Metal bat de bate on Fox News Sunday morning.

[Cowdogz]

I always thought that aluminum bats were design for durability and were not necessarily intended for performance enhancement vs. wooden bats. Composite bats obviously changed that, but I think baseball changed their performance specs a year or so ago and banned all bats without a current stamp which eliminated a lot of the "hot" composite bats.

About four years ago school baseball adopted the BBCOR standard for bats. Starting in 7th grade and through college, baseball players must use a -3 bat with a BBCOR certification. This certification allegedly assures that the bat will perform more or less like wood (a couple of Marucci bats have been decertified for being too hot). Prior requirements were less restrictive and resulted in higher exit speeds, etc. However, I do believe that the BBCOR bats still have a larger sweet spot. Chinamigarden is correct, the sweet spot on a wood bat is not much bigger than the ball itself, about 4.5". However, BBCOR has not been adopted by any youth leagues that I know of, and it is still pretty much "anything goes" at 12U and below.

 

[riseball]

I still feel that tweaking the COR and compression of the ball makes much more sense than mucking around with the bats.

 

[Phathead]

I guess I will play devil advocate here.
1. Golf-driver design and material changes created some controversy and if memory servers me correct they moved the tees back on some courses for some tourney’s due to pros driving the ball too far.
2 Tennis-Racket design and materials have changed resulting in higher exit speeds creating adjustments by the person receiving the ball or get beat.
3. Track,Field,swimming events records are broken quite often due to better training methods, diet, etc.
I am sure others can add to the list above with examples. If I got anything above wrong feel free to correct just don't bash.
In the above, technology in the material or training for the most part doesn't have and adverse affect to the opponents health (maybe errant golf shot into group ahead or spectator being the exception).

Football-better materials for helmets and padding but either concussions or concussion awareness or both have become more of topic than in the past another factor could be the training of the athletes being stronger and faster than before. Not trying to create debate on it just pointing out that an injury prone sport could be seeing more injuries than before due to technology.

Diamond sports
MLB has not changed the ball or bat in several yrs that I am aware of while training methods and training technology have. (someone put dates or numbers in if you have them).

Armature fast pitch and slow pitch SB-rec, high shcool college, BB rec, high school, college have changed ball compression, allowed/banned bats quite often. The training has also changed video, diet, strength etc.

With the diamond sports it would appear that something in the armature sports have caused the changes to be made. Possible reasons in My Opinion
1. To many home runs. Can't see anything that hurts except a pitchers ERA or win/loss column
2. Defense range being reduced due to speed of ball getting by them quicker. Can't see a problem with this just adapt like I referred to about tennis.
3. Defense infielders and pitchers mainly getting hurt more or the severity of the injuries being greater. I think this is the main cause for the changes. There is a point that at a certain distance and ball exit speed that no amount of training can overcome and allow a person to defend themselves from a line drive. With that being said take material technology out of the equation and let training and technique be the difference in a home run or long out. Whether it is toning the bats down or changing the ball compression I don't know but I will be for either.
Yes I know injuries from line drives have happened since way back but I would prefer to know there was something I as a parent or coach can teach or train to prevent such as: I told you to pay attention or block the sun with your hand etc. Some of the youtube videos that show BB or SB pitchers being hit I can not see anything that I or anyone could train them to prevent.

 

[nicelag]

If aluminum bats did not give the batter a clear advantage you would see them in MLB. From what I have read, a ball hit in the exactly right spot on a wooden BB bat is not different then that hit on the sweet spot of an aluminum BB bat. But that perfect sweet spot is teeny tiny on a wood bat and quite large on a metal bat.

I have heard that you can take away 30%, and sometimes more, of the homeruns when going from college aluminum bats to pro wood bats. So, they do get hit with wood bats, but not near as hard comparatively speaking.

 

[chinamigarden]

I don't know if they are using the. But it seems to me that they must since justbats.com is selling composit bbcor -3 bats

 

[coach james]

Society is constantly trying to bubble wrap everything. Cars have seat belt laws now, when I was a kid my seat belt was my mom's forearm across my chest as we where crashing. We wouldn't have been caught dead wearing a bicycle helmet.
Not all change is bad, but banning composites or metal bats is just another form of bubble wrap.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Society is constantly trying to bubble wrap everything. Cars have seat belt laws now, when I was a kid my seat belt was my mom's forearm across my chest as we where crashing. We wouldn't have been caught dead wearing a bicycle helmet.
Not all change is bad, but banning composites or metal bats is just another form of bubble wrap.

I heard that. Just this week a large local school system wanted to add "cold days" along with the few snow days already in place for excused school closings. Really?? Freaking too cold to go to school?? We live in the dang south, we're not talking about below zero day time temps.

 

[Indiana]

I still feel that tweaking the COR and compression of the ball makes much more sense than mucking around with the bats.

Makes sense - and it's a lot less expensive.

 

[chinamigarden]

I heard that. Just this week a large local school system wanted to add "cold days" along with the few snow days already in place for excused school closings. Really?? Freaking too cold to go to school?? We live in the dang south, we're not talking about below zero day time temps.

Lots of schools around here are closed today because of the cold. It's not even the temp they are focused on its the wind chill. Which is a bs metric anyway. But -15 keeps some schools off.

 

[collinspc]

However, BBCOR has not been adopted by any youth leagues that I know of, and it is still pretty much "anything goes" at 12U and below.

PONY has, I believe, adopted a -3 bbcor for all divisions from Pony up. the first year 13 year olds used to be able to use -3,5 or 8. Mustang and below have not changed to my knowledge.