2018 Easton Ghost

Was at our indoor facility doing some hitting. Player came in with new Ghost. My DD currently swings Xeno. The Ghost had extreme pop, almost lost part of my right ear when doing first pitch of front toss. DD hit very consistent in the cage and said she likes the feel of the Ghost, which maybe helped her consistency.

DD usually hits a lot of balls over our high school fence during front toss. I would like to try out the Ghoston the field to compare performance versus her Xeno.

I didn't compare the bats side by side, but the Ghost looked like it had a longer barrel.

Fastpitch86 said:

Was at our indoor facility doing some hitting. Player came in with new Ghost. My DD currently swings Xeno. The Ghost had extreme pop, almost lost part of my right ear when doing first pitch of front toss. DD hit very consistent in the cage and said she likes the feel of the Ghost, which maybe helped her consistency.

DD usually hits a lot of balls over our high school fence during front toss. I would like to try out the Ghoston the field to compare performance versus her Xeno.

I didn't compare the bats side by side, but the Ghost looked like it had a longer barrel.

Click to expand...

Exit speed for dd’s 33/23 ghost is 1 mph faster than her 33/24 Xeno. Both bats have a ton of hits on them. There are really good reasons to buy a ghost if it works for you, biggest being price/being able to buy from a good dude who will treat you right not performance.

Plans on the drop 11 Ghosts (28 thru 33) are to be released somewhere around March 1.

Plans seem to be around June 1 on the usssa model.

There will be NO new asa model released this coming year. The current asa Ghost will continue thru the next year

Once I get my hands on the 34/25 Ghost I sold a buddy, I will see what exit speeds I can hit with it.

Maybe dumb question here... My 16U daughter has used her 33/23 Ghost since they came out in June. She loves it. Since the barrel compression is lower on the Ghost, would it work better when the weather is a little cooler and the ball compression is a little higher? Or reverse, would it work worse in hot weather when the ball is like mush (as compared to using a traditional higher compression bat)? I've heard it's not a good idea to pair a low compression ball with a higher flex bat, so just wondering.

I don't know where you heard that last statement from, but its not correct and almost opposite. Many new ASA only bats are made specifically
to smoke low compression balls. Has nothing to do with bat flex...more barrel flex and release.

Years ago...yes. Older hard bats hit mush better but not with the new tech. I put down some of my favorite old bats to swing the new
stuff...old bats cant compete. Just look at the past few years of Easton before the Ghost...didn't perform. They were more of an old school bat.

As for hot weather...when temps get real high and balls get terrible, all performance will drop with any bat. The balls can get very bad.
That's why the box will tell you to not leave softballs in a trunk where they get baked...haha.

Cold weather...watch out. Balls get nice and hard and more lively. But beware when temps get very cold, more stress is on the bat because of the
rock you are hitting.

CoreSoftball20 said:

I don't know where you heard that last statement from....

Click to expand...

Thank you for the input. I appreciate it. To answer your first comment, there are numerous articles out like this: https://www.livestrong.com/article/404123-the-best-softball-bats-for-mushy-balls/ . I could be misunderstanding them.

Again, my daughter loves her Ghost. She has a 2015 LXT, a 2016 Xeno and the Ghost, all in 33-23 and it's her favorite. She says it feels like she's getting more pop when the ball isn't hit perfectly in the sweet spot, which is a big deal seeing how PGF level pitchers rarely throw down the middle of the plate.

Here's what prompted me to ask the question. On a hot day in August, I tried to test out my daughter's 3 bats for exit speed in our backyard cage using a radar gun and hitting off a tee. I used 4 12" ASA game balls (all very used). With my 52-year old swing (and hot weather with used game balls), I got the LXT into the low 80s MPH 7 of 16 times, with Xeno - 5 of 16 times, and with the Ghost 2 of 16 times. The results surprised me. Granted my swing sucks so some could be user error. Plus, my daughter swings in the low 60s MPH range right now and maybe the Ghost works better with a female's swing speed? Now it's too cold out now, but I should have tested them again on a cooler day I guess and with newer balls.

If we were talking bats years ago...I would agree with the hard bat, mush balls. Nowadays, not true at all. Most ASA bats are multi-piece (so they flex no matter what),
and the barrels are very geared for the lower comp ball. Again, most folks have pretty much thrown their old one-piece bats away and now swing the new technology.
Now, when we talk "mush"...Im not talking the incrediballs or RIF balls...you should use hard bats for them. Im just talking about the normal low comp softballs.

Def in hotter/more humid weather, balls are worse than normal conditions.

I think you need a bigger test scale than 16 balls. Could have many diff reasons. Maybe you swung better with the LXT than the others, maybe it felt better to you than
the others, maybe you did a certain bat first and got more tired as you go or heck, vice versa...you got warmed up more. Never know, everybody has diff feels.

And I do apologize if sometimes some ideas get jumbled in my writing...haha. I get ahead of myself and trying to write as much as I can in the shortest time

OK. To partially follow up with my question above... My daughter just took the three bats into the garage to test exit speed. Used brand new Wilson Champion balls. After 10 swings each, the Ghost had an average speed 1.5 mph higher than both the 2015 LXT and 2016 Xeno and maximum speed 2 mph higher than both. The LXT and Xeno had almost exactly the same speed trend. Now....we'll need to wait until next summer to test the "hot weather mush ball" theory.

Panthadad- thanks for posting, good info. Very good bats, no doubt.