Best bat for pitching machine work

[LEsoftballdad]

Sheer volume of front toss is not much different.

Here is the thing: if you are a softball player for long, you will have to hit machine. If your game bat has a warranty, you might as well swing the one that has a warranty. I tracked bats carefully. More than once when a bat came out of warranty, that became a bat only used in games I.e. as few swings as possible.

I tried going the route of a cheap bat off of eBay. What ended up happening is it would break, it would have no warranty and I would be out the full amount I paid instead of shipping on a warranty claim.

The Rocketechs always come up in these discussions. Great bats. Very durable. A very *different* bat for a kid to swing than most gamers are going to be. That’s the prob if you want to practice with a similar bat.

I know I seem like I’m arguing but I am guessing there are parents here struggling with this and maybe my approach will work for them.

The Rocketech is a very different bat because of not only the material from which it is made, but it is also heavier than most bats of similar listed weight. It is not for contact hitters and slappers because it takes a lot of strength to get the ball to jump off the bat because it doesn't flex as much as a composite one. I have two girls who have had exit velocity readings north of 70 MPH since 14U, and the differences between all the bats I own, which is a lot, are not that great. But, Rocketech is always towards the top of that list. The biggest complaint I get from my girls is that when they go back to their game bat, it feels too light.

I saw one Rocketech break in the last five years. Granted, not many girls use them, but it is hard to disagree that the bat is a tank.

 

[Strike2]

An aluminum bat with a similar length & weight works great with machine balls. No, the ball probably won't fly as far, but you're in a cage. Hit it solid.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

Bats are engineered hence undergo a design process. The design process is an interplay between performance and durability. If a bat manufacturer wanted to, they could design a bat which could withstand 1000's of hits off the handle of the bat but I doubt anybody would buy that bat.

If a bat breaks due to "on design" use, e.g. a reasonable (no idea what they would consider reasonable but a lot more than a few months of travel ball player BP/games) amount of contact off the barrel, then there was more than likely a defect in the material and/or manufacturing process which cannot be incorporated during the design process (well you could..but see my comment above regarding nobody buying it..)

Designing a bat is lot closer to designing an airplane than it is to designing bridge..(not in its technical difficulty per se but in the interplay I mentioned above..)

very nice post

Easton made bats to last forever, nobody wanted them because there were hot out of the wrapper bats
out there. So, you have to ditch that idea and try to blend the hotest bat you can make, and maybe give up
some durability. Its such a fine line nowadays. Composite is an amazing material for a bat...people dont realize
the amount of flex a bat goes thru every single hit. There is a reason nobody cares about metal bats
anymore...they just cant match the performance of composite.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

I always have to trust you on the e=mc2 stuff.

We did always have a spare but dd tended to use the same one in games and practice until it went south.

I kind of wish all this was on the recent thread Rad started about machine use.

And one of the problems with my hillbilly science is @CoreSoftball20 is not a fan of machine balls and he has been around a lot of bats for a long time.

My other oft used point is that college kids hit machine balls constantly. No itty bitty bat breaker in 14u is swinging harder than a college kid who is in the weight room constantly and can legally order a Margarita after practice.

I am def not a fan of them. 2 reasons...I have felt dense, hard as sh!t machine balls that have been hit 200000
times that in no way resemble a real ball. Cages are buying balls for one reason...so they dont have to buy
balls ever again...hahahaha. Maybe there are some decent machine balls out there...i havent looked much for any
to compare. And when you go to a cage...what bats do they put out there to use??? Yup, metals. And im talking
for the people just walking into a cage that just do it to have fun. You dont see the cage put out
composites for people to swing...again...why...because metals withstand the balls better.

Number 2...just sheer added use on the bat. I am a huge fan of not putting added use on my gamer. Even to
this day, I dont take BP with gamer bats.

Btw, colleges with bat deals have an unlimited number of bats...they could care less what they use in cages.
Mr regular parent is paying good money for their bats.

 

[3girls]

Every time I fire up the machine, I feel like maybe I shouldn't have my kid swinging her LXT. Is that hard on the bat? Or should I get an old cheap bat from the junk rack in the dugout?

My daughters used their LXTs for pitching machine work and never had a barrel break because of it. They got 2-3 yrs out of every bat. Don’t use the balls that get really hard over time and don’t do it when it’s below 50 and you will be good.

 

[Westwind]

Btw, colleges with bat deals have an unlimited number of bats...they could care less what they use in cages.
Mr regular parent is paying good money for their bats.

I definitely respect your thoughts on this. That’s why I always drag you into this stuff- parents should get both sides.

The quoted above is the only thing I disagree with. I think the idea that college teams have unlimited bats is kind of overstated by most. No need to go further with that…

 

[CoreSoftball20]

I definitely respect your thoughts on this. That’s why I always drag you into this stuff- parents should get both sides.

The quoted above is the only thing I disagree with. I think the idea that college teams have unlimited bats is kind of overstated by most. No need to go further with that…

Agree to disagree...All they do is call Mizuno or whoever they deal with. They even get bats before stores
My Mizuno guy is super cool...we sit here and chat forever when he comes.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

I definitely respect your thoughts on this. That’s why I always drag you into this stuff- parents should get both sides.

The quoted above is the only thing I disagree with. I think the idea that college teams have unlimited bats is kind of overstated by most. No need to go further with that…

Not every college gets unlimited bats, for sure. But, the big name P5 schools, and even Mid-Major schools get a lot.

Florida dabbled with Ghosts for one season a few years back. They were getting them delivered on a pallet and breaking them a lot. Apparently, Walton got frustrated and went back to DeMarini because of the frequency the Ghosts were breaking. I am quite sure those girls put an inordinate number of hits on a bat, so that would lead to breaking issues not seen by your standard TB or rec player.

I'd love to know how many cuts a D1 P5 player takes a week during season. If anyone has any insight, please share.

Composite bats are a great technology, but most players want performance. As Core said, you walk a fine line between durability and performance. If you push one envelope, the other will suffer. All you need to know about how much they've stretched performance is to look at the compression testing approval numbers for current bats. I believe the Ghosts and Meta are around 900 PSI. Most other bats are around 1,500 PSI. I'm not taking a bat like that against against a pithing machine.

 

[PJR202]

Not every college gets unlimited bats, for sure. But, the big name P5 schools, and even Mid-Major schools get a lot.

Florida dabbled with Ghosts for one season a few years back. They were getting them delivered on a pallet and breaking them a lot. Apparently, Walton got frustrated and went back to DeMarini because of the frequency the Ghosts were breaking. I am quite sure those girls put an inordinate number of hits on a bat, so that would lead to breaking issues not seen by your standard TB or rec player.

I'd love to know how many cuts a D1 P5 player takes a week during season. If anyone has any insight, please share.

Composite bats are a great technology, but most players want performance. As Core said, you walk a fine line between durability and performance. If you push one envelope, the other will suffer. All you need to know about how much they've stretched performance is to look at the compression testing approval numbers for current bats. I believe the Ghosts and Meta are around 900 PSI. Most other bats are around 1,500 PSI. I'm not taking a bat like that against against a pithing machine.

I have no data to support my bold, semi-accurate statement, but based on the small sample size of comments here...with the amount of ghosts being replaced under warranty, these bats must not cost much to make.

 

[Westwind]

I'd love to know how many cuts a D1 P5 player takes a week during season. If anyone has any insight, please share.

Every day including her off day when she hits on her own.

I deleted the rest of my reply.

DD currently has an LXT for practice and a Xeno for games. Not exactly the peak of luxury like everyone assumes.

Top 25 p5.