In College? Someone must have done a comparison by now....any results on whether these BBCOR bats have reduced the HR's as suspected.
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My favorite team-
2010 8G 96R 9HR
2011 8G 93R 3HR
2010 8G 96R 9HR
2011 8G 93R 3HR
IMO it's too early to draw conclusions, and there will be arguments til the end of time to accurately display a relevant % drop. Coaches may feel that not only does the bat affect the HR total but also the number of "gap shots" thus changing the direction of their offensive game plan to more of a small ball attitude. This attitude makes any comparison void because introduces a change in game mentality.
This same thought can be applied when comparing the injury rate due to line drives. Proponents of the BBCOR will be jumping up-n-down if they see that fewer pitchers have been injured. However, IMHO it becomes an apple-n-oranges comparison because the change to a small ball mentality will be directly related to those injury results. In other words the bat change will probably reduce the number of opportunities players attempts to go yard thus reducing the chances of a hard hit ball up the middle. Simple rules of making projections and comparisons, they mean very little if you change the tangibles. Now if the bats remained the same and pitchers were required to wear head gear, then you could make comparative results.
IMHO the bat change will have a much greater affect on game strategy than the number of pitchers injured, I doubt those injury numbers will change dramatically, pitchers will continue to be hit with line drives. As time goes on more players will see that strength and conditioning plays a huge factor in "long ball" and coupled with the familiarity of the new bats the number of pitcher related injuries may have temporary dip, but down the road it will become the same "hot topic".
As rz1 takes cover
I still say that pitcher protection begins with head protection on the mound because a batters mentality to "knock his block off" will always remain the same. The new bats may only be a bump in the road in regard to curbing injuries.
JMO
btw- I'm a small ball proponent.
This same thought can be applied when comparing the injury rate due to line drives. Proponents of the BBCOR will be jumping up-n-down if they see that fewer pitchers have been injured. However, IMHO it becomes an apple-n-oranges comparison because the change to a small ball mentality will be directly related to those injury results. In other words the bat change will probably reduce the number of opportunities players attempts to go yard thus reducing the chances of a hard hit ball up the middle. Simple rules of making projections and comparisons, they mean very little if you change the tangibles. Now if the bats remained the same and pitchers were required to wear head gear, then you could make comparative results.
IMHO the bat change will have a much greater affect on game strategy than the number of pitchers injured, I doubt those injury numbers will change dramatically, pitchers will continue to be hit with line drives. As time goes on more players will see that strength and conditioning plays a huge factor in "long ball" and coupled with the familiarity of the new bats the number of pitcher related injuries may have temporary dip, but down the road it will become the same "hot topic".
As rz1 takes cover
JMO
btw- I'm a small ball proponent.
Haven't seen HR numbers yet but in another thread, D1 year-to-date numbers for double digit runs scored by a team were down 47% as of a week ago.
http://hsbaseballweb.com/eve/f...781/m/8687075895/p/2
http://hsbaseballweb.com/eve/f...781/m/8687075895/p/2
quote:As time goes on more players will see that strength and conditioning plays a huge factor in "long ball" and coupled with the familiarity of the new bats the number of pitcher related injuries may have temporary dip, but down the road it will become the same "hot topic".
Your post is imho spot on. At the end of the day if I as a parent really want safety for my pitcher I will have him wear a face guard of some sort just like hockey players "have to wear". In fact I will argue that the politicians got it backward and as you stated injuries will still happen.