My HS BBCOR bat prediction

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by Shelby:

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by lambo:
BBCOR is a step in the right direction for high school and college baseball. It will expose the weaker hitters or hitters who may have used the "juiced" bats as a crutch.

But, if you can hit you can hit and these bats are still better than wood for sure. The more you use them the more you get the feel for them and will no longer notice the difference. From my expierence with them the good hitters still had good numbers and good power numbers, it just refines your skills as a hitter and will prepare you for the next level.

Like you said, this is going to expose a lot with players. I always said, the ability a player has with wood can transfer to aluminum but not the other way around. Homeruns will happen this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...index=1&feature=plcp

...and the next question that our power hitter is gonna wanna know after these 2 posts & video clip..... WHAT BAT WAS HE USING?

LOL @ Shelby, in all honesty, that would be my quesition as well. And the answer is.... Rawlings 5150

MOM WINS!! MOM WINS!!! I never win the bet! Has been researching what bat to get. I told him to get either - Rawlings: 5150, 5150-VELO 2012 or Machine! Love it when that happens! And with a 16 yr. old...that isn't often! I usually just walk away away from our "debates"...saying "You Win"...just to end the conversation!

Listen BBCOR bats are dead. You can hear it. If you hold an Exo with two fingers by the knob. Take a baseball and tap it along the barrel.... ping ping ping and Thunk when you get to the sweet spot. They put disks in to make the bat dead.

No majic swing is going to make them perform like the BESR bats. Because if you hit both types of bats the same the BESR is going to make the ball go farther.

We have a kid on the team that plays for a scout team and they use wood. He says he can hit the ball farther with wood than he can with BBCOR.

You can't make metal perform like wood.

Welcome to the dead bat era.

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Originally posted by Shelby:

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by Shelby:

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by lambo:
BBCOR is a step in the right direction for high school and college baseball. It will expose the weaker hitters or hitters who may have used the "juiced" bats as a crutch.

But, if you can hit you can hit and these bats are still better than wood for sure. The more you use them the more you get the feel for them and will no longer notice the difference. From my expierence with them the good hitters still had good numbers and good power numbers, it just refines your skills as a hitter and will prepare you for the next level.

Like you said, this is going to expose a lot with players. I always said, the ability a player has with wood can transfer to aluminum but not the other way around. Homeruns will happen this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...index=1&feature=plcp

...and the next question that our power hitter is gonna wanna know after these 2 posts & video clip..... WHAT BAT WAS HE USING?

LOL @ Shelby, in all honesty, that would be my quesition as well. And the answer is.... Rawlings 5150

MOM WINS!! MOM WINS!!! I never win the bet! Has been researching what bat to get. I told him to get either - Rawlings: 5150, 5150-VELO 2012 or Machine! Love it when that happens! And with a 16 yr. old...that isn't often! I usually just walk away away from our "debates"...saying "You Win"...just to end the conversation!

LOL Just tell him you just hit a walk off HR and he was pitching.

Through 10 games we have already hit 8 home runs..all over 320 feet. Good hitters will still hit, weak hitters will be exposed.

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by Shelby:

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by Shelby:

quote:

Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by lambo:
BBCOR is a step in the right direction for high school and college baseball. It will expose the weaker hitters or hitters who may have used the "juiced" bats as a crutch.

But, if you can hit you can hit and these bats are still better than wood for sure. The more you use them the more you get the feel for them and will no longer notice the difference. From my expierence with them the good hitters still had good numbers and good power numbers, it just refines your skills as a hitter and will prepare you for the next level.

Like you said, this is going to expose a lot with players. I always said, the ability a player has with wood can transfer to aluminum but not the other way around. Homeruns will happen this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...index=1&feature=plcp

...and the next question that our power hitter is gonna wanna know after these 2 posts & video clip..... WHAT BAT WAS HE USING?

LOL @ Shelby, in all honesty, that would be my quesition as well. And the answer is.... Rawlings 5150

MOM WINS!! MOM WINS!!! I never win the bet! Has been researching what bat to get. I told him to get either - Rawlings: 5150, 5150-VELO 2012 or Machine! Love it when that happens! And with a 16 yr. old...that isn't often! I usually just walk away away from our "debates"...saying "You Win"...just to end the conversation!

LOL Just tell him you just hit a walk off HR and he was pitching.

I WILL! And he's a Pitcher!!! He'll just love that! Ha!

5 games - zero home runs on either side.

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Originally posted by coachbyrd:
Through 10 games we have already hit 8 home runs..all over 320 feet. Good hitters will still hit, weak hitters will be exposed.

I agree.
Our team has 10 thru 8 games. One kid has 5, one has 3 and another 2. And all with 3 different bats Marucci black-5, voodoo-3, Exogrid-2

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Originally posted by Shelby:

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Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

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Originally posted by Shelby:

quote:

Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

quote:

Originally posted by Shelby:

quote:

Originally posted by LOVINGIT:

quote:

Originally posted by lambo:
BBCOR is a step in the right direction for high school and college baseball. It will expose the weaker hitters or hitters who may have used the "juiced" bats as a crutch.

But, if you can hit you can hit and these bats are still better than wood for sure. The more you use them the more you get the feel for them and will no longer notice the difference. From my expierence with them the good hitters still had good numbers and good power numbers, it just refines your skills as a hitter and will prepare you for the next level.

Like you said, this is going to expose a lot with players. I always said, the ability a player has with wood can transfer to aluminum but not the other way around. Homeruns will happen this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...index=1&feature=plcp

...and the next question that our power hitter is gonna wanna know after these 2 posts & video clip..... WHAT BAT WAS HE USING?

LOL @ Shelby, in all honesty, that would be my quesition as well. And the answer is.... Rawlings 5150

MOM WINS!! MOM WINS!!! I never win the bet! Has been researching what bat to get. I told him to get either - Rawlings: 5150, 5150-VELO 2012 or Machine! Love it when that happens! And with a 16 yr. old...that isn't often! I usually just walk away away from our "debates"...saying "You Win"...just to end the conversation!

LOL Just tell him you just hit a walk off HR and he was pitching.

I WILL! And he's a Pitcher!!! He'll just love that! Ha!

Here's another you can show him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...index=1&feature=plcp

My son's team started using BBCOR and woodies last year and the coach made them play summer and fall Legion ball with them as well. Sure, the number of HRs is lower and balls dies like a dead duck, but as a mechanical engineer and the father of a pitcher, I disagree with the safety argument. Tests consistently show the ball, at best, comes off the bat 10% slower than off a juiced bat. That really won't make much difference in pitcher safety. A line drive off a woodie will do just as much damage to a pitcher's face. BBCOR brings the center of percussion (aka sweet spot) down so the marginal hitters need don't get rewarded for poorly hit balls and they need to improve their fundamentals. Overall, it is good for the game.

We live Tenn. I saw four HR's in a scrimmage last Sat. One kid was a Georgia Tech singee another a Vandy signee. Both were no doubter's 400-410 feet. It was 55 degrees. Pitchers throwing low to mid 80's

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Originally posted by Ninthmanout:
bballdad175

The game was on at the end of the last season. Don't remember the channel 600 something on DirectV.

PGStaff,

What you say about frequency of hard hits coming back to the pitch is true.... today. But I have yet to see a rule restricting the size of the sweet spot.
As the bat makers get the engineering down you will see the sweet spot increasing in size. Marucci Black and Rip-It Prototype II come to mind as far as increased size of the sweet spot.

By the way .... my son's ExoGrid2 just developed a really bad sounding vibration after only 7 months of light use. We got it in July after his summer season for a Showcase that required BBCOR bats. Since then he has only used it for a few prospect camps and this season a total of 7 ABs. Batting practice was mostly wood. LS has to do better.
I just ordered him a Rip-IT 33.5 inch. Sent back the Exo and will most likely sell it at a discount.

*Rip-It Prototype II*
Well...after struggling to locate one of these bats...end cap cracked completely! Firstswing...and it wasn't even by our son! He still thinks he wants one. Will try and replace it & see... Otherwise

gonna get our 2013 (5'11" / 190 lb.) Power Hitter, the Rawlings (2012) 5150 Velo or Machine

quote:

Originally posted by Shelby:

quote:

Originally posted by Ninthmanout:
bballdad175

The game was on at the end of the last season. Don't remember the channel 600 something on DirectV.

PGStaff,

What you say about frequency of hard hits coming back to the pitch is true.... today. But I have yet to see a rule restricting the size of the sweet spot.
As the bat makers get the engineering down you will see the sweet spot increasing in size. Marucci Black and Rip-It Prototype II come to mind as far as increased size of the sweet spot.

By the way .... my son's ExoGrid2 just developed a really bad sounding vibration after only 7 months of light use. We got it in July after his summer season for a Showcase that required BBCOR bats. Since then he has only used it for a few prospect camps and this season a total of 7 ABs. Batting practice was mostly wood. LS has to do better.
I just ordered him a Rip-IT 33.5 inch. Sent back the Exo and will most likely sell it at a discount.

*Rip-It Prototype II*
Well...after struggling to locate one of these bats...end cap cracked completely! First swing...and it wasn't even by our son! He still thinks he wants one. Will try and replace it & see... Otherwise

gonna get our 2013 (5'11" / 190 lb.) Power Hitter, the Rawlings (2012) 5150 Velo or Machine

quote:

Originally posted by Sonoman:
My son's team started using BBCOR and woodies last year and the coach made them play summer and fall Legion ball with them as well. Sure, the number of HRs is lower and balls dies like a dead duck, but as a mechanical engineer and the father of a pitcher, I disagree with the safety argument. Tests consistently show the ball, at best, comes off the bat 10% slower than off a juiced bat. That really won't make much difference in pitcher safety. A line drive off a woodie will do just as much damage to a pitcher's face. BBCOR brings the center of percussion (aka sweet spot) down so the marginal hitters need don't get rewarded for poorly hit balls and they need to improve their fundamentals. Overall, it is good for the game.

I'm going to disagree with you about the safety issue.

You pointed out that less than squared up balls will be hit poorly. Even mi**** balls up the middle would come off the bats pretty quickly under the BESR standard. Now, balls will have to be squared up properly to get the distance needed. I have seen it with my own kid, a 14 year old. He can still hit that mi**** stuff up the middle but it doesn't have nearly the velocity of balls that he hits properly.

The slap hitters that used to just go up and punch the ball right back at the pitcher will be at a disadvantage. The bats will be less forgiving and those guys that relied on the bat doing the work will find those shots up the middle are either handled by the pitcher or are dribbling to where the 2nd baseman can handle it.

Overall the risk will decrease although you are right, big kids that swing properly will still be able to hit the snot out of the ball. But the days of just sticking the bat out there and having it fly right back at the pitcher will be limited.

2013's team played their first two games of the season over the weekend, against two very strong hitting teams.

Total of four extra-base hits(3-2B, 1-3B)

We also noticed that the infield errors were almost non-existent because balls didn't seem to travel as quickly, although double plays were still turned.

For me, the safety issue is less about balls back up the middle, but rather arm safety. BBCOR, just like wood, puts pitching, not throwing back into the equation.

Pitchers that change speeds, hit spots and keep the ball off of the barrel will again have success, unlike with BESR where jam shots and hits off of the end of the bat still travel far.

Our ace on our HS team just threw a complete game last week with less than 80 pitches... lots of ground balls and good defense. We won 3-0 where last year we were never in a shutout or a game where the winner scored less than 5 runs.

Less pitches thrown by pitchers, especially less stressful situations, will help arm health dramatically.

Today, I Saw a dinger pulled down the LF line for 2 runs @ 325'

Same game, I saw a ball hit to the fence at 375' would have been a home run last year but stayed in the yard today, weather was 45 degrees with intermittent rain.

Gotta love baseball in Washington

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Originally posted by northwest:
, I'm here to tell you there will be fewer than 40 home runs in the entire state of WA this HS season.

I counted up the HRs in Washington 4A Kingco, Northwest's league and arguably the strongest baseball division in the state. Through roughly 4 games each for the 11 teams, there have been a total of 4 homeruns. Runs per game and batting averages are way, way down. The weather has been low 40s and wet which hasn't helped.

The coaches all saw this coming, but some have seemed to adjust their game strategy more than others.

3 games so far... have seen:
2 HR's
Several legitimate Triples & Doubles
Ground-rule Doubles too!

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Originally posted by Primary:

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Originally posted by northwest:
, I'm here to tell you there will be fewer than 40 home runs in the entire state of WA this HS season.

I counted up the HRs in Washington 4A Kingco, Northwest's league and arguably the strongest baseball division in the state. Through roughly 4 games each for the 11 teams, there have been a total of 4 homeruns. Runs per game and batting averages are way, way down. The weather has been low 40s and wet which hasn't helped.

The coaches all saw this coming, but some have seemed to adjust
their game strategy more than others.

From BBCOR Manufacturer's sites & reviews...
BBCOR bats are not made to play in temps under 50 degrees. Can crack. Produce even worse than normal. Dig out the wood, in those temps. Some have found that Manufacturer's will not cover a bat, under its warranty, if consumer states the below 50 degrees, when damage to the bat occurred.

Watched my son's first freshman game today. The #3 and 4 hitters on his team both hit dingers - a three run homer and a grand slam - well over 320. There were a number of kids that had some trouble getting it out of the infield, but I saw some really good swings from both sides that made the ball travel. Yeah, it's different, but not that much different as far as I coul tell.

My sons team had another HR last game. A shot pulled down the LF line 320', the ball traveled a lot further than that. So far my kid has just missed two HR's that would have gone out last year, both off the fence at about the 360' mark in left center.

OK, I admit to being a bit of a numbers weenie. I went through the team stats again for my son's league looking for tendencies that show how the game has changed now that the BBCOR era has started. I will illustrate using 3 schools all located within a few miles of each other, all filled with kids who train in the same places and play in the same summer leagues.

One team is in 1st place, one mid-pack, and one at the bottom. The funniest thing is that pitching appears to be about equal at all 3. Two pieces of data are glaring.

Stolen bases: 18 for top team, 13 for mid, 3 for last place. Coaches had been talking that overall team speed will make a difference, but the early indication is that speed is HUGE.

Unearned runs: 2 for top team, 1 for mid, 13 for the cellar dweller. With runs per game being way down, defense might not win games, but it can definitely lose them. The days of defense giving away 3 or 4 runs then making up for it with HRs are over. Speed, I'm sure, somehow factors into this as well.

Season homeruns, by the way, stand at 0/0/1 for the 3 teams.

also. Bad teams usually have bad catchers. The green light is on all day. Every walk is a double.

Through 5 games my son's varsity squad has 2 HR's. One was hit straightaway dead center (375'+) and the other over LF (330'+). Neither batter is known for being "power" hitters.

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Originally posted by trojan-skipper:
also. Bad teams usually have bad catchers. The green light is on all day. Every walk is a double.

Just to address this, top to bottom it is tough to run in this league and requires some speed; most steals are from guys running sub-4.0 30 times. Some teams do post defensive stats on steals against and runners thrown out, but not all teams do. Of the ones that do, the good catchers seem to be kind of randomly distributed, so total steals against, or steals % against, does not predict team success even though I thought it would. I will keep an eye out for this as we get deeper into the season.

Weather was a little warmer today, it might have hit 60 degrees. A kid on my son's team squared one up and hit a solo shot about 390', no doubt as soon as it left the bat, that's four for the season with 8 games played (for the team).

Primary,

How do those numbers compare to the same teams for say the last 3 seasons using BESR bats?

Typically I find that running is more of a philosophy by the HC than whether there's a lot of team speed. We’re 37 out of 45 in 12 games so far this season, while our opponents are 7 out of 15. Believe me, we don’t have a great deal of speed, but we have a coach who is very aggressive on the bases. And I can’t believe out opponents won’t run on our catcher, a So with a much poorer than average arm. And what’s crazy is, our C only has 1 CS. All the rest were POCSs.

Its great fun to discuss it, but I think its still much more dependent on the coach than anything else.

So I looked up the stats for the teams in my examples from last year. The top team is scoring about the same number of runs as last year with about the same strategy - singles and aggressive base running. The middle team is running a bit more, and scoring a bit more than last year.

The last place team (no longer in last due to some good pitching outings and more solid defense) is running a bit less. Last year's team scored a ton of runs on HRs hit while playing station-station baseball. Their scoring is less than half of last year, 3 runs/game instead of over 7.

As the 2012 season (first year of BBCOR in my area) is coming to a close, we now have a large enough sample size to make meaningful comparisons. Here are the results for one local league compared to the average of 2009-2011:

Batting Average: Down 6%
Runs per Game: Down 12%
Hits per Game: Down 6%
Double per Game: Down 19%
Home Runs per Game: Down 70%
Earned Run Average: Down 16%

Looking at the league leaders' stats, it seems that the best hitters still have good individual power numbers but the BBCOR bats have drastically reduced the "cheap" doubles and home runs that we used to see with BESR.

I only know of 1 home run by a JV kid last week here in northern Ohio. Our outfield fence is 440' all the way around. 3 run shot to DEEP Left Center.

ONE this whole season. I did read somewhere that at a certain low temp., the BBCOR50 bats will shatter(Composite Bats). I dont know. I like a nice wooden bat. Like you hear everywhere, Only the strong survive. They are trying to prove it to everyone with the new bat rule.
Swing Harder!!!

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Originally posted by GsKaWa:
I only know of 1 home run by a JV kid last week here in northern Ohio. Our outfield fence is 440' all the way around. 3 run shot to DEEP Left Center...

440' all around???
Who the heck designed the field the soxxer & LAX coaches??

My sophmore son got his 4th Friday night to put team in playoffs. Just because I love talikng about my son's good days, I have a link below showing the hit. It went about 100' past the fence, which shows him finally hitting the sweet spot. He probably would have got 2 or 3 more this year with previous bat.

Please ignore my yelling but I could not help myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...E8y4cut2zQ_1xkhanVw=

That was a nice long shot, don't blame you for yelling, I know I get excited too! Congratulations!

Nice shot, and cheering is what it is all about. After all, that is why we watch our kids right.

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Originally posted by Aleebaba:
My sophmore son got his 4th Friday night to put team in playoffs. Just because I love talikng about my son's good days, I have a link below showing the hit. It went about 100' past the fence, which shows him finally hitting the sweet spot. He probably would have got 2 or 3 more this year with previous bat.

Please ignore my yelling but I could not help myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...E8y4cut2zQ_1xkhanVw=

I believe I have a better screamer. LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAiSfWSFRJ8

Nice shot congrats!

Good job on screaming, but I think I acted more like an idiot. Was first ball foul over the fence?

We finished our last regular season game last night, and here are our #'s compared to last year playing baically the same teams. We also finished in the same spot in our district ranking.

Offensively: OB%, AVG, Slugging%, and runs scored were almost unchanged. The biggest stat for us was that our hitters strikeouts were cut in half (maybe more pitchers went after hitters this year, or mayber we just hit better). We were not a big offensive team anyway the last two years. We averaged 4.75runs/game this year. So, I think the bat changes helped our team.

Defensively: Our team ERA was down from 4.08 last year to 2.50 this year.

Overall: We have 5 more wins this year than last.

This is my first post and I could not agree more with the use of BBCOR requirement. Just yesterday, the opposing team to my son team was caught using a fully composite bat - almost all the players using it one after another and my son's coach felt suspicious. The opposing team's coach was thrown out and you can see a big difference in the players' swing after that. It differentiates a good hitter from a bad hitter who depended on the high tech stuff. I have never believed in the composite bat as it teaches really bad habit. I told my kid that if you want a home run, train hard and approach it the right way. My son is 13 and is playing in the big field for the first time. He is using one of those cheap alloy -3 bats. Last year in the smaller field, he had 12 home runs in 22 games. My son asked when he would get one this year. I told him if he gets one HR this, it will be a big accomplishment, bigger than all he did last year - just train hard and listen to your coach on the fine points of hitting; he would try to take big swing, too early etc. in trying to reach the fence and coach said no.

bball123, welcome to the site. You need to list more info, details such as, what affiliation is your son playing under..LL, Cal Ripken etc..What bat was being used, there are legal full composite bats. In most youth leagues BESR bats are still aloowed at his age level.