Starting Travel Ball (bat recommendations)

[jbpick86]

There's a kid with a Prism on our middle school team. I'm gonna steal it one day. I have a feeling it'll hit similar to the CF. Nice deal you got on that.

The sweet spot on it is huge. It almost goes endcap to connection so lots of room for error as she is learning against better quality pitching. They get rewarded for just getting the barrell on the ball and if they barrell it up, it goes. The forgiveness seemed like the biggest advantage over the Ghost. A perfect hit was better from the Ghost. An imperfect hit was better out of the Prism or the Echo. It is an extremely whippy bat and a couple of the bigger harder swinging girls didn't like it and preferred the LXT. One thing I found interesting was that every girl really liked the Meta but it wasn't their first choice.

 

[PJR202]

The sweet spot on it is huge. It almost goes endcap to connection so lots of room for error as she is learning against better quality pitching. They get rewarded for just getting the barrell on the ball and if they barrell it up, it goes. The forgiveness seemed like the biggest advantage over the Ghost. A perfect hit was better from the Ghost. An imperfect hit was better out of the Prism or the Echo. It is an extremely whippy bat and a couple of the bigger harder swinging girls didn't like it and preferred the LXT. One thing I found interesting was that every girl really liked the Meta but it wasn't their first choice.

I've not held a meta as best I can recall. I've only even see one at the field. My daughter (15) swings an LXT. She's only just getting dedicated instruction the past couple months, and one of her mechanical flaws has always been pulling back her body during the switch and catching the ball on the bat end. An LXT isn't real forgiving outside of the sweet spot. I've tried a couple Xeno and they tend to be consistent across the barrell as well.

 

[Chad504boy]

we didn't have a good experience w the white black and gold LXT. maybe we didn't hit it long enough to see the performance improve, felt like a dead bat.

we had a original grey/black meta. Liked the bat a lot, sound was great and seemed to give much better out the wrapper performance. Then you could feel a rattle inside the barrel after some time. Just kind of aggravating. Wouldn't mind giving new meta a shot but at the price of nearly $500 vs the cost of a discounted GA, no thanks.

we've loved the xeno's have bought two of the grey/purple/highlighter newer ones. (new black ones look great) Have been extremely durable and very consistent power bat. she has gone back and forth from her GA to xeno. I have no problem recommending a xeno to any girl who swings a lot bc at worst, it'll be the best cage bat/backup bat that is super durable.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

we didn't have a good experience w the white black and gold LXT. maybe we didn't hit it long enough to see the performance improve, felt like a dead bat.

we had a original grey/black meta. Liked the bat a lot, sound was great and seemed to give much better out the wrapper performance. Then you could feel a rattle inside the barrel after some time. Just kind of aggravating. Wouldn't mind giving new meta a shot but at the price of nearly $500 vs the cost of a discounted GA, no thanks.

we've loved the xeno's have bought two of the grey/purple/highlighter newer ones. (new black ones look great) Have been extremely durable and very consistent power bat. she has gone back and forth from her GA to xeno. I have no problem recommending a xeno to any girl who swings a lot bc at worst, it'll be the best cage bat/backup bat that is super durable.

Well, if you know who to ask, that price on the Meta isn't so bad... ;-)

 

[jbpick86]

we didn't have a good experience w the white black and gold LXT. maybe we didn't hit it long enough to see the performance improve, felt like a dead bat.

we had a original grey/black meta. Liked the bat a lot, sound was great and seemed to give much better out the wrapper performance. Then you could feel a rattle inside the barrel after some time. Just kind of aggravating. Wouldn't mind giving new meta a shot but at the price of nearly $500 vs the cost of a discounted GA, no thanks.

we've loved the xeno's have bought two of the grey/purple/highlighter newer ones. (new black ones look great) Have been extremely durable and very consistent power bat. she has gone back and forth from her GA to xeno. I have no problem recommending a xeno to any girl who swings a lot bc at worst, it'll be the best cage bat/backup bat that is super durable.

I had the Xeno on our list to try but couldn't run one down locally. So that was another one we didn't get any experience with.

 

[Chad504boy]

I had the Xeno on our list to try but couldn't run one down locally. So that was another one we didn't get any experience with.

old xeno's used to be heavier bats so i think it has a little bit of a reputation as being an older girls' bat highschool-college age. newer xeno's are closer to weight specs with the rest. I guess my point is xeno's are more uncommon with younger girls thus the girl may not have the confidence so to speak cause susy isn't swinging it. :lol:

 

[uncdrew]

I had the Xeno on our list to try but couldn't run one down locally. So that was another one we didn't get any experience with.

Hold off on the Xeno. My DD uses one but she's very strong. IMHO it's for the older/stronger players. She likes the stiff feel and slightly more end-loaded feel. It's a tank of a bat.

Our 13 player 14U A level team is 6 LXTs, 6 Ghost Advanced, and the Xeno. In 12U, it was 13 Ghost Advanced

 

[angispeds]

Agree on the xeno. Even in colleges that have slugger contracts most girls use the lxt with very few Xenos. Dd is a senior and just switched to an lxt from demarini for this reason and ended up going -9 and likes the feel.


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[LEsoftballdad]

Agree on the xeno. Even in colleges that have slugger contracts most girls use the lxt with very few Xenos. Dd is a senior and just switched to an lxt from demarini for this reason and ended up going -9 and likes the feel.


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Do you have any evidence to back that up? From what I saw this past season, there were a lot of LS girls using the Xeno, much more than I see on the TB circuit.

I think more older girls use it because they had experience with it before the Ghost became so popular.

 

[jbpick86]

Hold off on the Xeno. My DD uses one but she's very strong. IMHO it's for the older/stronger players. She likes the stiff feel and slightly more end-loaded feel. It's a tank of a bat.

Our 13 player 14U A level team is 6 LXTs, 6 Ghost Advanced, and the Xeno. In 12U, it was 13 Ghost Advanced

Yeah, I really like the light swinging feel of the Prism and the Echo (the Ghost and Meta may fit here as well but there barrels are absolute spring boards) for younger girls. Also, it seems like the whippier bats turn slower moving pitches around a little better at this age. Especially if it is a girl that maybe doesn't swing as hard. Kind of the same concept that you get by increasing whip in slowpitch by holding on the knob and overlapping the top hand.