How much does ball compression/COR really matter with regards to game outcome?

[smddad]

We played an 18U tournament with said ball. Had to move our outfielders to 12U depth and we never once had a ball past our outfield. Only one ball was hit close to a 200' fence by us all tournament, and we usually have 2-3 hr's during any given tournament. I will not play another NSA tournament until they fix the ball.

 

[coach james]

The general rule of thumb is; if the ball is soft, you'll need a harder bat. If the ball is hard; you should use a softer bat.
Example.... a broken in SP bat vs. a brand new 500# evil ball makes an average Joe look like a long haul bomber

 

[PA SB Dad]

I have to admit, it is funny to see all the complaints about the lower compression balls. In every thread EVER of DFP about facemasks in the infield, everyone mentions safety first as the reason why they should be mandated. My response to that position was if you really have a concern about safety, use a lower compression ball and change the bats, rather than mandating everyone use a mask. The response I predicted to a lower compression ball is exactly what you see here on this thread - parents and coaches complaining that the ball does not travel as far, and they want to use the harder ball in games.

 

[Westwind]

DD's second year 12's team played a lot of NSA at the end of the year. We played in the neighborhood of 120 games last season and were a good hitting team. We typically burn outfielders with batted balls regularly but at NSA events it was really evident that outfields were in and we couldn't get it over them. If it was "up" at all it was caught. At NSA World Series in Chattanooga we maybe burned one outfielder unless it was a gapper and saw only one otf hr which seemed unusual considering the number of decent teams we saw.

I did see some of the better hitters trying adjust to hit lower line drives and trying to hit gaps but personally I like to see balls hit hard and far.

It was a disadvantage for our team.

Seems like I read on a slow pitch site that the Anderson double walls were better for mush balls but I couldn't tell much difference. Bring on the .375's!

 

[marriard]

I have to admit, it is funny to see all the complaints about the lower compression balls. In every thread EVER of DFP about facemasks in the infield, everyone mentions safety first as the reason why they should be mandated. My response to that position was if you really have a concern about safety, use a lower compression ball and change the bats, rather than mandating everyone use a mask. The response I predicted to a lower compression ball is exactly what you see here on this thread - parents and coaches complaining that the ball does not travel as far, and they want to use the harder ball in games.

We played our infielders 20' closer to the batter when we played NSA so there was NO additional safety factor - in fact it was probably more dangerous on the corners and our SS/2B were not used to be so far in all the time. Changing ball compression for 'safety' reasons didn't work.

At least the fielding masks have an effect on safety. This change did not.

 

[spleen1015]

I'm pretty ignorant on this subject, so this is pretty interesting. DD's team played a 100% NSA schedule this last season. Her team wasn't a very good hitting team. I wonder how much the ball had to do with it.

So, to carry this conversation further. Can we quantify the impact on individual performance? I know there is a lot of factors in there, but if you have a B team playing mostly B tournaments, would a .250 hitter in that situation hit .300 with the 'hotter' ball? .350? What would a .450 hitter hit?

Just trying to educate myself.

 

[nicelag]

Tough question. The outfielders are going to play as deep as they need to based on the ball type. So, if you hit a lot of fly balls that are not homerun length, I don't think BA will be affected much. They will just catch a harder ball deeper than a softer one. A base hit is a base hit it just may have an affect on how many bases you take. However, the hard ball soft ball issue has been studied a lot in golf. At some point if you hit a softer ball hard enough it will start to have an adverse effect. However, generally speaking the harder you hit a harder ball the farther it goes, period!

 

[riseball]

We do not play much NSA but it has been positive for us. Instead of swinging for the fences or hoping for gaps my players were forced to execute and as they say "hit em where they ain't!"