Bat Shaving...Am I naive

[Ajaywill]

I would hope this is just an anomaly. I've never heard anyone admit to it.

I've heard parents defending rolling ("it's just speeding up the process"), but never admitting to have done it. Shaving, I've suspected some, but never heard anyone defend it.

Yes..Rolling is essentially "speeding up the break in process". But think about that for a minute....if you speed up the natural process you also speed up the amount of time that the bat remains legal and will pass compression. So now the $300 bat that may have lasted for two years now only lasts a year and you need to buy a new bat....of course you will need to have that one rolled as well.....This is what the slimy bat roller guys won't tell you......

 

[JAD]

Yupper, many new bats dont work well with rolling

So how many new bats work well with rolling? What would it take to set up a test with one of those bats, a quantifiable compression tester, and a rolling machine? I think a Youtube video of the testing would be outstanding! I am betting there will be little to no difference in the performance results.

 

[quincy]

Roiling is different than shaving.

DD will put 1000s of hits on her bat, she is what she is. Rolling the bat will not help her at all.

DD will beat anyone that rolls their bat.

 

[grcsftbll]

Roiling is different than shaving.

DD will put 1000s of hits on her bat, she is what she is. Rolling the bat will not help her at all.

DD will beat anyone that rolls their bat.

Yep! Here's the way I see it. We get a new bat. We want to break it in, so we get out the net and the tee and go to town. My kid would hit for hours every day. No problem to break a bat in, and hey, she just got in hundreds of extra swings. Now she clobbers it in the batters box. Win/win. Broken in bat, extra practice, better hitting. Why would I want to shortcut that process?

 

[Tom]

Tom, I'm curious about what part of the country you're located. I sure hope it's not common in girls fastpitch but I do know it's very common in men's slow pitch. It wouldn't surprise me if a father that uses shaved bats in his mens league actually got his daughters bat shaved as well.

As far as me asking for location, I noticed awhile ago while searching for a specific bat on craigslist that certain cities and states had tons of ads for bat rolling/shaving and others had none. I could definitely see a potential increase in shaved bats being used in tjose markets where its heavily advertised.

I am in North Texas. The person telling me this had driven in from East Texas.

 

[Eric F]

I would LOVE to know the 'before' and 'after' results of a compression test with a recently manufactured composite bat that has been rolled. It is my understanding that they will not get much hotter than they are out of the wrapper. Is there a compression tester that gives quantifiable results? The ones I saw at ASA nationals just had some LED lights and if the red LED light came on the bat failed, but it did not give a measurement of how much it failed by.

DD's team played 10U ASA "A" Western Nationals last July. Every bat was compression tested with a device that included a dial.

 

[quincy]

Good.

DD's last softball game an opposing player hit it to the fence 3 times. I am pretty sure I could have given her a tree branch and she would have hit it to the fence.

She did not need any help.

 

[dadofadirtlover]

Infuriating.

Loser move by a parent. Sends the kid a message that they can't win or perform without cheating.

Penalty should be parent strung up by shoelaces on a backstop until the crows peck his eyeballs out.

Only if Josh next day airs a lynk spyder so it can be properly documented and inspected frame by frame with a detailed analysis by FFS to critique the lack of sequence the crows use in the short to and long through pecking.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

So how many new bats work well with rolling? What would it take to set up a test with one of those bats, a quantifiable compression tester, and a rolling machine? I think a Youtube video of the testing would be outstanding! I am betting there will be little to no difference in the performance results.

The older bats really do well with rolling. Thats why rolling has really slowed down in popularity.

Still love the people saying rolling is the same as breaking in. People love to justify

 

[riseball]

I have been in and around the game a while and have watched some of my players from 10U through HS, College, and even into the NPF. Some have even started families. The ones that succeed in this game and later on in life are the ones that are committed and not afraid of putting in the work. Ethics aside, rolling and shaving go hand in hand with players and parents who are looking for the easy road to success. They do not have much of a future ahead of them.