There was a conversation between some pros the other day about the best BBCOR bats that they used to mash with. It was interesting and funny to hear them argue about it. What were the best bats when your kids played?
My son has only been using BBCOR for a couple years, but during that time I’d say the 2019 red Meta has been the best. Although the Demarini The Goods may take its place.
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There were so many, the stealth was a great bat, the voodoo was another. The S1 was also a great bat back in the day.
Not quite scientific, my kid has a 33 in LS Omaha, 34 Axe elite and the 2013 Easton S1 33 in. The max EV on the S1 was about 3 mph more and the avg EV was about the same as the 34 in Axe. This was using the pocket radar.
The best bat is when the arrow is optimized for the Indian. Your big power hitters are typically going to get the most out of their swing with a stiff end loaded bat. Everyone else should swing the red Meta😁
PTWoodson swings a Easton xl3 (34) but I wouldn’t say it’s his favorite of all time. He actually likes swinging wood!
BBCOR started the year my son hit college. It was interesting to see plenty of college recruits fail their first year. I would have thought they got enough hitting challenge with wood in the summer. As for best BBCOR bat my son was faced with, “We use DiMarinis. Love it or don’t play.” He had never liked the balance of the DiMarinis. He used an ExoGrid through high school.
One of his travel teammates got suspended over his glove at his college. He sewed the brand of the sponsored glove over the logo on his glove he liked and got caught. Equipment sponsorship is serious stuff with the colleges. It’s beaucoup bucks to the school and the coach.
My son swears by one of the cheapest bats out there, Rawlings 5150...he mashes with it. He hates all 2 piece bats.
The correct answer is the grey and yellow Easton XL3 from around 2015. It’s still used by some college players today and it’s the bat that has tested above the limit more than any other. At the SEC tourney in 2017 there were barrels of them that were removed from competition.
My sons loved those2014-16 Eastons ! Just the Metal ones, not the composites.
The Rawlings Velos swing really well, too, and have been more or less the same for years, since about 2014, if not earlier. Nice bats for line drive hitters. Not so much for sluggers.
i bought my son a cat7 when they first came out and he’s never looked back since. That bat has thousands of swings in it and still gets the job done. Think it was right around $200. If I had to buy him a new bat that would be a good fit for him I’d go with the Stinger Nuke.
I personally like the “ping” sound with the cat7...some people don’t. It can get pretty loud especially in an indoor facility.
How about the -5 orange xl1 i believe it was when they were like 13 or so? Most boys on every team in every major tournament had one and they were HOT!! The bbcor version wasn't so great however
@TerribleBPthrower posted:How long has he been hitting that Rawlings? I’m trying to find a place around here where my son can demo some one piece bats. I imagine he’d get a little more feel similar to the wood bat compared to no feel with the 2 piece.
He's been swinging the 5150 since HS, with the exception of one year he went with Marucci Cat (also excellent bat). He's now going to be a soph in college and still swinging 5150. Thats what he likes about it...the feel & feedback. Hates the noodle / no feel of 2 piece bats.
I thought that was the point of the BBCOR standard, that there wouldn't be a "best" bat. I guess maybe a bigger sweet spot, and maybe some bats didn't butt up against the standard. I know the kid said the Rawlings bats he had to use his first year of college were "dead".
@SomeBaseballDad posted:I thought that was the point of the BBCOR standard, that there wouldn't be a "best" bat. I guess maybe a bigger sweet spot, and maybe some bats didn't butt up against the standard. I know the kid said the Rawlings bats he had to use his first year of college were "dead".
Not sure how long ago that was but the 1st & 2nd year of BBCOR the bats were like hitting with a wet newspaper.
The old white Easton XL1! I think it was the first version of the XL1. It is a rocket launcher. But the issue is that they don't last. The barrel wobble is so common with these bats. We have had 4 of them in the past year and a half. 3 of them ended up with the wobble. I am just waiting on the last one we have to have the same issue. We played mostly wood tournaments this summer. Our last tournament was metal bats. I brought the XL1 to batting practice and the kids were shocked by the bat. Half the team ended up using it in the game.
I also still think the black/yellow Easton S1 is an all time great.
For most recent bats:
The Goods
Red Meta Prime
Blue Meta
Rawlings Quatro (green barrel with black handle and the all black version)
As you can tell, my son likes swinging 2 or 3 piece bats.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:@ARCEKU21 is the black and yellow an S3 or an S1? I can get an S1 for $40 in great shape.
The S1 is a composite bat, the S3 aluminium. Both black and yellow.
@SoCal OG posted:He's been swinging the 5150 since HS, with the exception of one year he went with Marucci Cat (also excellent bat). He's now going to be a soph in college and still swinging 5150. Thats what he likes about it...the feel & feedback. Hates the noodle / no feel of 2 piece bats.
My boys tried the 5150(Dad loved the price), but the Velo felt less clunky to them. Same idea, though. Feels more like an Ash bat, though nothing feels quite like that. I find even the Maple bats don't give that much feedback.
@57special posted:My boys tried the 5150(Dad loved the price), but the Velo felt less clunky to them. Same idea, though. Feels more like an Ash bat, though nothing feels quite like that. I find even the Maple bats don't give that much feedback.
Velo is good too. My son just preferred the extra heft of the 5150. His favorite part is laughing at the guys who have $400 bats but still cant hit the ball as hard as his $150 bat.
Has anyone gotten any feedback on the Green Easton. My son sent a video of it after hearing about it from “back in the day”. I watched that video and reminisced for an hour. If they would start making the Black Magic again, I’d buy it and go hit a few rounds with him.
RJM: "One of his travel teammates got suspended over his glove at his college. He sewed the brand of the sponsored glove over the logo on his glove he liked and got caught. Equipment sponsorship is serious stuff with the colleges. It’s beaucoup bucks to the school and the coach"
Wow. Was he bragging about doing it? How did they notice? Who noticed?
@TerribleBPthrower posted:@ARCEKU21 is the black and yellow an S3 or an S1? I can get an S1 for $40 in great shape.
22and25 is correct in that the S3 is aluminum and S1 is composite. I spoke wrong in my post. It is the S1 I was talking about. My son has one that looks near new. I would throw it up against most of his bats. Very light swinging and has good pop.
@Tug Tide posted:Has anyone gotten any feedback on the Green Easton. My son sent a video of it after hearing about it from “back in the day”. I watched that video and reminisced for an hour. If they would start making the Black Magic again, I’d buy it and go hit a few rounds with him.
We have one on our team. The feedback I am getting from our guys is that it is heavy swinging. A couple of the smaller guys gave it a go in BP and after a few pitches said "nope" and went back to their normal bats. Two of the stronger kids tried to use it in a tournament and they ended up ditching it a few games in. It didn't get picked up again after that.
I am guessing that if Easton does will with this back, capturing that nostalgia market, we will see a new Black Magic in the near future.
@ARCEKU21 posted:The old white Easton XL1! I think it was the first version of the XL1. It is a rocket launcher. But the issue is that they don't last. The barrel wobble is so common with these bats. We have had 4 of them in the past year and a half. 3 of them ended up with the wobble. I am just waiting on the last one we have to have the same issue. We played mostly wood tournaments this summer. Our last tournament was metal bats. I brought the XL1 to batting practice and the kids were shocked by the bat. Half the team ended up using it in the game.
I also still think the black/yellow Easton S1 is an all time great.
For most recent bats:
The Goods
Red Meta Prime
Blue Meta
Rawlings Quatro (green barrel with black handle and the all black version)As you can tell, my son likes swinging 2 or 3 piece bats.
beware of the quatro....love the pop but SERIOUS durability issues!!
my son likes the feel of 1 piece but also prefers a heavier swinging bat. It's hard to find a 1 piece that isn't so balanced. He swung the xl1 until this year but has settled on the demarini voodoo insane (he likes alloy more than comp) as he's gotten stronger bc the insane is a little more endloaded than the xl1. he wants to try the goods bc it's supposed to be really stiff (for a 2 piece) but I don't feel like dropping 4 bills just to try it out when he has a bat he's happy with already (that I picked up for 125)
@edcoach posted:beware of the quatro....love the pop but SERIOUS durability issues!!
Agree. We have had both versions of the bat. The highlighter barrel/black handle has great pop, but durability is questionable. Ours never cracked, but the connection piece slipped down. When I sent it in for warranty replacement, we received the black version. The black version was also a great bat and seemed to hold up better. We actually ended up giving the bat to a teammate about 2 years ago. He is still using the bat today today.
@ARCEKU21 posted:Agree. We have had both versions of the bat. The highlighter barrel/black handle has great pop, but durability is questionable. Ours never cracked, but the connection piece slipped down. When I sent it in for warranty replacement, we received the black version. The black version was also a great bat and seemed to hold up better. We actually ended up giving the bat to a teammate about 2 years ago. He is still using the bat today today.
Ive had to send 3 back, one was for the connection piece and 2 were cracked...they even sent me another one after they sent the first one which is all they guaranteed but since it was only like 2 months after they sent the other one they went ahead and sent it...the new one they sent also cracked but I have son use it in cages when team hits off the machine...he now has the red/black Demarini Insane and loves it.
My son was a 2015 HS grad. He had a Marucci Cat 5 his last 2 years of HS and loved it. For a small kid, 5'10, maybe 160 he hit 4 HR's his senior year with it. His college had Rawlings...he was not a fan
@TerribleBPthrower posted:Marucci seemed to hit it out of the park with the Cat7. They are still producing the same bat, just different color schemes, years later and still selling a ton of them.
the baseballbatbros on youtube just put out a video saying that, in their opinion, the cat 6 was very similar to the cat9 and that both are "better" (again, in their opionion) than the 7 or 8.
I seen some stuff on youtube( always a bad idea) , but decided to order a Stinger Nuke. Anybody here have any experience with this bat at BBCOR 33/30. ?
I've heard a few kids rave about the Stinger Nuke. Those smaller bat brands make me nervous though. It is tough to tell what their response would be if they have breaks or are decertified.
@Adams Baseball posted:I seen some stuff on youtube( always a bad idea) , but decided to order a Stinger Nuke. Anybody here have any experience with this bat at BBCOR 33/30. ?
Let us know your thoughts once you get that bat. I know the Baseball Bat Bros rave about how good of a bat it is for the price.
Don't know if anyone else got this (not best of all time but might help with folks looking to buy one this year):
They did not have BBCOR back in my day so I'll relay what my son has used. A few years ago in 7th grade he swung a 32" Rawlings Velo. He hit it well, but he never really liked the bat and was always trying other bats. The way he was hitting it I thought it was a great bat. His teammates loved it.
He didn't play 8th grade ball this year because of COVID, but he's preparing for freshman ball now and I just ordered him a Marucci CAT8 Connect Black. Back in travel ball he hit a CAT7 USSSA bat and loved it so I'm hoping he's happy with the CAT8 he finds under the Christmas tree this year.
Does anyone have an opinion on the Omaha 517? ITT seems a lot of FSU players use it, including freshman
The red one? My kid still refuses to give up his 32, so there could be something there
Baseball Bat Bros just did a comparison between the Easton B5 (new old green bat) and the old yellow Easton XL3. The XL3 was the clear winner. Look for there to be a run on that bat on eBay.
@2022NYC posted:The red one? My kid still refuses to give up his 32, so there could be something there
Yep. That’s the one. I never see it mentioned on these lists but always see FSU guys using it year after year
So I always wondered how many people actually pay $1k or more for the red Meta. Apparently a lot. Took my son to his hitting yesterday. A bunch of D1 players and commits were using them. It was strange to not see them using wood for the first time in a very long time. Out of 15 or so dudes, there was 1 The Goods and 1 old Easton. The dude using the Easton was absolutely destroying balls. Exit velo routinely in the 100's.
So I bought my 18 yr old a 33” 30oz Stinger Nuke for Christmas and took it out to field a couple days ago to just take some swings off the tee and all I can say is wow!!!!! First swing and a little smile came on his face....that never happens lol. The bat is definitely endloaded but he says it swings extremely smooth. The handle is pretty thin and tapers to a nice sized knob...just the right size to whip the bat through the zone. He wanted to just have some fun and take some daddy swings at the field and hit 2 that went 385’...he marked them off. He said he was swinging about 85% effort and since it was cold outside, the ball didn’t carry as much as in Warner temperatures. If your son is looking for an endloaded bat that has high performance then this might be the bat for you...and it is a little over $200...unbelievable deal!
