November 3, 2010
Finding the right bat
College baseball players must buy a BBCOR bat - rather than a BESR model - this year.
What’s a fair bat? When you go out to buy a bat to use in Little League, high school, or college ball, how do you know what’s legal? Standards and dimensions change, new regulations go into effect. It can be difficult to keep up.
When you’re talking bat size, the difference between what’s legal and what’s not is measured in fractions of an inch. So-called big barrel bats – anything 2¾ of an inch or larger – are illegal in most leagues. The largest legal bats in Little League (up to 12 years old) are 2¼. In Junior, Big, or Senior leagues, it’s 2 5/8.
Line up a variety of bats, take a couple of steps away, and it would be tough to tell with the naked eye what meets the standards of your league or level. So imagine how difficult it is for a volunteer official, usually untrained, to sort through a few dozen bats before a game and weed out the “hot” bats.
Bats larger than 2¾ are not approved for play in most leagues. But according to John Loiars, a director in Reebok's Equipment Division, there is a gap in the standards. Above the Little League level and below the high school level, for kids who are 13-15, “there is no performance standard right now for that big barrel bat. That’s one of the things we’ve been discussing with associations and governing bodies, that maybe there should be a standard for that.”
Loiars mentions there are studies currently being done on youth bats that may eventually lead to changing standards for that 13-15 year-old level. But the main topic of discussion for standards is currently taking place at the college and high school levels.
In October 2008, the NCAA announced changes in the performance standard for college bats. The previous standard was based on the BESR, or bat exit speed ratio. In the 2008 College World Series, a random sampling of bats from teams in the playoffs showed more than 80 percent did not comply with the BESR standard. So the NCAA decided to move to BBCOR, or bat-ball coefficient of restitution, as a standard, which allows for a more effective comparison between wood and non-wood bats.
According to B. Elliot Hopkins, rules editor for the NFHS (The National Federation of State High School Associations), the pressure to cheat is increasing. Parents want to see their kids perform well enough to move on to the next level, and perhaps get a scholarship to offset college costs. There is a definite interest in using the “hottest” bat possible.
That can lead to doctoring bats to make them more effective. “You have a kid who is a good athlete, but with a little bit more help he could become a really good athlete,” says Hopkins. “Then you mix into the equation this outside entity who can take his current bat and for a small fee of three or four hundred dollars make it into a good-sized weapon. Now the kid who was just a good athlete becomes really good and now he gets a chance to play for a college team.”
The NCAA standard goes into effect January 1, 2011. The NFHS has adopted BBCOR as the standard effective January 1, 2012.
“This year, every college kid has to buy a BBCOR bat,” says Loiars. “Well, this year, a high school kid can still use a BESR bat.
"He can still use it. But then next season, everyone has to buy BBCOR, whether you’re a high school kid or a college kid.”
If you’re a high school player, you have a bit of a dilemma. You don’t want to put yourself at a competitive disadvantage by swinging a BBCOR bat this year, but you’ll need to have one and get used to it for next year, especially if you are moving on to the college level.
The practical effect of the switch in standards is that bats won’t be as “hot.” This means less offensive output, fewer home runs and RBI. But it also makes the sport safer – ask any pitcher who has been beaned by a line drive if there’s a difference between wood and non-wood bats. And it levels the playing field. The batter, and not the bat, is doing the work.
“The theory is, the kids that can hit the home runs are still going to hit home runs and the kids who maybe mis-hit a ball and maybe had no business hitting home runs, the mistake home runs, those will be eliminated,” says Pat Ryan, global director for Wilson’s DeMarini Bats. “But the kids who can square up the ball with the sweet spot of the bat and the kids likely to go on to the next level and play in the professional ranks aren’t going to have a problem with these bats.”
So how do you know what to buy when you walk into a sporting goods store? Loiars says Reebok currently manufactures three BBCOR bats – the Vector O, the Vector TLS, and the Vector 1 (two shown at right). Ryan says DiMarini just started shipping two BBCOR bats – a Voodoo model and a Vexxum model.
But there will be a bit of a lag before you see more BBCOR bats more readily available. “We can’t just repaint the current bats,” says Ryan. “It’s a complete redesign. We have to design for the new test and design for the new standard. Frankly, we don’t have any problem doing that, it just takes time.”
“I made a limited supply for my college teams that we sponsor, because we have that obligation,” says Loiars. “But for teams and players that don’t have sponsorships, they’re scrambling right now trying to find BBCOR bats. And that’ll be the case from now until January, when there will be BBCOR bats available.”
The issue gets even more complicated with the ban on composite bats adopted this summer by the NFHS and Little League. The rules apply to bats with composite barrels, which means it doesn’t affect metal bats or bats with composite handles only. Some bats, though, may still be approved if they meet BESR standards, and an ABI (accelerated break-in) test.
According to Ryan, “Both of our current BESR bats pass that ABI, so our bats were not banned, ever. There were no bans that applied to the DiMarini composite bats.”
There is at least an easy way to tell if bats meet the BBCOR standards – there will be a stamp on the bat that says “BBCOR .50 Certified.”
Making sure your bat meets current standards may be up to you. Keep in touch with coaches when you’re buying equipment, and check the web sites for the various governing bodies. And no matter what bat you have, keep practicing that swing.
