Today’s hitters are plagued with the problem of breaking wooden bats. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent major league maple bat dilemma. The dangerous splintering of maple bats that has resulted in serious injuries has brought to light the dangers created when proper instructions from hitters are not heeded regarding the orientation of the rim grain at the point of contact. Most wood bat breakage problems can be resolved by correctly orienting the logo (or trademark) to place the grain of the rim parallel to the flight of the baseball at the point of contact. This is the position that produces the lowest break and highest hitting power.
The traditional saying “face up logo” has its origins in the early years of baseball when hitters used a different style of hitting. Hitters like Gehrig, Dimaggio and others swung the bat more linearly and transferred more weight to the front foot. This forward momentum kept the upper body level and thus the barrel of the bat did not rotate. Today’s hitters use a rotation method to swing a bat. More weight is placed on the rear leg with the hitter turning the torso. This causes the shoulders to lean toward the ball and creates the rotation of the cylinder of the bat. The result is that today’s hitters tend to hit the flat grain of the bat more often and this results in breakage and loss of power.
To reduce breakage, hold the bat in front of you with the logo facing up (or in front of you). Then turn the logo toward your lead shoulder (the shoulder closest to the pitcher). The more you hit with your back foot, the more you need to rotate the bat toward your front shoulder. The maximum angle should be 45 degrees. You may want to put a mark on the bat once you get the ideal alignment. This should put the bat in the proper hitting position with the grain of the rim perfectly aligned to hit the ball. This proper alignment will not only drastically decrease drag, it will also increase hitting power due to the restriction of bat flex.
Other things you can do to reduce breakage include:
• Use a heavy beat. A -3 metal swinger is not the same as a -3 wood swinger. Metal beats have greater strength than wood at low weights. -3 wooden bats break more often than -2 wooden bats. Remember, there is no such thing as -3 trees. To lose weight you have to sacrifice density and that decreases strength. Ideally, you should hit with a wooden bat that weighs the same as the length. A 33″ bat should weigh 33 oz. The difference between an even weight bat and a -3 is less than a hamburger, so get up and go up in weight for best performance.
• You can also increase the diameter of the handle. Most wood bat companies offer handles less than 1″ in diameter, which means the bat will break very easily. Old school handles used to be larger than 1″, which made bats sticky. they were a bit heavier but reduced breakage. Also, a larger diameter handle means less flex and that equals more power.
Lastly, pitchers with a good fastball motion can cut you inside and there’s not much you can do about it. But, most of the bats that break did so when they hit the outfield and, in particular, off speed. You don’t have to throw the ball hard to break a bat. Hitting the last 2″ of the barrel causes the bat to flex backwards excessively and will fracture the bat near the hands and the break will form on the leading edge of the bat. This is the opposite of what happens with a bat. broken. by an inside fastball breaking on the trailing edge. An inside fastball hits the shaft and stops the shaft’s momentum. The barrel, which has more mass, continues forward and causes a U-shaped tilt of the shaft. bat forward.This causes the bat to break in the hands on the trailing edge.
The key to hitting the outside pitch is to hit it from the back of the plate. This will allow the barrel to hit the ball solidly and drive it hard into the opponent’s court. Not timing the outside pitch correctly leads to poorly hit balls off the back of the bat, weak squiblers, broken bats, embarrassment, teasing, losing, you get the picture. Practice hitting with power to the opposite field. It can only be done by hitting the back of the plate. You should never start batting practice with inside pitches that you can throw. Always have the BP pitcher start outside pitches and work inside pitches.
The MLB recently approved a set of guidelines for wooden bats. In these guidelines was a requirement to place logos on the “grain face” rather than the edge grain. This would decrease breakage and, by its own admission, decrease performance. Oddly enough, this method works for breaking because now, instead of players turning the pimple face side toward the baseball, they now turn the pimple edge toward it. Unless, of course, hitters know that the grain orientation of the face causes a decrease in performance and don’t put the logo up, but rather face the pitcher or catcher. We have observed that this is the case.
The corrective technique mentioned in this article could have achieved the same result without the widespread chaos and large amount of expense incurred by batting companies to comply with MLB decisions.
Remember, good technique and focus reduce bat breakage and increase performance.