I love wood bats, but I was talking to a 17u kid playing the Atlanta tournament this week and he openly wondered why they were playing with wood bats when they play BBCOR the rest of the year and HS's and colleges play BBCOR. Is it the novelty? Is it for the scouts?
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Because wood bats are unforgiving of bad swing mechanics (I.e. They break) whereas there is no repercussion for that with a metal bat, which doesn't break. Yes, once in a while a bat will break due to flaws in the bat, but it's usually not due to an overpowering pitcher, it's because the player isn't able to get around on a pitch and square it up.
My considered opinion is...mostly they are for the novelty. At least in anything less than 17u.
We used wood bats for 17 years in the Area Code games and tryouts. The pro scouts requested and I preferred. It is a great tool for evaluating a hitter. Over 1,000 games all within the 2 hour time limit.
When you have 6 games per day on one field "time management is critical",
Bob Williams
Consultant posted:We used wood bats for 17 years in the Area Code games and tryouts. The pro scouts requested and I preferred. It is a great tool for evaluating a hitter. Over 1,000 games all within the 2 hour time limit.
When you have 6 games per day on one field "time management is critical",
Bob Williams
Never thought about it from a time management POV.
I actually want my son to play with wood (well, a Baum) for his -3 bat at 14u. I wonder how much more pop a BBCOR has than a wood, although they are supposed to be close in performance.
Elijah posted:
Never thought about it from a time management POV.
You have to understand that 2 decades ago, non-wood bats performed very very differently than they do now, so it made a great deal of sense to try to limit the offense in those kinds of venues where time management was critical.
How true that is now with BBCOR performing so much like wood is debatable.
Batty67 posted:
My considered opinion is...mostly they are for the novelty. At least in anything less than 17u.
I think limiting the novelty of it to 17U isn’t limiting enough. It’s really only meaningful to the very best players who have even the remotest chance of being drafted in venues where they’re being evaluated for that purpose.
Goodwill Series and the Australia "World Showcase" recently completed a 16 team "travel team" Tournament. We used WOOD bats, not because of a "novelty", but because I insisted on wood as I have for 34 years. There was NO complaints from Coaches, players or parents. Only 2 broken bats. The 16 teams from Australia and Northern California played 32 games.
The players ages 14-18 enjoyed the competition. The temp was 95º during the week. All parents were positive as their son's were learning the game.
Bob
Have any pitching coaches ever complained it's harder to judge potential college success given it's easier to get hitters out with wood? I'm not talking about 90+ pitchers.
You stand 60-100 feet away from someone swinging BESR, BBCOR, and Wood - there's definitely a different sound and exit velocity and hence reaction time to make a play or get out of the way. When well hit/struck it's been said that BBCOR and wood are very similar with some hitters preferring the feel of wood. BUT, not that many balls are that well hit and since metal is far more forgiving than wood there is the possibility of more "cheap hits" off a metal bat than there is off a wood bat. The wood bat breaks, the metal bat gets the ball "somewhere" in one of those no man's triangles. How many "good" fielding chances would be possible if it was wood instead of BBCOR? Who really knows, because it's impossible to play out the same exact scenarios. However, when you go to a game played with wood - it feels like a far more natural game, the game generally moves along more quickly, and the emphasis shifts from being able to "just" get a bat on the ball to being able to make a pitch or a play in order to fly the W. A few years ago NH Legion went wood bat - 9 inning games that used to take 3+ hours to complete were now being played crisply around the 2H mark. Are there exceptions, absolutely, but those would either be 20+ run differentials in a metal game or games that lasted 4 hours with absurdly high number of runs.
RJM posted:Have any pitching coaches ever complained it's harder to judge potential college success given it's easier to get hitters out with wood? I'm not talking about 90+ pitchers.
This is actually a great question, it is virtually impossible to argue the pro side of the hitting argument with losing this side of con argument...wood bats have become kind of cult like and nobody is going to change their opinion anyway!
Actually when kids stop playing baseball because LL / Ripken / Insurance companies have banned metal bats...and the wood becomes detrimental to the bottom line...they will go away! What the scouts want won't really matter at that point.
Consultant posted:Goodwill Series and the Australia "World Showcase" recently completed a 16 team "travel team" Tournament. We used WOOD bats, not because of a "novelty", but because I insisted on wood as I have for 34 years. There was NO complaints from Coaches, players or parents. Only 2 broken bats. The 16 teams from Australia and Northern California played 32 games.
The players ages 14-18 enjoyed the competition. The temp was 95º during the week. All parents were positive as their son's were learning the game.
Bob
Well, that's still my opinion. Note, I did not comment on whether using a wood bat for "novelty" is a good or bad thing. But in general, at 16u or lower, it is a novelty. But it WILL speed up games at tournaments (and likely bat sales).
My 2017 catcher just graduated and is playing in a mens wood bat league this summer to prepare for club try outs at Virginia Tech. He's adjusted nicely but it is an adjustment, metal to wood. I've found MUCH less of an adjustment wood to metal.
JohnF posted:
You stand 60-100 feet away from someone swinging BESR, BBCOR, and Wood - there's definitely a different sound and exit velocity and hence reaction time to make a play or get out of the way. When well hit/struck it's been said that BBCOR and wood are very similar with some hitters preferring the feel of wood.
In general I agree, but why include BESR bates?
The reason “it’s been said that BBCOR and wood are very similar” is because it’s been proven scientifically. However, there isn’t any doubt some hitters prefer the feel of hitting with wood, just as there are some who prefer the feel of hitting with metal, and some who don’t really prefer either.
BUT, not that many balls are that well hit and since metal is far more forgiving than wood there is the possibility of more "cheap hits" off a metal bat than there is off a wood bat. The wood bat breaks, the metal bat gets the ball "somewhere" in one of those no man's triangles. How many "good" fielding chances would be possible if it was wood instead of BBCOR? Who really knows, because it's impossible to play out the same exact scenarios.
I know there’s a “perception” that because metal bats don’t break when mishit, a lot more “cheap hits” take place, but that’s a perception that has absolutely no basis in fact. The implication is there are no cheap hits when using wood, but as anyone who watches much wood bat baseball can say if s/he’s being honest, there are one a lot of cheap hits with wood too.
However, when you go to a game played with wood - it feels like a far more natural game, the game generally moves along more quickly, and the emphasis shifts from being able to "just" get a bat on the ball to being able to make a pitch or a play in order to fly the W. A few years ago NH Legion went wood bat - 9 inning games that used to take 3+ hours to complete were now being played crisply around the 2H mark. Are there exceptions, absolutely, but those would either be 20+ run differentials in a metal game or games that lasted 4 hours with absurdly high number of runs.
I have to be honest and say I don’t really care what kind of bat is being used when I’m watching a game because I’m not there to see the bats. 
But where do you see the emphasis “being able to "just" get a bat on the ball to being able to make a pitch or a play in order to fly the W.” The only venues I can think of are levels where BBCOR isn’t the standard for metal.
I’m curious. Did the NH legion change before or after BBCOR became the standard for HS and college?
I’m not at all against wood! In fact, I hate any non-wood standard that isn’t BBCOR. But since BBCOR has come about, a lot of the things that gave non-wood such an advantage have disappeared, even though there are many folks who still confuse BESR non-wood and BBCOR non-wood.
Consultant posted:
Goodwill Series and the Australia "World Showcase" recently completed a 16 team "travel team" Tournament. We used WOOD bats, not because of a "novelty", but because I insisted on wood as I have for 34 years. There was NO complaints from Coaches, players or parents. Only 2 broken bats. The 16 teams from Australia and Northern California played 32 games.
The players ages 14-18 enjoyed the competition. The temp was 95º during the week. All parents were positive as their son's were learning the game.
Your implication is the players wouldn’t have enjoyed the competition and the parent’s would have thought their son’s weren’t learning the game if non-wood was used. Is that what you really believe?
Batty67 posted:
Well, that's still my opinion. Note, I did not comment on whether using a wood bat for "novelty" is a good or bad thing. But in general, at 16u or lower, it is a novelty. But it WILL speed up games at tournaments (and likely bat sales).
My 2017 catcher just graduated and is playing in a mens wood bat league this summer to prepare for club try outs at Virginia Tech. He's adjusted nicely but it is an adjustment, metal to wood. I've found MUCH less of an adjustment wood to metal.
I think it’s a shame that when someone doesn’t jump on the wood bat bandwagon, even though they don’t in any way take a negative wood position, they’re looked at as being somehow ignorant or anti REAL baseball.
I posit that the only venues using wood speeds up play is where the non-wood standard isn’t BBCOR.
Does club ball at VT only use wood?
When you organize your own tournament you can set the rules. "Free pencils with erasers and coffee for the scorekeeper"
Bob
We train with wood bats in the off-season from 13U on. The sweet spot is a bit smaller with a wood bat than BBCOR and there is something organic about the feel of hitting with a wood bat compared to metal. My players really enjoy wood bat leagues and tournaments. It doesn't matter whether they are D3 players or the type who may eventually have a shot at getting drafted.
World
Wood
Bat
Association
That's why. 
Plus regardless of what some might say. If you can hit with wood you can hit with metal. If you can hit with metal you can hit with metal.
Elijah posted:I love wood bats, but I was talking to a 17u kid playing the Atlanta tournament this week and he openly wondered why they were playing with wood bats when they play BBCOR the rest of the year and HS's and colleges play BBCOR. Is it the novelty? Is it for the scouts?
Elijah - as the father of 3 former pitchers. I loved wood bats. Love the sound. Loved it when my sons would whistle a fastball in on the hands and make that thing shatter into many pieces. It makes a Daddy proud.
IMHO - wood bats have their place, and aspiring high schoolers wanting to play college ball (at a showcase tournament) is not the place for wood bats. So, why on God's green earth would you do it? In my world, that is like making an aspiring college tennis player play with a wood racket. It makes no sense to me. I'd want to see the high school kid hit with the tools he's trained with, and potentially going to use in college....I agree with the young man who shared that opinion with you. I do see wood bat showcases as a novelty, and it has never made sense to me. The logic escapes me unless it is the tournament organizers desire to move more games along by limiting offense, and allowing more teams to participate. BTW...son's team won the WWBA 16U in 2008. it was a fantastic experience.
On the other hand, I do see why some high schoolers aspiring to play professional baseball should be playing with a wood bat at Showcases and tournaments. That is a no brainer. I do believe that is for the scouts and I completely understand why.
As always, JMO.
There is no doubt in my mind after watching my son hit for just 1 season with BBCOR and Wood (in a few tournaments) that wood bats are not nearly as responsive. He has occasionally hit a wood bat nearly as far but because BBCOR are so much more forgiving he simply hits better harder and more consistently with it. I found it ridiculous that there are Organizations running 9-13u tournaments with wood bats (e.g. USSSA Marucci). After the novelty wears off it's just less interesting. I guess the hope is that kids will go out and buy wood bats after the tournament but I don't think it works. The kids HATED using the wood bats.
I had a player at 14u who demanded to use a wood bat in BP and during games. I asked his parents about it and they said that they felt it was important for his development to use wood on his travel team through high school (some misguided trainer had told them). This persisted and he went from our most productive power hitter to a kid who hit .200, maybe. We moved him down to 8. His parents complained and I showed them the numbers. He continued to slde down the order, all the way to 9 or 10 with an EH and if the very last tournament used a metal bat and hit about .400 for the tournament. They of course said it was because he had used the wood bat prior to that time. After the season we cut him and told them it was because he didn't produce, wood bat or no wood bat. I understand they tried the same thing in HS ball and he got cut at tryouts when the coaches told him to use a regular bat. Some people are just nuts.
at that age '13 and under' baseball is learning and development of the player's and the coaches skills. Since only 1 of three will play later at age 16, it is best to use the BBCOR not more than 3 ounce difference.
PS: when I was in HS in Adrian, MI. our bats were wood and made by a wood bat maker from the local maple tree. 34" 34 ounce.
Bob
Stats4Gnats posted:I posit that the only venues using wood speeds up play is where the non-wood standard isn’t BBCOR.
Does club ball at VT only use wood?
Anecdotally, and I realize that might be anathema to you, balls just don't travel as fast or as far off wood bats over BBCOR. Not by a lot, since they perform similarly, but enough to make a difference in the pacing of a game.
Nope. Just that the team /league he joined for the summer use wood bats.
Goblue33 posted:There is no doubt in my mind after watching my son hit for just 1 season with BBCOR and Wood (in a few tournaments) that wood bats are not nearly as responsive. He has occasionally hit a wood bat nearly as far but because BBCOR are so much more forgiving he simply hits better harder and more consistently with it. I found it ridiculous that there are Organizations running 9-13u tournaments with wood bats (e.g. USSSA Marucci). After the novelty wears off it's just less interesting. I guess the hope is that kids will go out and buy wood bats after the tournament but I don't think it works. The kids HATED using the wood bats.
I had a player at 14u who demanded to use a wood bat in BP and during games. I asked his parents about it and they said that they felt it was important for his development to use wood on his travel team through high school (some misguided trainer had told them). This persisted and he went from our most productive power hitter to a kid who hit .200, maybe. We moved him down to 8. His parents complained and I showed them the numbers. He continued to slde down the order, all the way to 9 or 10 with an EH and if the very last tournament used a metal bat and hit about .400 for the tournament. They of course said it was because he had used the wood bat prior to that time. After the season we cut him and told them it was because he didn't produce, wood bat or no wood bat. I understand they tried the same thing in HS ball and he got cut at tryouts when the coaches told him to use a regular bat. Some people are just nuts.
Something to think about. I don't want him to be at a disadvantage, so I am not going to force son to use wood during games. Besides, everytime he hits it less than solid will be blamed on the bat (and me).
Coach May gets the prize for the correct answer!!!!
Coach_May posted:World
Wood
Bat
Association
That's why.
Plus regardless of what some might say. If you can hit with wood you can hit with metal. If you can hit with metal you can hit with metal.
It kills me to disagree with you Coach, but PG's 13U WwBA tournaments allow metal bats. And the other PG WWBA age groups allow 13 different wood composite bats, which doesn't pass the purity test for me.
HST, I spent the day watching a collegiate league double header, and I thoroughly enjoy the game played with one piece wood bats.
Could it be that is just fun? Every boy that has picked up a bat, has dreamed of hitting in the 7th game of the world series. 9th ininning Down 2 to 1 with a man on second and two outs. Three and 2 count, and hitting a home run.
For a young man it is not always about development. Most of those young men enjoy hitting with wood. And when it comes down to it, those young men are the tournament directors customer.
JMO.
Yes development is very important. But if it is not fun what's the point. Most of those young men will not play after High School and fewer after college. Every young man should strive to play at the highest level, but if there is no fun what's the point?
It seems these days everything has to have a purpose.
Good post BLD, let the kids have fun.
TPM posted:It seems these days everything has to have a purpose.
Good post BLD, let the kids have fun.
Heck it's fun for me as well. Some of my favorite summers were watching my players play rec ball, were fun was the main purpose. My recent graduate is playing in a local men's league, and seeing a huge smile on his face when he pitches is more fun than anything.
TPM posted:It seems these days everything has to have a purpose.
Good post BLD, let the kids have fun.
You think PG chose to use wood bats for this tournament randomly without purpose? You think this tournament is about fun? My son and I spend a good deal of time at a hitting facility in the Atlanta area. It has been fun engaging with the dads and moms of these players (at this 17u tournament) as we watch the kids hit. Our discussions seem to gravitate to me listening to them worry about whether or not their son will get a chance to be seen by someone. I agree that it should be fun. It is also about getting noticed and being recruited (so I have been told).
I have heard for a few years now, "Wood is played in the summer." Still, I would find it interesting to hear the thought process behind hosting 492 teams and taking the style of bat away from kids that will surely put them in a worse position to do well presumably in front of scouts and recruiters. It makes sense to me for the higher profile PG tournaments with players that project to a higher level. A tournament with 492 teams makes me wonder. I could be dead wrong about that. Still learning, hence the questions. I enjoy hearing PGStaff's responses on this forum. Maybe he will weigh in here.
Thanks to this site and others ahead of me in the process, it is nice to be reminded of having fun and enjoying the moment. I just don't think PG built this tournament with fun leading the board.
I think your reply made my point.
Listen, we have been through it, the showcases, the tournaments ( yes I do agree 390 + teams is too much for everyone), the rain, more rain, reshuffling, etc. I feel for you.
When you realize your son isnt having fun its time to stop and think about what you are trying to achieve. If you are standing around a game and hoping someone will notice your son, and having high anxiety because your son is having trouble with wood, you need to check yourself back at the gate. I am saying this because I have been there.
As far as wood, it is more fun for pitchers than hitters, I agree. But if you introduce your hitter to wood early, they will learn to adapt better. This doesnt apply to your reply, just an FYI.
FWIW, college coaches arent worried about how you do with wood.
JMO
TPM posted:I think your reply made my point.
Listen, we have been through it, the showcases, the tournaments ( yes I do agree 390 + teams is too much for everyone), the rain, more rain, reshuffling, etc. I feel for you.
When you realize your son isnt having fun its time to stop and think about what you are trying to achieve. If you are standing around a game and hoping someone will notice your son, and having high anxiety because your son is having trouble with wood, you need to check yourself back at the gate. I am saying this because I have been there.
As far as wood, it is more fun for pitchers than hitters, I agree. But if you introduce your hitter to wood early, they will learn to adapt better. This doesnt apply to your reply, just an FYI.
FWIW, college coaches arent worried about how you do with wood.
JMO
To be clear, my son is not in this tournament. I agree with your view on wood which is why he uses wood in the cage (he is 14u). And although I agree with your views on things that should already be known, I think you realize that there are many people that have not found this site and many truly believe that they have a chance to be seen and have something actionable happen...at this tournament. They have been sold this (not putting the finger on PG). I actually felt horrible when a dad was telling me about his PO and hoping he had a chance to be seen. Maybe he will, but it just seems that the odds are against him considering the density of the tournament. But that is why he is here.
The wood question was merely a curiosity based on a remark of a player.
To also clarify, I am very pro-PG. I look forward to my son playing in the wood bat tourney's, but I don't plan on relying on them to get him discovered. Love what they do but as and observer I do question this tournament and what it serves if you are correct. So, in my ignorance of the facts and motives, I wonder if this tournament is actually serving the client or if it has grown too large to serve the original purpose. Maybe it just serves as part of the cumulative process.
My son neber attended, any PG tournament's. We just did not know about them.
ButbI kmoe many people who had aon's atyend, and many of their sons had a blast. Amd whonis to say that the tournament is not for fun? For many this will bebthe pinnacle of their baseball carreer.
Sure this tournament has other goals besides fun, but I can guarantee, one of those goals is fun, for the players.
It is late so I will try to make this quick. When we started 22 years ago I worked for the Twins. Every Tryout we would have players use wood bats. We catered to the MLB Scouting community. We used wood bats for everything we did. A few years later when we started holding tournaments the WWBA was born. We didn't have any youth divisions back then. We did start a metal bat division which is the BCS. We still do the BCS and many of the same teams play both BCS and WWBA. However the WWBA is by far more popular. Bottom line, it is what the majority of top players want to use. Our business has always been about finding and recognizing the top players.
Even though PG was built to find the best players for professional baseball, it became the major source for college recruiting. Over the years I have only heard college coaches a few times that mentioned they would prefer metal. Truth is there are a lot of real good players and the MLB clubs cant draft them all. So the best players in one spot and you get a lot of college coaches.
However the major purpose of any PG event is to give us (PG) the opportunity to see players. If we like a player, we know colleges or MLB clubs will also like him. We see the best players in the country every year, everyone knows that. For some reason it is only some parents that don't understand what it can mean if we like a player. Guess they don't understand how close we are with college coaches and MLB scouts. It's great if 30 college coaches and scouts are at your game, but what they are looking for we will see and then hundreds of coaches and scouts will know about it. And if a player has a bad performance we don't write him off.
And yes, having fun is always extremely important. It is the most important thing in baseball. Without the fun, baseball would be way to frustrating.
My son's entire staff just got back from the WWBA. They had a ball. "We saw a ton of very good players. We got some good names to follow up on." Getting an opportunity to see so many players that will fit at so many levels of play is priceless for a college coaching staff. It's simply a win win situation. And I had no idea there were WWBA events that used metal.
Stats4Gnats posted:JohnF posted:
[...]
BUT, not that many balls are that well hit and since metal is far more forgiving than wood there is the possibility of more "cheap hits" off a metal bat than there is off a wood bat. The wood bat breaks, the metal bat gets the ball "somewhere" in one of those no man's triangles. How many "good" fielding chances would be possible if it was wood instead of BBCOR? Who really knows, because it's impossible to play out the same exact scenarios.
I know there’s a “perception” that because metal bats don’t break when mishit, a lot more “cheap hits” take place, but that’s a perception that has absolutely no basis in fact. The implication is there are no cheap hits when using wood, but as anyone who watches much wood bat baseball can say if s/he’s being honest, there are one a lot of cheap hits with wood too.
[...]
While science has BBCOR and Wood being similar. I would say anything middle in that could break the handle off of wood, might actually be "muscled" into a hit with metal. You can say there's "absolutely no basis in fact" and I will disagree. I'm also sure you understand how the game changes when a pitcher feels more comfortable not facing someone with a metal club or how a SS/3B feels getting a hard grounder - there's a definite mental side to the sound/exit speed using metal as opposed to wood. That metal thud may cause you freeze for a bit longer than for wood - that could be the difference between hit, error, or out. IMO, that subtly changes the game a lot from being more hits focused. You may state that you're not against wood, but my perception based on recent responses is that's not the case. I'm not ashamed to say I prefer wood bat games (I've also had 2 college PO's).
As for your other questions - I included BESR since it's just a metal precursor, I've heard a lot of dugout chatter regarding just sticking the metal club out to just get a hit, and NH Legion went wood for 2012.
Batty67 posted:
Anecdotally, and I realize that might be anathema to you, balls just don't travel as fast or as far off wood bats over BBCOR. Not by a lot, since they perform similarly, but enough to make a difference in the pacing of a game. …
Why do you think I don’t believe BBCOR will perform better than the best wood?
BBCOR stands for “Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution.” This standard regulates how much energy is lost during the bat’s contact with the baseball. The higher the number a bat registers in the test, the more trampoline effect it has. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) decided that 0.50 would be the maximum value a BBCOR bat could achieve; which is only slightly higher than that of a wood bat.
I know that if all other things are equal, a BBCOR bat will perform better! What I don’t believe is they perform so much better the pace of the game is significantly affected. What do you suppose makes it slow the game down?
In the many wood bat tournaments, and wood bat adult league games I have umpired in my career, I have encountered exactly "0" tampered or altered bats.........
I wish I could say the same about metal or composite bats.......but I cant.
JohnF posted:
While science has BBCOR and Wood being similar. I would say anything middle in that could break the handle off of wood, might actually be "muscled" into a hit with metal. You can say there's "absolutely no basis in fact" and I will disagree. I'm also sure you understand how the game changes when a pitcher feels more comfortable not facing someone with a metal club or how a SS/3B feels getting a hard grounder - there's a definite mental side to the sound/exit speed using metal as opposed to wood. That metal thud may cause you freeze for a bit longer than for wood - that could be the difference between hit, error, or out. IMO, that subtly changes the game a lot from being more hits focused. You may state that you're not against wood, but my perception based on recent responses is that's not the case. I'm not ashamed to say I prefer wood bat games (I've also had 2 college PO's).
Your assumption seems to be that a broken bat can never produce a hit. Really bad assumption.
What factual evidence do you know of that shows a higher percentage of “cheap” hits happen with metal than wood?
I think you put a lot more stock in how much pitchers or anyone else on defense thinks about the composition of the bats being used.
You’re misinterpreting what I’ve been saying about wood vs non-wood if you think I’m against wood. Even though I’m over 70 and never once swung a non-wood bat before I hung up the spikes back in 1966, I don’t believe wood bats should evoke some mystical reverence or that using them somehow makes the game “better”. That doesn’t mean I’m against them!
When my son was playing, I hated non-wood! I hated non-wood because the game was no longer the same. All of a sudden nearly ever batter was a HR threat, not because of his skill but because of equipment, if he could afford it. I used to rant and rave against non-wood, but then along came BBCOR. All of a sudden offense was snapped back to what to me was the proper relation to defense, so what I had against non-wood disappeared.
Non-wood has evolved a lot. When they first appeared they were a joke. Aluminum logs that were just as suited for demolishing buildings as hitting baseballs, and actually performed worse than wood in many cases. But good ol’ commercialism took over and with the lack of guidelines, manufacturers took over the process and non-wood performance took off like a Saturn V. Things finally topped out when anyone could roll, shave, or otherwise artificially improve a bat’s performance for very little and there was open advertisement to do so.
That’s when the plan that led to BBCOR was hatched. BBCOR became the NCAA’s standard in 2011, and here in CA it went into effect for HS teams too. The following year it became the standard for the NFHS, and that’s where we’re at now. You can look at the following article and easily see that at least in NCAA DI, the game is pretty close to where it was back when wood was the standard.
http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/bats/NCAA-stats.html
As for your other questions - I included BESR since it's just a metal precursor, I've heard a lot of dugout chatter regarding just sticking the metal club out to just get a hit, and NH Legion went wood for 2012.
One reason so many people hate non-wood is they still associate it with the BESR standard, which has been gone from college and HS ball since 2012. Dugout chatter tends to lend itself to hyperbole. But to many it would sure seem like all a batter needed to do was stick his bat out to get a hit, even though that was far from the truth. It just made it easier, not easy.
I honestly think that if the NH Legion would have just waited a year to see how much BBCOR changed the game, they wouldn’t have made the shift to wood. The reason I say that is I’m guessing they made the change for the same reason I hated non-wood. Had they waited a year they’d have seen what everyone else saw. BBCOR brought back performance to acceptable levels.
fenwaysouth posted:Elijah posted:I love wood bats, but I was talking to a 17u kid playing the Atlanta tournament this week and he openly wondered why they were playing with wood bats when they play BBCOR the rest of the year and HS's and colleges play BBCOR. Is it the novelty? Is it for the scouts?
Elijah - as the father of 3 former pitchers. I loved wood bats. Love the sound. Loved it when my sons would whistle a fastball in on the hands and make that thing shatter into many pieces. It makes a Daddy proud.
IMHO - wood bats have their place, and aspiring high schoolers wanting to play college ball (at a showcase tournament) is not the place for wood bats. So, why on God's green earth would you do it? In my world, that is like making an aspiring college tennis player play with a wood racket. It makes no sense to me. I'd want to see the high school kid hit with the tools he's trained with, and potentially going to use in college....I agree with the young man who shared that opinion with you. I do see wood bat showcases as a novelty, and it has never made sense to me. The logic escapes me unless it is the tournament organizers desire to move more games along by limiting offense, and allowing more teams to participate. BTW...son's team won the WWBA 16U in 2008. it was a fantastic experience.
On the other hand, I do see why some high schoolers aspiring to play professional baseball should be playing with a wood bat at Showcases and tournaments. That is a no brainer. I do believe that is for the scouts and I completely understand why.
As always, JMO.
+1
