My Tech guys : choking up??

[GOINGDEEP]

That recent thread about choking up on the bat reminded me of a question I had and forgot to ask from a few days ago. Ok, I'm at a baseball game talking to my main baseball guru. Now this guy is usually the Jedi master of hitting, so if I can prove him wrong he'd probably owe me a cold drink.

Here is the thing, and I never really thought about it in all my years. THE SWEET SPOT. He claims the sweet spot is not a stationary manufactured spot on the bat, meaning from the factory it's not ( 5.187 inches from the cap, as an example only ). He insists the sweet spot "moves" "is determined" by where you hold the bat AND how small or large your hands are.

So the sweet spot for a grown man with large hands would be different from a young girl with small hands using the same bat. Or if you "choked up" the sweet spot would be different.

I found it interesting, any opinions?

 

[softballphreak]

I find the sweet spot of the bat by tapping up and down the length of the barrel with another bat, listening for the difference in the sound of the tap. That different sound is the sweet spot. Built in.

He must be talking about leverage or something.

 

[Immortal1]

Interesting... this could have some validity to it. "If" the sweet spot is considered that magical point on the barrel of the bat where the bat resonates the least AND transfers the most energy to the ball, then I would say he was correct.

How you hold the bat could effect the resonance of the bat (tight vs loose, chocked up vs all the way to the knob).

I suspect the location and size of the "sweet spot" probably could be documented with science, but.....
It would probably prove that the exact center of the sweet spot changes from 5.187 to 5.195 on the high side to 5.181 on the low side.

Should be interesting to read the following comments to see if I was even close

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Now I wish I'd payed closer attention, I'll see him again on Monday. He played MLB for 7 years, usually pretty sharp fellow on his stuff. He was using terms I can't even spell. What I can remember is he kept saying the center of mass changes ( sweet spot ) by how far up from the handle the grip is. The further up from the handle, the further towards the cap the sweet spot "moves".

I don't believe he was saying it moves a great deal, but he said ( for baseball ) the difference in 1/4" is a hit and a HR.

Still like to hear yalls opinions. I want that cold one!!

 

[Bouldersdad]

Wooden bat compared to an aluminum perhaps? Maybe on the wooden one it could work that way I would be interested n hearing more about this.

 

[nanotech14]

Now, when I played slow pitch, I know slow pitch, but we were called gut & geezers, so we needed all the help we could get. But back to the question, we would put the knob of the bat in our middle of our palm and use a overlapped grip, when we were going for a bomb. Being that the bats are only 34", it would give us more like 36" bat. Now when we were trying to base hit to set the table, because of home run limits, go back to a normal grip for more control. I don't know about the sweet spot moving, but it was just about the leverage to us.

 

[coach james]

I too will use a grip like nano to add more length and whip... as far as a sweet spot moving based on hand placement...That's got me scratching my head

 

[Greenmonsters]

Sorry GD, no free cold one for you. I know a guy who says he knows a guy who is/was a professional piano tuner/rocket scientist/bat designer who has led me to believe that the sweet spot is related to the reasonating frequency and vibrational nodes that are created when a ball strikes the bat. Similar to a guitar string or tuning fork, the length of the unfixed (i.e., not held) bat has a direct effect on the where the nodes and the sweet spot will be located. Bat design involves optimizing energy transfer and manipulating center of inertia and center of mass and other geek-treasured variables. I can't claim that I come close to understanding this guy's explanations or have represented them accurately here, but nonetheless I trust this guy and buy his bats for my DD.

So GD, the bottom line is that your buddy is right - a bat will swing and perform differently depending on where you hold it. My own take away from this is that bat design parameters have been meticulously engineered to provide maximum performance when a bat is swung without choking up or palming the knob but YMMV.

 

[Westwind]

First of all, ^^^^ is the funniest post I have read in a long time.

Second, I picture the piano tuning, beaker handling, slide rule slinger that you mention above looking a lot like Vector in Despicable Me.

Ohhhh yeahhhh.

 

[SBFAMILY]

Greenmonsters is correct. Some bats have very small sweet spots. Plus for years we have cut bats in 1/2 and tested them. You will be surprised what you find inside some of them. I think over the years the RT had the smallest sweet spot, but if you hit it on the( screws ) boy did the ball come off the bat. The 04 I think was the hottest! Many good hitting coaches make students swing wooden bats, because you have to earn it with a wooden bat.