Posted by: Scott B (baseball@integritycorp.com) on Thu Oct 3 18:49:17 2002

Mike (and Dan):

Adair's slide show is great. However, from this simpleton's point of view:

A bat in motion represents stored energy. A heavier bat (more mass) moving at the same rate of speed will contain more stored energy than a lighter bat. A ball in motion also represents stored energy. (The mass of the ball also counts, but that's the one thing that's constant in the equation.) Therefore:

A) The heavier the bat, the greater the amount of stored energy.
B) The faster the bat, the greater the amount of stored energy.
C) The faster the pitch, the greater the store of energy.

Hitters can control two of those three variables, and only react to the third. A heavy bat moving at 95 mph is going to make the ball go farther (to answer the original question), but getting it to 95mph is the trick.

Adair's presentation suggests that faster, lighter bat results in a faster batted ball speed, then a heavier bat. Maybe. But at some point, the discussion becomes irrelevant. The weight of a heavy bat will eventually slow the bat to the point where less energy is stored than a lighter bat moving at a higher rate of speed.

Bottom line:

1) Use the hitting mechanics that provides the best bat speed possible (we advocate rotational, for all the reasons discussed on this site).

2) Use a bat length proportional to height (i.e. a taller player has a larger strike zone to cover, and needs a bat that can reach low outside pitches).

3) Test batspeed using bats no lighter than -3 (legal for H.S. and college), and go progressively heavier until the batspeed decreases substantially. The maybe use the next lightest bat, take BP, and see how it works. (In my opinion, a hitter might want to have a lighter bat for faster pitchers, and heavier for slower pitchers.)

Regards.. Scott
===============================================================
My question is does a longer or heavier bat produve greater bat speed or make the ball go farther?
> > > >
> > > > No they dont.
> > > >
> > > >Isn't it true that the longer the bat the greater the torque though? Even though the hitter would have to exert a greater force to swing the longer bat it would produce a greater rotational
> > velocity? In doing so producing more bat speed? Explain please?
> >
> > Go to http://www.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/Parkland/sld001.htm for a short web slide show based on Robert Adair's 'Physics of Baseball'.
> > He is a physicist. His conclusion is that batspeed matters most. Weight of bat matters but not nearly as much. Speed of pitch has an effect also but batspeed is primary. There are graphs that show how this happens.
> > And, hey, this is batspeed.com, so you must be at the right place!!!
>
> Major Dan,
>
> Studies which minimalize the effect of bat mass are only considering momentum transfer at time of contact with the ball. Bat mass is not very important at this time because only a small fraction of the bat mass is effectively hehind the ball during the contact interval.
>
> Bat mass, however, is important as it relates to the hitters ability to generate significant batspeed before contact. To maximize batspeed, generally one should find a bat with long length and small mass. The greater the differential between length and mass (long length, small mass), the better. Many leagues will not allow combinations over -5 (in - oz), however.
>
> Regards,
> Mike.