Not too long ago, I was watching a Major League Baseball game when I noticed the players were using wooden bats. I was wondering why this is given the variety of bats on the market today.
Why do MLB players use wooden bats? Wooden bats are heavier and solid, whereas aluminum and titanium bats are much lighter and hollow. A professional baseball player swinging at a ball as hard as they can could be detrimental to the players in the line of fire of a ball hit off a lighter bat.
You may notice baseball players in separate leagues are free to use whichever bat they choose, but the MLB won’t allow it. Regardless of the rules, there are some very good reasons for them.
The Differences Between Metal Bats and Wooden Bats
If you’ve ever played, or even watched baseball, you’ll notice some distinct differences on how the ball meets the barrel of the bat depending on the type of bat used. There are some advantages and disadvantages to both types of bat, but rules are rules for a good reason.
- Metal bats are hollow. When a baseball strikes any area of a metal based baseball bats barrel, the odds are it will meet with massive amounts of kinetic energy due to the lighter weight and greater swinging power of the player.
- Wooden bats are solid. When a baseball meets a wooden baseball bats barrel, players must connect on the wooden bat’s sweet spot, which is where a majority of the bats weight lies, so players must strike the ball with precision due to the greater mass and varied center of gravity of the bat.
- Metal bats have been shown to cause somewhat unpredictable trajectories when hitting a baseball due to the differences in how the energy is dispersed. Think about the shock of hitting a solid surface with a metal bat, it reverberates back into the players limbs and torso, which the tiny vibrations can drastically change how a ball reacts.
- Solid wood bats tend to send a ball exactly where the designated hitter wants it to go. If the ball doesn’t hit correctly, it won’t go flying unpredictably through the air, it will absorb the energy of the strike and jam the ball up so it won’t go too far.
- A major league batter hitting a 90 mile per hour fastball with a metal bat is as dangerous as it sounds, it’s physics; the higher the velocity two solid surfaces meet, the greater the velocity the smaller object will leave the larger object, essentially giving the offensive team a major yet unfair advantage over the defensive team.
Major League Baseball Regulations on Bats
According to the official MLB rules and regulations concerning bats, there are several stipulations that must be adhered to.
- The bat must be a single piece, solid, wooden stick no more than two and a quarter inches in diameter at the thickest point of the bat and no more than 42 inches total in length.
- No prototype bats may be used in official games, nor off season, or exhibition games until the MLB’s Rules Committee approves of the manufacturing process and design of the bat.
- Cupped bats, or bats with indentations at the fore end of the bat must not exceed a depth greater than one inch, nor a width of two inches and a diameter of one inch while maintaining curve with absolutely no foreign substances added to the bat.
- The bat handle my not exceed the 18 inch limitation and cannot be improved with foreign substances or treatments that improves the grip of the bat. If the umpire recognizes the bat does not meet this standard during or after the fact, the player can be struck out or kicked from the game altogether.
- No colors or other eccentricities may be applied to a bat unless otherwise approved by the Rules Committee.
Parts of a baseball bat
The official rules state the bat must be a single piece of wood, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t several specialized areas of a baseball bat.
- The cup at the fore end, or top of the bat, is a region of the bat with a slight concave that is designed to ever so slightly reduce the overall weight of the bat without compromising the structural integrity of the barrel and it’s striking surface area.
- The barrel is where the bat meets the ball which must not exceed the circumference stated by official rules. The overall length of the barrel cannot exceed a third of the overall length of the bat.
- The striking surface or sweet spot, is located on the barrel of the bat, generally located on the upper portion of the bat near where the manufacturer has stamped or labels their brand name on the bat itself.
- The handle of the bat is where the barrel begins to taper into the narrowest part of the bat, where the batter will grip the bat. At the base of the handle is the knob, which is designed both balance the bats weight, as well as prevent the bat from slipping out of the players hand while they’re swinging at the baseball.
Related Questions
What types of wood are major league baseball bats made of?
Over the years, there have been a variety of woods used to construct baseball bats. The most notorious bat used in the MLB, the legendary Louisville Slugger, is constructed from 50 year old white ash wood carefully selected from the forests of New York and Pennsylvania.
The selection and manufacturing process is quite in-depth, the wood must come from trees at least five decades old, the wood is then cut and pieced before it undergoes a drying process to get the bat to the exact moisture requirements.
After the drying process, the bats are milled into shape then treated with a water based varnish to both protect the grain of the bat and to give them their iconic finish.
The ash wood bats are then selected for their balance, weight, durably, and hardness. The top tier bats are then selected by professional leagues, while the rest are sent into the consumer market.
Other types of wood that have been used in bat construction include hickory (Babe Ruth used a 44-ounce hickory bat), bamboo, and maple.
On average, how many wooden bats does a professional baseball player go through in a season?
This number can vary greatly due to the difficulty of calculating the stats of each individual player into the equation since no season is quite the same, but figures show that the average MLB player can go through as little as 3-4 bats per season, while some can exceed a few dozen.
It depends on a number of factors, including how many at bats an individual player has per season and the ability of the player to hit the sweet spot.
The general school of thought is the average player will go through one bat per 10-20 at bats while some can take up to 50-60 at bats depending on the construction and the player.
However, there is little empirical data to support this so its mostly subjective speculation considering most professional players have custom bats made to their personal specifications.
Which type of wooden baseball bat breaks the most?
It entirely depends on the grain and hardness of the bat.
Hickory is the heaviest wood, so it’s less likely to break but isn’t commonly used due to how much it slows down the batters swing
Maple bats have had quite the history since their inception into the MLB. Berry Bonds used maple bats to break most of his records, including the single-season home run record and overall career home run record.
The use of maple bats remain a controversial subject due to their tendency to shatter on impact in a way that causes sharp, high velocity splinters and shrapnel that greatly increasing the risk of injury to the players in the vicinity, but this has since been remedied and some models of maple bats are permitted in league play.
Bamboo bats are gaining popularity due to the increasing awareness in deforestation and the durability of the bats themself. They are considerably much lighter and stronger than other types of wood.
However, due to the rules and regulations surrounding bat construction for league bats being a single piece of wood, bamboo bats are banned because they are constructed by gluing many pieces of bamboo strips together then compressed into a single piece.
Ash bats still are the go to bat of many teams due to their proven track record, overall durability, and availability of materials to construct them. The grain pattern of ash wood is ideal for repetitive impacts and is less likely to break over time.
It should be noted that bat construction is constantly evolving. Maple bats have come a long way in design and have once again began to gain popularity amongst players.
