Why do baseball bats break more now than they ever did in MLB?
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at
2:40 am
Why do baseball bats shatter all the time? Are the players stronger or the bats made cheap?
According to this professional hitting instructor’s blog, it’s that the already thin handles are shaved down even more…mostly to get pine tar and rosin off. It’s the fastest way to get the caked material off, and get a smooth handle. They do this knowing that it will cause the handle to eventually break. MLB knows about this practice, but may pass new guidelines for this problem and new maple bat standards as well in the future.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp...
skinner handles at grip
cuz they dont wing right and they pitch 90-100 mph
There has been some debate about that recently. The bats being used today are made of maple. While they give a lot more pop, they are prone to breaking. Bats are made out of all sorts of wood. I believe the best is white ash, but there has been shortages of it.
The players are stronger, but it’s mainly the material the bats are made of. It’s not cheap, it’s just very prone to breaking.
Basically the batters are stronger and their arms put more torque top the bat and their swing is faster.
The bats these days are made of maple wood. They are blunt and thick on one end, and the wood is much more brittle than what they used to use.
I wouldn’t be surprised is someone gets seriously hurt very soon from a shard of bat.
most players use maple which is more likely to crack/break/split
The use of maple bats. For some reason, players say that maple is a harder wood. Scientists have proven otherwise, and scientists have also proven (also can be seen at games) that maple is easier to split, while ash would just leave cracks. Although maple visually snaps more, ash still broke close to the same amount (less yes, but still close), the ash bats just didn’t splinter/slice ect.
I think because of how much faster they are pitching now a days i mean thay are pitching over 90mhp even 100mhp. Also, the pitchers have been placing there pitches inside more because the pitchers have been crowding the plate more than ever.
There are two types of bats, maple and ash. Maple tend to break in large pieces, while ash shatters. I saw a thing on broken bats on Baseball Tonight last week.
now more players like the maple bats better because they think it helps them hit it farther, but they did a study about it and maple and ash bats are pretty much the same, but maple breaks more. they used to use ash bats a lot more
They’re made of maple, which breaks easier.
This is causing a lot of controversy nowadays. Many players today prefer to use maple bats rather than the standard ash bats. They say that maple allows them to hit farther. Scientists have tested this theory, and say that theres no significant difference between the two, but players will believe what they want.
Maple bats tend to shatter into sharp pieces rather than just crack or split like ash bats. Recently a first base coach was hit in the face with a piece of a maple bat. His face is paralyzed on one side for now, but he will recover.
The easiest solution would be to make the handle of the bat thicker, but some players object to this because they need to have their bats exactly the way they want them. Eventually MLB will probably mandate new rules regarding handle thickness, but for now the best we can do is hope that everyone in the line of fire will have quick reflexes and dodge any shrapnel that may be flying through the air.
There isn’t just one reason why bats are breaking more now than in the past, there are many. The most obvious is that handles are thinner now than they have ever been in the past. If a player wants a thin handle, as a bat maker we have to give him a thin handle. Closely related to handle thickness is slope of grain. No matter how thick or thin a handle is, if the grain of the wood isn’t parallel to the bat itself the bat is much more likely to break. Yes, maple is more likely to break into multiple pieces than ash. It is a much less porous wood and therefore less flexible. If a ball is hit away from the sweet spot it produces pretty substantial stress on the wood. When the wood reaches its stress point it breaks. Maple tends to break into multiple pieces, ash tends to crack but remain in one piece. But we see many instances of ash breaking in two and also of maple cracking. One final factor associated with bats breaking is weight. Players tend to want large barrels, thin handles and they want them to be as light as possible. I can give you a large barrel and thin handle and as long as I can make the bat heavy it will be durable. I can give you a thin handle and make it light weight with a small barrel and it will be durable. As a general rule the heavier a piece of wood is, the stronger it is. Unfortunately, a big barrel bat with a light weight also requires us to use a light weight piece of wood. Couple this with a thin handle and it will have a pronounced affect on durability. Maybe a bit long winded but it gives you a glimpse into the issues a bat maker has to deal with on a daily basis.