Using a wood bat in H.S. games

I think you are reading a little more into this than the normal player would.

 

I would suspect that if a teammate wanted to know why the player swung wood he would ask.  If the player responded, "I feel like I hit better with wood", the questioner would probably just shrug his shoulders and say, "Okay - hey look at that hot chick over there!"

 

It's not like BBCOR bats provide some great leap in distance over wood anyway. BESR and the former wild west of no regulations - sure. Now there is far less of a gap.

 

My HS son is convinced he hits better with wood. Of course he's not really a good hitter, so wood, BBCOR, telephone pole, lead pipe - it doesn't seem to make a difference.

I hear what you're saying Rob, and even agree that most HS players might have that approach, and attitude.  BUT, not all of them - and those that won't will (IMO) tend to be team leaders and shapers of team opinion.  And I think most coaches may view this as Freddy describes.

 

There is PLENTY of time in the offseason, and in summer ball, to hit with wood.  Why risk even the chance of bad perceptions (and we all know perception is reality...).

 

Gotta go with Freddy on this one, but I'm very curious about what others think - and especially our HS head coaches here.

Practice with wood, game time you play as a team. In HS my son's coach encouraged all players to use wood during practices. But, when it was time for the game it was time to win, as a team.

My Son's BBCOR bats weigh in at -1 5/8 oz and -2oz.  The wood bat he prefers for games weighs -3.5 to -4.0 oz  He drives balls farther with wood than metal BBCOR bat's.  Of course the metal BBCOR bats have a larger sweet spot and you can sometimes get a blooper in if you hit it off the handle or out on the end, whereas you'll break a wood bat if you do that.  One thing we noticed is that as the temperature gets colder the metal/composite BBCOR bats loose a lot of pop compared to his wood bats.  So, for early season HS ball games when the temperature is in the 30's and 40's he hits with wood and is very successful.  Once the temperature is above 70 he uses his BBCOR bats unless he's playing in a wood bat tournament or just wants a change.

As much as I believe that there is little difference between wood and BBCOR the player needs not to rock the boat unless the coach is receptive to wood. 

My son will be a freshman on the Varsity team this year (coach already talked to me) and he will swing what the team swings because I don't want him feeling uncomfortable.

Of course, but that is getting away from what the original poster is talking about.

 

It may not be a "selfish" decision to use wood.  The player may genuinely feel they hit better with wood. (reality aside) If they really feel that way, wouldn't it be selfish for them not to use wood?

 

For the other players, if there is no evidence that shows the player hits better with BBCOR, why not let him use whatever he is most comfortable with?  You can expand that line of logic to say that if you aren't using the "latest and greatest" $400 bat that you are being selfish.

 

I'm not saying a player should or shouldn't hit with wood - I just think it is foolish to attach the selfish label to a player because he doesn't subscribe to whatever the in vogue piece of equipment is.

 

The first year the BBCOR came out I had a player swing wood all season, due to the fact that the BBCOR took so long to come around and he did not want to switch that close to the season.  He hit .489 with 6 homeruns that year and I don't really remember any balls that he hit that I had wished he was swinging a BBCOR.  To be fair and honest, I knew he could swing it and if I had thought differently I might have said something. 

To a pitcher, nothing says "I own the inside part of the plate" like a nice new unblemished wood bat swung by a high schooler! 

 

In a sport where 3 out of 10 is good, I'm not sure I'd be tempting the baseball Gods.  Swing the BBCOR.

 

http://physics.wooster.edu/JrI...aabe_Web_Article.PDF

 

The physics research these guys have done suggests that the difference between BESR and BBCOR is about half that between BBCOR and wood.  And that's just the effect on batted ball exits speeds, not including the ability to manage sweet spots on aluminum and composite bats.

 

Anecdotally, having watched a bunch of youth (15/16) wood bat ball, that sounds about right.  Don't ask the hitters if they hit better, ask the pitchers if they'd rather be pitching vs wood or non-wood.

I agree with the assessment of bat performance here.  There may be instances where a player performs better with wood, but generally at the HS level, most players will have a slight advantage with BBCOR, so I would expect them to use it.  I also encourage kids to hit with wood in the cage and off-season training.  If in the cage during season, I ask that they find a wood that is balanced very similar to their game BBCOR of choice.  Most don't realize how significant the adjustment can be using two bats of differing balance, weight and handle thickness.

That said, I wouldn't blow a gasket if a kid is convinced he can hit better with wood.  I'd make sure he was making a reasonably informed decision and move on.  With both types, I've seen kids think a bat was the hottest thing going until they have an off day with it.  Fun to watch the evolution of discovery that it's the Indian more than the arrow..

 

If a kid can prove to me he hits better with wood versus metal in practice then he can use wood in the game all he wants.  I totally understand the team concept and don't think a coach is wrong with this approach but at the end of the day these kids want to win just like I want to win.  If a kid can use wood to help this happen then it needs to happen.  But seriously we are talking a very small minority of kids who will hit better with wood versus metal.  Those kids are the ones who just stand out because they are studs.

I coach HS players from two schools in summer and fall (both wood bat) and I see a major difference between BBCOR and wood, but that's just one man's observations, I admit that.

IMHO, they're just quicker and more adjustable with BBCOR, and it shows in their stats. With wood, noticeably lower batting averages and about 50% fewer Extra Base Hits, despite the fact that OF's are playing shallower.

 

IMO, the difference between BESR and wood is night and day, and the difference between BBCOR and wood is about half that.

 

There are always exceptions, for instance the posters who said their sons clearly hit better with wood than BBCOR.

At the PG National Showcase wood is used in BP and in games.  However each year Rawlings holds a metal bat Home Run contest.  After watching the same hitters hit with wood in BP and then with the BBCOR in the HR contest, it is very obvious there is a big difference.  While someone might think they hit better with wood, I really doubt it.  Then again if that is what you think, maybe you could fool yourself into being better with wood. 

This kind of "research" bugs me; it also bothers me that the results are cited in a discussion of bat types.  The author did not follow the BBCOR testing protocol-- she didn't search for the sweet spot on each bat.  More remarkable, the testing was done at a ball-bat speed of just under 11 mph.  In other words the test approximated placing a ball on a tee, and then bunting it. The inbound and rebound speeds of the ball were estimated from a video, in which the frame rate was insufficient to make an accurate estimation.

 

The article concluded that the measured BBCOR bat had a BBCOR coefficient of 0.556.  The maximum allowed coefficient is 0.500, but this applies to a measurement taken at a ball-bat collision speed of about 136 mph, where the energy losses are much greater.  In fact, the researcher's value of 0.496 for the wood bat is very low considering the 11mph ball-bat collision speed.  I suspect the impact wasn't at the sweet spot of the bat.

 

There is lots of data on BBCOR bats and how they compare to wood.  The two bat types really are very similar in BBCOR--pretty much all of them fall in the range 0.490 to 0.500.  However, it is practical to make BBCOR bats with a lower moment of inertia compared to wooden bats.  This allows a quicker swing, although at the cost of ball exit speed.  Particularly in the hands of a HS hitter, the ease of swinging a BBCOR bat can make quite a bit of difference in a hitter's performance.

Originally Posted by jacjacatk:

… Don't ask the hitters if they hit better, ask the pitchers if they'd rather be pitching vs wood or non-wood.

 

The trouble with asking players, especially amateur ones, what they’d rather have based on their beliefs, as opposed to what they’d rather have if they based their beliefs on facts, is often two very different things.

One thing we found this summer was ever team we played that used wood bats would end up with at least a few bats broke each game. Now as fenwaysouth pointed out, many of the pitchers would jam the batter and get a "crack" in that bat.

 

My son's coach suggested to swing wood in the cages when getting batting lessons and taking BP being able to "pick the pitch" that you are swinging at. I love the sound of a ball coming off wood but also see the advantage of a BBCOR for longevity over the wood when it comes to catching a ball in a bad spot. 

 

I have to admit that since I was in high school, I've been completely baffled by the concept of using wood bats during games in which metal bats are allowed.

 

It has been proven countless times that metal bats are more conducive to offensive success than metal bats. The change to BBCOR a few years ago lessened the comparative advantage, but the advantage still remained. The concept of a player saying he "hits better with wood" is a fallacy rooted in a small sample of personal-based results in an ever-growing and evolving player. Given a large enough sample of identical plate appearances with each type of bat, I guarantee with 100% certainly that a player would perform better with a metal bat in his hand. The facts and evidence, those noted above and in other sources, support this.

 

The majority of the time, the rationale for using a wood bat instead of a metal bat in these situations is to specifically showcase a player's talent and capabilities hitting with a wood bat. As someone who evaluates talent professionally, let me say this: there are literally dozens of aspects that contribute to talent evaluation that are more important than the perception of allowing onlookers to differentiate between the skill of hitting with a wood bat and a metal bat. Talent evaluators are trained to look for specific skills and indications of what may translate to success at the next level. What type of bat a player is swinging does not land very high on that list.

 

Am I saying that proving a player can hit with a wood bat is irrelevant? No, definitely not. There are good examples of players who hit well with metal bats and struggle with wood bats. But there are many more opportunities for negative outcomes when making the decision to swing wood exclusively than there are positives.

 

My suggestion to all players that are considering using a wood bat in high school games that allow you to use metal bats is to stop thinking that way. Use the best possible equipment available to contribute to your team's success. Use wood bats in summer leagues that require wood bat use, and let talent evaluators base their analysis off of the training and experience they've accumulated over time.

 

I'm get really amused by all the I hit better with wood talk. If mlb allowed metal. Wood would cease to exist.

Originally Posted by freddy77:

I coach HS players from two schools in summer and fall (both wood bat) and I see a major difference between BBCOR and wood, but that's just one man's observations, I admit that.

IMHO, they're just quicker and more adjustable with BBCOR, and it shows in their stats. With wood, noticeably lower batting averages and about 50% fewer Extra Base Hits, despite the fact that OF's are playing shallower.

 

Its not just “one man’s observations” and it is really an “opinion” because you’re basing what you’re saying on stats and observation, not observations alone. This is the kind of post I wish more people would make. Great job!

 

Now the question becomes something different. There’s absolutely no doubt there are HS players who can and do handle wood roughly as well as BBCOR, but there should also be no doubt that wouldn’t be true for ALL HS players. FI, remembering HS baseball includes more than varsity players, if a player isn’t a good enough hitter to make the varsity squad as a starter, what sense would there be in allowing him to hit with what most would agree is a more difficult bat to hit with?

 

That begs the next question, what percentage of HSV starters can perform optimally with wood as opposed to non-wood? Personally, although I’ve watch a heck of a lot of spring season HS baseball, the only player I ever saw use wood regularly during the spring season, was Vance Worley, and even he didn’t use it in ”important” games. I’ve seen others use wood sporadically in meaningless situations, but never on a regular basis.

 

Of course understanding that I only get to see a miniscule percentage of players, the above doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen someplace else a lot more than I see it. So I’ll ask this; what percentage of all HSV starters do you suspect have the ability to use wood with no drop in performance?

 

0%. No baseball player, at any level, would perform equally or greater with wood than they would with metal.  Superior equipment will create superior results in a large enough sample, all other variables equal. As I noted above...

 

It has been proven countless times that metal bats are more conducive to offensive success than metal bats. The change to BBCOR a few years ago lessened the comparative advantage, but the advantage still remained. The concept of a player saying he "hits better with wood" is a fallacy rooted in a small sample of personal-based results in an ever-growing and evolving player. Given a large enough sample of identical plate appearances with each type of bat, I guarantee with 100% certainly that a player would perform better with a metal bat in his hand. The facts and evidence, those noted above and in other sources, support this.

I agree with JH and others regarding wood.  However, I have to disagree that 0% would hit better with wood.  I do believe that 0% "should" hit better with wood.  

 

The reason I believe that it could be possible for an individual to hit with wood involves three things that are extremely important to every hitter. Comfort, Confidence, and Repetition.  In other words, the hitters "mind" can actually be more important than the equipment he uses. So if somehow, a hitter is more comfortable and more confident with a wood bat in his hands and if that is what he always uses, I can see how that hitter might actually do better with wood.  Obviously, it's not true, because wood requires more exactness and less consistent power.  We see it every year at the PG National Showcase. We see it by the amount of hits and scoring, by the same teams that play in the WWBA (World Wood Bat Association) and the BCS (PG Metal Bat Division)

 

However, the one thing that can't be over looked is what goes on between the hitters ears.  If somehow he has convinced himself he is better with wood, at least temporarily he might be better with wood even though the BBCOR provides a distinct advantage.

 

If I am pitching, I would much prefer facing a hitter who lacks confidence with a BBCOR in his hands, than the confident hitter with wood in his hands.  Of course, my greatest preference would be the hitter lacking confidence with wood in his hands.

 

Actually no argument here... Other than what I mentioned above, metal bats will always outperform wood bats.  However, the hitter's ability is more important than the available equipment.

I agree with this statement.  The individual is being just that, an individual.  For the team, he needs to support in a manner that can make the team successful.  As mentioned in the above posts, there's is an advantage to BBCOR over wood bats.

Well, to play devil's advocate - couldn't the same thing be said if the player isn't willing to invest in the newest "hottest" bat on the market?  If you aren't taking advantage of every technological advance in equipment - aren't you shortchanging the team? At what point does a player's comfort with his equipment outweigh any advantage or disadvantage he receives from it?

 

Just because a player may be incorrect in his belief that he "hits better with wood", it doesn't necessarily mean he is being selfish. If he truly believes he hits better with wood - in his mind he is trying to help the team. He is just being wrong for the right reasons. 

 

 

 

I've always thought my son hit better with wood.  Part of me still does.  But during BP at a practice about a month ago I started to feel differently.  

 

Same day, same BP round.  My son is hitting balls just before, just at and just over the fence with wood.  Not a big field, about 300-310' all around.  Then he went to the BBCOR.  Those balls were easily 50-75' past the fence.  We're not talking a huge difference in distance, maybe 50-75' tops, but I saw a difference.

50' on an otherwise 300' shot is an enormous difference.  10 extra feet, on any field, is a huge difference, check out a random MLB players FB distribution and see how many deep FB turn into HR with 10 more feet.

 

My reference was to what I saw.  His best BBCOR hits were about 50' further then his best wood hits on the same day, during the same BP round.  

 

But I will say that he just told me he thinks it was closer to 35'. 

 

I wasn't suggesting I didn't believe you, just that your characterization of the difference as not huge was underselling the difference.

 

No, I didn't take your comment as not believing me.  I agree with you, there is a noticeable difference between BBCOR and wood, at least in the case of my son.  

 

And as for his preference for HS, he'd prefer to swing wood, but as the HS swings BBCOR that is what he'll swing.  No complaints.  He told me that he doesn't care which bat he uses in HS, as he doesn't think it matters that much.  

I agree with JH, though I have to say, I also agree with PGStaff. The argument JH makes essentially ignores PGStaff's point to the extent that it relies on the "all other variables equal" qualifier.  That can never really be true, particularly with the mental side of hitting. Still, the point JH is making is really, really important, and I think it is demonstrably true....

 

Although the goal of the BBCOR standard was to make non-wood bats perform more like wood bats, they do not perform identically to wood.  

 

First, batted ball speed depends on a number of variables even just within the properties of the bat itself, and BBCOR (essentially, the "bounciness" of the bat) is only one of them.  The MOI (motion of inertia; essentially what we think of as "swing weight" and it depends on both the weight of the bat and the distribution of the weight along its length) of the bat is another.  We know that the MOI of BBCOR bats is less than that of wood bats, which means they can be swung faster; the bat "feels" lighter and is more maneuverable. Manufactured bats' MOI can be (and is) manipulated to have a lesser MOI so that it is more light-weight feeling and "swingable" in a way that wood bats cannot be. This is not a subjective thing, but an objective, measurable thing that affects batted ball speed (and thus performance) in a very real way.

 

Second, the "sweet spot" on a BBCOR bat is larger than a wood bat, and can be (and surely is) manipulated by manufacturers to maximize performance within the BBCOR standard.  Intuitively, that alone means different and better results for a BBCOR bat with the exact same swing and point of impact (just off the wood bat's sweet spot as opposed to just within the larger sweet spot on a BBCOR bat) with BBCOR vs. wood.  Taken to an even greater but maybe more familiar extreme, as that point of impact moves down the handle, you get VERY widely different results once the wood bat starts breaking, which obviously BBCOR bats do not.

 

Finally, the maximum .50 BBCOR is close to, but not the same as that of a wood bat.  This technical paper concluded that the old BESR bats had a BBCOR 15.5% higher that wood bats, and that while the new bats (what we call BBCOR bats) had a BBCOR measured at a little more than 5% less than the old bats, it was still about 10% higher than wood. They're not identical, and should perform differently (i.e., BBCOR better than wood) under identical circumstances.

 

For all these reasons, Josh's statement that 0% of hitter's will perform better equally or better with wood over BBCOR over a sufficiently large enough sample, is completely true and completely defensible.  It also SHOULD mean that an informed hitter should never believe hitting with wood offers him an advantage...but we know that's not the way our minds work.  Some will believe, regardless of the evidence to the contrary, that they hit better with wood, and as PGStaff says, that hitter will be more comfortable and confident, and therefore might very well perform better, at least in the short run.

 

However, the whole point of the OP wasn't that the individual hitter should use whatever makes him feel more comfortable and confident.  It was almost the opposite - that the perception, based on solid science, is that BBCOR bats perform better than wood bats, and that any player making a choice of wood over BBCOR is battling that perception, and therefore is likely to be perceived as making a strong INDIVIDUAL over TEAM statement that is inadvisable....  At least that's the point I thought Freddy was making, and I agree with him.

Interesting point.

Hypothetically, you could say that.  But IME it's not in fact true. 

For whatever reason, from what I've seen,  a failure to invest in the newest "hottest" bat is not perceived as shortchanging the team.

I'm just throwing out there that if we think of using a piece of equipment that is less effective as being "selfish", we are overlooking many other factors.

 

If a player was more comfortable using an old beat up pair of spikes would we call him selfish for not picking up the latest pair of techno-nikes?

 

If you show the player in some measurable way that he is not better with wood, and he still chooses to not use BBCOR - then you have a selfish player (or a fool, can't discount that possibility).

Isn't that exactly what the available research does show?  Why would any informed athlete reasonably (or even rationally) believe that he is the exception to the rule?

For the record, I think JH is absolutely correct.  There shouldn't be any performance reason to use wood when the rules allow metal. I really hate seeing one player hit with wood and his team mates all using metal.  Just don't look right! Think I would want my son using what the rest of the team uses, even if he thought he can hit better with wood.

 

I do think there are lots of kids that think they can hit better with wood.  Probably due to having success with wood.  However, I have seen lots of good metal bat hitters that can't hit well with wood!  Not sure I've ever seen a good wood bat hitter that can't hit well with metal.

Most wood bats "feel" much different than metal. Wood bats tend to have the weight at the barrel vs the metal bats that have the weight evenly distributed. The batter who likes wood will pick up a metal bat and say it feels to light. If you gave the player who likes wood a metal bat that "felt" the same as his wood bat then I think he would pick metal every time. Just my two cents.

Originally Posted by jacjacatk:

I wasn't suggesting I didn't believe you, just that your characterization of the difference as not huge was underselling the difference.

 

Here’s the problem. What’s being talked about is a PERCEPTION about what’s taken place rather than an actual measurement, but that’s usually what has to happen. After all, not a lot of people I know who watch a game or a BP carry around a tape measure and run around trying to accurately measure every ball hit over the fence, let alone every ball hit.

 

I think what NYdad was really saying, was there was a difference that was substantial enough as to be easily discernable. It may have been 10’ or 100’, but that’s not what matters. The person hitting the ball really doesn’t have any idea about distance compared to what it “felt” like when the ball was hit, and that makes distance difficult to tell.

 

To me the truth of the matter is this. People can believe whatever they like, but the facts are clear that a BBCOR bat will outperform a wood bat, given everything else is equal. The reason may well not be that bigger sweet spot, but rather how the bat is “weighted”. Two bats with the same mass but different swing weights will definitely perform differently, and will perform even more differently given two different people using them.

 

So its possible BBCOR bat “A” will outperform wood bat “W”, but not BBCOR bat “B” in player “X’s” hands. It may also be that in player “Y’s” hand bat “B” will outperform bat “A” and bat “W”. Its then also possible that in player “Z’s” hands bat “W” will outperform both “A” and “B”, but the likelihood is very low indeed. In the end, any player able to find a BBCOR bat that suits his swing best, will outperform any wood bat no matter how suited it is to him. The problem then becomes finding that bat.

Originally Posted by EdgarFan:

…Manufactured bats' MOI can be (and is) manipulated to have a lesser MOI so that it is more light-weight feeling and "swingable" in a way that wood bats cannot be. This is not a subjective thing, but an objective, measurable thing that affects batted ball speed (and thus performance) in a very real way….

 

Although I agree with the point you’re trying to make, I don’t agree with the above. In general it might be true, but there’s a reason wood bats come in hundreds of different models. The reason many of the old timers could swing veritable logs, is the shape of the bats was very different indeed. If you take a 46oz/39” bat with a very long and thin handle, its gonna swing a heck of a lot differently than a 46oz/39” with a very thick handle. With non-wood bats, they’re all pretty much the same length and shape, but the “feel” can be manipulated in other ways.

 

Three generations ago, nearly every kid who played baseball knew how to manipulate the bat with a knife, sandpaper, or lead tape. Sadly though, a lot of that was lost 2 generations ago, and for the most part the last generation needs an engineering degree to even grasp the concept of being able to manipulate the bat environment. For the most part, the current generation of players doesn’t even have a clue that its possible.

 

You are correct Stats.