Very interesting read, if not brief.

http://tinyurl.com/3bmx67

Evidently the speed of a bat is more important than the weight of bat for long balls

10/12/2007 10:35:14 AM

some interesting points in there

i liked

Quote :

"Finally, and this is subtle: Most players have stopped batting with their bare hands. The weather is quite cool at many spring training camps. So, players wear gloves to keep their hands from getting rattled, especially when they don't hit the ball squarely. Once you get a feel for a bat with gloves on, you might just keep the gloves on for every at bat all summer. So, players have selected bat handles that are thinner by a couple of thicknesses of leather. A millimeter or two, or a sixteenth of an inch or so may not sound like much. But, it can render a bat handle 10 percent smaller. The strength of a cylinder like a bat handle goes not as its diameter, and not as its diameter squared. Instead, when a rod is bent, its stiffness depends on its diameter squared times its diameter squared. It goes as the fourth power of the diameter. So a 10 percent reduction can mean a 35 percent reduction in strength. That's a lot. Yikes. No wonder we're seeing all this kindling in the infield."

10/12/2007 10:43:24 AM

yeah that is an interesting read

thanks for the link

10/12/2007 12:24:26 PM

Quote :

" Perhaps as more bats break, players will want to take steps to keep them intact. Bigger handles, better wood, and branding would all help."

10/12/2007 12:30:47 PM

A question not answered is do MLB players care if their bats break or not. Also what are the stats on batting average on broken bat plays compared to a normal series of at bats. Common sense would say most broken bat balls put in play induce outs, but what is the strength of the correlation. Is it in the player's best interest to have a sturdy bat?

10/12/2007 2:27:59 PM

^For anyone who played baseball, I think that answer is pretty easy. I'd much rather my bat not break.

10/12/2007 2:58:35 PM

^ obviously you dont want your bat to break in any particular at bat, but does A-Rod care if he breaks 20-30 bats a season in exchange for 45-55 HRs? (assuming that weaker bats do in fact aid homers as stated by Nye)

10/12/2007 3:46:17 PM

i missed the bit where he said weaker bats aid batters...

10/12/2007 4:38:58 PM

I think he's talking about how bats are lighter now and smaller, therefore making them weaker, but able to get more momentum from them

[Edited on October 12, 2007 at 4:55 PM. Reason : .]

10/12/2007 4:54:40 PM

Quote :

"Evidently the speed of a bat is more important than the weight of bat for long balls"

Duh. E = m*v^2/2

Basic physics, folks.

10/12/2007 6:34:39 PM

thats odd both mass and velocity are in that equation... moron

10/12/2007 9:15:43 PM

Quote :

"^ obviously you dont want your bat to break in any particular at bat, but does A-Rod care if he breaks 20-30 bats a season in exchange for 45-55 HRs? (assuming that weaker bats do in fact aid homers as stated by Nye)"

have you ever watched a baseball game?

i've watched thousands and can count the number of broken-bat home runs i've seen on one hand

10/12/2007 9:17:59 PM

you missed my point.... what i meant was that A-Rod may use a lighter bat to increase bat speed (hit more HRs), but in making a bat lighter it is therefor weaker and prone to breaking. A safe assumption is that the vast majority of broken bat situations result in outs thus A-Rod may be trading incresased bat speed (read HRs) for broken bats (read outs that cause a decrease in batting average).

Conclusion: A-Rod more likely than not is happy to hit more HRs at the cost of hitting .305 instead of .310 or more

By the way the broken bats do not occur when he hits the HRs read the original posted link

[Edited on October 12, 2007 at 9:40 PM. Reason : .]

10/12/2007 9:37:37 PM

it depends on which is more valued, marginal batting average or marginal home runs

i'd take the batting average

10/12/2007 9:42:57 PM

yeah you have hgh for home runs anyways.

10/12/2007 11:14:23 PM

^^ if you are a true team player thats a good pick i think, on the other hand marginal runs may be more vauluable than marginal hits to an AL team. A small ball playing NL team probably wopuld take the extra hits

10/13/2007 10:02:41 AM

Quote :

"thats odd both mass and velocity are in that equation... moron"

And velocity is the squared term, dumbass. Double the mass, double the energy. Double the velocity, quadruple the energy. Are you sure you're an engineer?

[Edited on October 13, 2007 at 1:16 PM. Reason : I guess you don't know the trajectory equation, either: d = V^2*sin(2*theta)/g]

10/13/2007 1:00:05 PM

^ shut up.... just shut up i bet you believe a penny will kill you if its dropped from the empire state building too

10/13/2007 5:48:40 PM

Ha, you can't even say anything. I'll take that as your concession.

Keep doing what you're doing, though. Watching Bill Nye is obviously very educational for you.

10/13/2007 6:16:42 PM

KyleAtState majorly PWND himself by getting trapped into skokiaan's weak PWNT

10/13/2007 6:49:41 PM

man shit yo, he got engineer on that ass.

10/13/2007 10:42:22 PM

who was the first one here to state that speed was more important, yeah me in post #1. and some douche comes along and tries to poo poo how obvious it is. guess what, no matter how many equations that you throw out there (however correctly they apply) it is still not as obvious as just saying "duh E=mc^2". The truth is that it still takes skill on the part of the batter to put the ball in the stands. Which is why it is hard to make scientific studies of these things by removing the human element. Wasnt there a mythbusters where they tried to mechanically synthesize kicking a football? I dont recall the whole episode but I think they had real trouble making that one work.

10/14/2007 9:58:21 AM

^ you got pwnt by skokiaan, just drop it and accept that you lost this one.

10/14/2007 10:44:11 AM

goonies never say die

10/14/2007 12:17:30 PM

Quote :

"thats odd both mass and velocity are in that equation... moron"

roflmao

10/14/2007 1:13:52 PM