Question for PG and BBScout

Its,

I’d like to answer your question with a simple yes or no, but I can’t. While Doug could have different thoughts, here is my opinion. Sorry for the length, I know lots of people prefer short posts.

I believe the metal bat makes it harder for a scout to evaluate the hitter as accurately. More concentration is required in watching the swing itself and determining how everything transfers to wood. This is why you sometimes see high school and college hitters with gawdy statistics who don’t seem to get the draft interest of others. It’s also the reason why scouts will have these players swing wood whenever possible. The mechanics, bat speed, strength, etc are important with both bats. The frequency, (ability to center), accuracy (solid contact), power, and yes even statistics, reveal much more with a wood bat.

Still there are certain hitters that just standout with metal, but it’s not always the same hitter some might think or the one with the great stats. There are ways to be very productive swinging a metal bat that just won’t work with wood. This does not work the other way around, because if you are a good hitter with wood, there is no reason that you should not be a good hitter with metal.

Obviously there have been a large number of top MLB hitters (pretty much all of them now days) who used metal in high school and college. I can’t say they would have been better yet had they never swung metal. I can’t even say for positively sure that swinging the metal bat didn’t somehow help their development. (Though I really doubt that)

The bottom line is the very best hitters tend to standout no matter what type of bat they swing. The best have no problem adjusting and the game is pretty much the same at the next level. For many others the transfer from metal to wood becomes a brand new game and sometimes the adjustment is too big of a hurdle. Anyway, talented young players are seldom metal bat only guys anymore. Nearly every top draft pick these days has used the wood quite a bit either in the summer or in practice. This eliminates some of the guess work from both the hitter and the scouts.

BTW, the metal bat also can make it a bit harder to accurately evaluate pitchers. You can still see the ability, but there is often a different approach between pitching to a hitter with a metal bat vs a hitter with a wood bat. When my son first started his professional career, the one stat that he liked the most was the number broken bats!

Finally, we often hear that college coaches would rather see prospects hit with metal than wood because that is what they use. They can then evaluate hitters based on a true comparison of what they most often see. I do understand this thinking, but IMO it is only important with “fringe” players. It was very obvious to me that Matt Weiters was going to be a great college hitter before I had ever seen him swing a metal bat. When a player can standout hitting the highest level pitching with wood, it kind of eliminates any doubts.

its,

After reading that reply myself, guess my answer to your question is a... definite maybe!

PG,

Thanks!

Gamer you didnt ask me but I would like to add my 2 cents in here. I am a firm believer that young kids that hit with wood become better hitters. With metal bats you can have success with a poor swing many times. With wood you can not. Learning to center the baseball with wood will allow you to become a much better hitter and when you pick up the metal its almost like cheating. I do feel that kids that only use metal bats are hurting themselves in the long run if they have aspirations of ever playing with wood. And using wood will make them better metal bat hitters. Something tells me you already know this though.

Most HS Showcases or summer tournaments use wood bats anyways, and seeing this is when recruiting is done anyways, it is pretty important to learn to hit with wood.

Any good MLB scout will work out a player with a wood bat before signing them. Unless they dont care about their job too much and get want to get fire when they drafted and signed a stiff that cant hit with wood.

The original question was if the use of metal bats hurt a young player success in college and professional baseball.
There are two answers: "It help" for college baseball because metal bats is what is use in college, and of course don't for professional matter. But that doesn't meant that this is the right answer for everybody because there are cases where the adjustment to wood bats have been very smooth. If you take in consideration that even players that had use wood bats all the time have to adjust their self to a real new and unknow baseball, the transition from metal to wood bats is just one of the challenges that a young player will confront at the professional level.

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
Sorry for the length, I know lots of people prefer short posts.

You know that I’ve never thought about that…..I like shortstops, bermuda shorts and of course daisy duke short shorts, and I also like the Washington Post, books about post-nuclear worlds and post and beam homes.

I never knew most people like short posts. Bullwinkle learned something today.

So, I will make a short post.

Wood Good
Metal Bad

quote:

Originally posted by itsinthegame:
Given that PG and BBScout see so many young players throughout the year - and given we have a thread going about metal vs. wood bats - I thought it might be interesting to get PG's and BBScout's perspective on this question.

Do you think the use of metal (vs. wood) bats hurt a young player's chances of succeeding in college and professional baseball?

I don't think that using metal hinders the "PROSPECT" in becoming a good pro, because the hitters that are prospects will practice with wood as often as they can. In College and High School, they all use metal except for a few leagues, so the hitters are all in pretty much the same boat. In my area, the Pacific Northwest has JC Leagues that use wood, but most of the players are using the composition bats that don't break, and they are trash as far as weight distribution and feel goes, so I don't think the hitters are helping themselves much by using them.

The guys that benefit are the pitchers, who get to throw 2 hour games and have less wear and tear on their bodies, which is good.

quote:

I know lots of people prefer short posts.

For those who do,..I highly recommend NOT going into the Little League and AL forum.
Whoaaaa Nelly!!!