Is That $500 Bat Really Worth It?

Comparing a $500 to a $100 bat - you gotta see the results

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Today’s Highlights

  • Why Sunday is the best day of the week

  • Comparing a $500 bat to a $100 bat

  • The best daily baseball trivia game

Happy Sunday, Friends!

Let me just say, Sundays are the best day of the week.

You probably could have guessed that I love Sundays given the name of my newsletter, but here’s why:

  • Church and family day

  • It’s championship day in travel ball

  • It’s win the series day in college ball

  • It’s Sunday Night Baseball in big league ball

  • It’s fantasy football in the fall

  • It’s the one day where you feel like your only duty that day is to relax and have a good day

Sunday is like a refresh button for life.

Now, let’s talk about metal bats…

It’s the most important piece of equipment in the game and the one piece of equipment that parents feel like they have to pony up for the latest and greatest bat every year for $400.

But do we really need to do this? Let’s find out.

Parents when asked for a new bat:

Bat companies releasing the same bat as last year with a new paint job

Well, there’s good news and bad news here when it comes to bats…

And it depends on the age of the ballplayer.

High schoolers have to swing BBCOR bats which are heavily regulated - meaning, nobody is allowed to make a “hotter” bat than everyone else as they all have to pass a test to ensure they don’t exceed the exit velocity regulation.

But for the younger ballplayers (USSSA bats) it’s a bit of a different story unfortunately.

There is a huge variance in the performance of the USSSA youth bats.

If you’re familiar with The Bat Bros - which your ballplayer is for sure - this guy is a mega YouTube sensation who does nothing but test bats on his YouTube channel.

Love this guy -his content is clean - very high quality - and he gives honest feedback based on results.

And the results are often quite shocking.

He consistently finds that one piece alloy BBCOR bats outperform 2 piece bats (composite bats or connect bats)

That’s great news for your wallet because the one piece bats are far cheaper than the two piece bats most of the time.

Here’s an example below where he tests out the entire Marucci bat line of BBCOR (high school) bats from the $100 one piece alloy bat to the $500 composite bat.

Great video to watch but I’ll save ya the time and post the results below.

CATX2 Composite - $500 - Max Exit Velocity 106mph

CATX2 Connect - $400 - Max Exit Velo 106mph

Code - $200 - Max Exit Velocity 110mph

Fractal - $100 - Max Exit Velocity 109mph

As you see, the $100 and $200 bats outperform the $400 and $500 bats. 👀👀

Now, for the USSSA bats.

And for the results - complete opposite of the adult bats - ouch!

As you see, the difference between the high dollar USSSA bats and the cheap USSSA bats is significant.

And this is consistent with most of his videos on USSSA bats.

But for the BBCOR bats- the cheaper one piece bats always seem to achieve higher exit velocities 🤔🤔

CONCLUSION

Go premium bat until high school as the high dollar bats far outperform the cheaper options.

But, come high school, save the money, get the cheaper option as they seem to outperform the expensive two piece options.

Now, the tricky part is convincing your ballplayer that the $200 Marucci Code is the better performing bat.

A special thanks to todays sponsor: RunDot

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The Best Daily Trivia Baseball Game

Immaculate Grid - Check it out HERE

All you baseball trivia nuts (like me) your day just got a little bit better.

The beauty of this game is there is no timer, you can think about it throughout the day and take a stab at the answers as they come to you.

Every day there is a new grid to solve and your score is based on how rare your answer is used by all the participants that day.

Example below:

Check them out at immaculategrid.com

Have the best Sunday.

And as always - rooting for every one of you ballplayers out there.

DJ