Metal Bats vs Wood Bats Opinion

METAL V WOOD

The irony of the metal bat is that college baseball brought the aluminum bat into play with the justification that it would reduce the high cost of bat usage and breakage and save money! $450 a bat now isnt it?

 

The batted ball that struck the minor league coach in the neck was batted with wood.

I have seen balls hit back at pitchers that I wondered how they got out of the way of it.

I have seen broken bones resulting from batted balls, some with wood and some with metal. I hav eseen coaches and players injured because they did not get behind the L-screen in time or at all.

We can't blame aluminum bats for this, here's then answer... If you want metal bats then the manufacturers must produce them that perform as wood. They can do that, if they wanted to. Size, weight, BESR, etc... could all match wood, then the playing field would be equal. The only difference might be getting hits off the handle, where a wood bat would shatter. But that's it.

I dont see it happening any time soon however.

 

Yet, some states have already decided to make wood bats mandatory in HS.

 

The true measure of a hitter is how they hit with wood... I believe it with all my heart!!

If you can hit with wood, you can hit with anything!!

 

Amen

 

BESR

Was brought about to limit the exit speed in which a ball comes off a metal bat. Here is the flaw in this whole thing. When you strike a ball on the sweet spot with wood it comes off just as good as it does with a metal bat. But the big difference is its alot harder to hit it on the sweet spot with wood. When you go to a wood bat game with hs players the hot shots are no where near as frequent as they are in a metal bat game. The barrell on a metal bat is alot bigger and the sweet spot is just about the entire bat. There are many more hot shots hit in a metal bat game so the chances of someone getting hurt go up big time.

You can watch an entire 7 inning wood bat game and see maybe one or two really hot shots hit in the entire game. When you watch a metal bat game they are very frequent. Anyone who says that metal bats do not add to the danger of the game is not being realistic. If hs were to switch to wood the frequency of dangerous shots would dramatically be reduced. The game was not designed to be played with metal it was intended to be played with wood. When you have a pitcher standing 60'6 away from a batter swinging one of these bats and they hit a shot back up the middle the pitcher is totally living on luck.

Yes a kid could hit a shot just as hard with a wood bat if properly struck. But again the odds of hitting a ball on the sweet spot with wood are much less than with metal. So the chances of injury are reduced with wood bats. Get rid of them. If it prevents one serious injury "ever" then its worth it.

 

I agree 100% that colleges should start the change but unfortunately I don't see that happening... And in my opinion it is money driven but not for the reasons mentioned above. I think the College Administrators and Athletic Directors like aluminum because it puts fans in the stands. Think about, in little league, travel ball and for the most part, high school, the stands are filled with family and friends. They come to the game to watch their children or family play. They don't care if they swing wood or aluminum. When these kids go off hundreds of miles away for college, mom and dad aren't in the stands for every game. The college teams have to sell themselves and their entertainment value to college kids. And I would venture to say less than 10% of the college kids watching games are baseball purist that would love watching a 3 - 1 or 2 - 0 game. Nope, they are there to see the homeruns and to ooh and aah when that mis-hit line dive just misses going out by a couple of inches. They enjoy the fast paced action of a 20 - 17 ballgame a lot more.

Having said all of that, yes, I am a purist and would much rather watch the game played with wood. But more importantly, I am a father of two pitchers and I cringe every time that bullet leaves the batters box hoping it hasn't taken aim on my son or anyone else's. Like Coach27 stated, wood bats may hit it just as hard but a heckuva lot fewer times...

 

How Does The Aluminum Bat Hurt Your Swing?

How Does The Aluminum Bat Hurt Your Swing?
by: Dave Hudgens
Assistant Director of Player Development
Hitting Coordinator / Oakland Athletics

The aluminum bat increases the habit of creating a "long swing"

One of the reasons most kids today have a "long swing" is the muscle memory they've developed through the years of using an aluminum bat. Years of using an aluminum bat create a "sweeping motion" in most kids swings, which causes them to actually drag the barrel of the bat through the strike zone. When you sweep the bat through the strike zone, you are incorrectly training your hands to take the wrong path to the ball. The "wrong path" to the ball. You do not want to incorporate any of these bad habits into your swing!

How Can The Aluminum Bat Ruin Or Delay Your Career?
Year after year, I see newly drafted players with both an extremely long swing and an ego to match. These guys have been fooled into thinking they are professional hitters when, in reality, they merely had an aluminum bat swing.

One player with whom I worked had a typical aluminum bat swing. He had had great success in high school and college. He was drafted, by our scouts, in the first round. Unfortunately he was determined not to change his swing.

For the first two years he would not listen to instruction. After two years of struggling in the low minors (when he thought he would be in the big leagues), he started to listen.

He realized he had to change in order to have some success as a professional ball player. He eventually advanced to the AAA level, but he never attained the success to which his potential could have carried him. His lack of instant success was because of the development of an improper swing and the years of training muscle memory incorrectly. He fell short of reaching his potential.

What if 99% of your practice time created a bad habit, that could cost you a college scholarship or Big League career? When would you want to change that habit?
Dave Hudgens is a hitting instructor for the Oakland Athletics

 

I agree with you on all these points but it's like you said, hitting with metal makes it more exciting for the fans at college and high school baseball. The metal bats allow for games to be high scoring or never over. The problem that colleges and HS would face is losing crowds because games are so called "boring." But that is something you would have to deal with becuase if it prevents one kid or teenager a year from injury then its worth it. The game is about getting fans into the ballpark and they know fans love to see runs on the board.

If they tried it out then it would really seperate hitters on the collegeiate level and really tell the guys that are draft material. I'm sure scouts would like to see because their method of judging if a player is ready or not for the next level would be as easy as going to a game. If they tried wood bats for college there could be even more fan interest but the answer as of right now would be a 50/50 answer. The NCAA could take the chance and it could really pay off for them or it could really back fire on them.

I have a bad feeling some fruit cake parent will try to get net protecters in front of mounds to try and protect Lil Billy from getting hurt. Injuries happen in every sport whether they are bruises to life or death situations but every player and parent should know that before they step on any field or court.

 

Just change the ball.