinosaurs. The new bats is akin to taking steroids out of the game, now it is taking steroids from the bats. Just my opinion.

Well said golden rule.

I will be curious to see what the home run totals will be this year in places like AZ, Florida, Texas etc. California went to BBCOR last year and the numbers were way down even with some waiver BESR bats......it's a big difference.

Stats,

I think you have some anomaly’s in your data, just looking at hits and runs per game in 2011 vs prior years, with them going up with clearly inferior equipment tells me that the skill level of this team is offsetting the changes in the equipment. Your team, at least from a statistical standpoint, was superior over the previous years.

I took an average of our 2008-2010 data and compared it to the 2011 and the changes I saw were pretty consistent with the data of others I spoke to toward the end of last year. They also more or less track the NCAA college data. I realize it is pretty hard to compare one team to the next because the skill level can change year over year pretty dramatically in a HS team. The only accurate way would be to get consolidated Maxpreps data comparing 2010 vs 2011 in Ca.

It could have been the waiver bats. My son played with a cali team early this summer for a few games and they were using the CF4 waiver bat, I believe. He said the waiver bats felt like the BESR's. He didn't notice much difference. BBCOR's are a whole 'nother story.It is def different.