How many times have you hit a home run and had somebody yell nice bat? It seems like it’s an everyday occurrence now days. No one believes that anyone has the talent to hit a home run or hit a ball hard because of this stigma of cheater/shaved bats. Well I’m here to tell you (and explain in simple physics terms) that shaved bats in the modern game are NOT giving players the advantage they once did…and in some cases actually HURT them.
What many don’t seem to realize anymore is that the game has changed. More and more we are now seeing a safety ball. What does that mean? In ASA we hit a 52/300 ball and in USSSA We use the M plus which is a 52/275. Both balls use a hardcore and soft outer compression. This means that upon impact the ball expands and flattens out. Older balls such as the 44/375 for ASA and the 40/325 for USSSA used a soft core with hard outer compression. Which means that they do not flatten as much and instead have a single point where all the momentum is concentrated.
The reason the Monsta Torch and other new bats have been successful with the high core, lower compression balls is because a softer bats equals less distance. Wait…did I just say that?!? I did. Let me explain why.
With the older 44/375 and 40/325 balls the bat provided “trampoline” affect at the point of contact. As I mentioned earlier the harder balls have single focal point at which the momentum of the bat striking it provides the inertia to send the ball flying. The distance is further improved by the trampoline affect. The trampoline affect is when the bat buckles and then snaps back into shape. In other words the round bat flattens out to provide more surface area at the point of contact and “throws” the ball off of it as it comes back to shape. So how does “shaving” a bat improve this? Simple. When you shave a bat you lessen the resistance provided by the barrel, which now can flatten out more (thinner walls) and trampoline back into shape faster. This provides the added distance to make a 275′ hit into a 320′ monster shot depending on the amount of material that has been removed from inside the barrel.
Enter the 52/300 or 52/275 ball. The effect was the exact opposite. Now when the ball strikes the bat, the ball flattens out and uses the stiff surface of the bat barrel to trampoline off. So the stiffer the barrel the better. Demarini was first to make technology that made the ASA ball fly. The original Flipper used “linear compression” technology to provide a stiffer wall surface which made the ball fly better. That was just the start. In comes Monsta. There bat provides an floating inner barrel (FIB) which “slides” to the point of contact stiffening the barrel on contact. As I said before, stiffer barrel equals more distance. Now Easton, Miken and Worth have all caught up.
This is not to say shaved bats have disappeared…because there are still a number of places where a rock hard classic M ball is used…but those places are becoming fewer by the day. With ASA standardized on the 52/300 I suspect that USSSA will soon implement the 52 M+ ball as a standard. Which puts us one step closer to dual stamped bats again…making it less expensive for a player who plays in both …
All the new modern ASA bats perform well with the 52 core balls and soon if we see USSSA change to a 52 we could see another massive shift…and shaving will be left to getting rid of the stubble on your face in the morning.
Softball Nation 365 