Bats could change game
Whether the college baseball world has changed for the good or not is yet to be determined. The era of long, high scoring games may be over.
In January the NCAA put into effect a new standard for bats used in college baseball. Bat-Ball Coefficient Of Restitution (BBCOR) measures the “trampoline effect” of a bat.
The previous standard was called the Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR). There are multiple reasons for the change.
Safety is always a concern as well as the goal of creating a metal bat as similar to wooden bat as possible.
Alan Nathan, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois and chair of the Society for American Baseball Research’s Baseball and Science Committee, wrote an article that compares the performance of different types of baseball bats.
Nathan explained that a wood bat acts like a rigid surface whereas an aluminum bat is thin and flexible. Therefore an aluminum bat can “give” when it hits the ball.
“The more flexible the wall, the less the ball compresses and therefore the less energy lost in the collision,” Nathan said.
With a metal bat the ball can go further than with a wood bat because of the amount of energy lost at the time of contact. Wood decreases the energy more so than metal.
“The reason the bats changed is the exit speed off the older bats was too fast with the pitcher being so close,” Eastern’s head baseball coach Jim Schmitz.
“So the new bat is similar to a wood bat’s exit speed.” He said that the newer bats are definitely safer due to the fact that wood breaks.
Schmitz has always said that the choice between wood and metal also comes down to a cost factor. One swing can crack a wooden bat, it’s much more difficult to crack a metal bat.
Considering the cost of replacing bats throughout the season compared to replacing bats every season it’s a simple choice. Metal bats are more cost effective.
The BBCOR standards are also active in high school baseball.
Schmitz said that the older bats made it harder to evaluate a player when recruiting. The older bats allowed the balls to go further.
“New bats show how good of a hitter a player really is,” Schmitz said.
Unlike Schmitz, Tony Simmonds, head baseball coach at Lake Land College, is not a huge fan of the BBCOR.
When it comes to college baseball he said he feels that it’s already hard to get fans to games. With the new bats it might be even harder.
“Fans like to see runs,” he said.
The older bats allowed more home runs that meant higher scoring games. Now the games have low scores. Simmonds said that there are good things and bad things about the new bats.
Faster games could be better, college baseball is more like major league baseball and now pitchers can throw inside, he said.
However, there isn’t much offense in the games now and that could be discouraging to high school players who are potentially trying to impress scouts.
The fact that a player’s home run stats could potentially be cut in half from the 2010 season to this past season makes it harder on coaches, players and even scouts.
“The bats can change the stats a lot. Scouts don’t yet know how to judge the stats now. What is a good player? It’s harder to evaluate,” Simmonds said.
The BBCOR means that players have to push harder to show their talent. It’s no longer as simple as swinging a bat and hitting a home run to impress a coach or a scout.
Strength and power is needed more now than before for teams and players to earn more runs and win games.
Kim Schuette, the head coach for Eastern’s softball team, said with softball there is an issue of it being too “hot.” This means that the bats are getting “hotter” throughout the season making it dangerous for the players.
Schuette said softball as a whole is trying to control their bats and fix the game.
“We concern ourselves with the bat exit speed,” Schuette said.
Which was one of the reasons baseball replaced the BESR standard with the BBCOR.
In the future, it could be possible that softball will instill a similar standard to that of baseball.
The goal of safety in both sports means that research will be continuous while trying to find ways to make the sports fairer and safer.
Audrey Sayer can be reached at 581-7942
Bats could change game
The University of Illinois hangs their bats on the fence at Grimes Field in Mattoon during the game against Eastern April 12. (Audrey Sawyer
