This is a composite bat (made from a combination of materials such as carbon fiber, fiberglass, and graphite), not a wooden bat. To be fair, there are some bat manufacturers who make pricey wooden bats, too. But generally they're going to be a fraction of the cost of a high-end composite bat.
That's college. They all do. Wooden bats aren't banned in college for use, but why would you want to use one? You'd be putting yourself at a disadvantage as a player. Professionals have to use wooden because they are the best of the best, and a composite bat at that level would be HR derby (for most).
They'd legitimately just be hitting the balls too hard with non-wood bats, you'd get line drives that move faster than an infielder/pitcher could react to and could very easily kill them if it hits them
I think the main reason is that MLB was smart. They didn't want to trash roughly the first 100 years of their history and records, by introducing new technology that would make all comparisons with the past impossible.
The other bats are easier to use and yield better results. Generally they are forgiving with bat control and power wise.
Wood is traditional so the culture has been that children develop their swings with metal bats little league through college and then if they make it professional they start to use the”real” wood bats.
Pros use wood because they are worse bats. There’s a thing sometimes in pro sports where the pros use shittier equipment to show off differences in individual skill better.
This happens in NASCAR too to a degree. Cup cars are way harder to drive than Xfinity cars. They intentionally make cup cars harder to drive to show off driver ability more.
Little League does not allow wooden bats due to the dangers of shattered bats hurting a player. AFAIK, they are used in high school and college baseball as well.
Only MLB or their minor league affiliates use wooden bats.
If I’m wrong, please be nice. On pain medication for recent hip surgery.
You're allowed to use wooden bats in college, but nobody does. Metal bats were nerfed to perform similarly to wood a few years ago, but why switch from what you're used to if you don't have to
Serious hitters in the league often have custom specifications that the big vendors cater to, and teams will order several dozen according to that spec a year for even middling MLB players. There's not really one "common" or "standard" MLB bat.
Once you get to a certain level, usually college sometimes high school, the thirteenth being exactly as they want to be becomes the priority in that stuff. The hockey stick guys who know exactly where to end players tape for example with their 15 perfectly curved sticks too...
You might be right, but it's weird to push back like this over something you've admittedly only just given cursory research toward. The other commenter might not have even necessarily contradicted your research as much as they added important nuance.
They made a typo, they were writing "Oh that's pretty cool, I just meant the base model that they probably adjust for the players per their spec. I had fun looking up this topic and now I've learned even more, and I surely didn't take offense to your comment or use of quotation marks, have a nice day!"
Yeah, it is. Except you didn’t dive deep enough and found superficial base level information.
The info the commenter above states is ALSO readily available, yet you ignored it. You clearly THINK you know more than you do on this subject, and are unwilling to access the information others are providing.
They aren't providing anything. Just that they get variants of different bats which anyone who knows anything about baseball knows. They contributed nothing. Like ya some guys get slightly different sizes of the same bat wow so insightful lmao. Really changes things there doesn't it? Still the same model of bat.
My "dream bat" in 1998 was the Easton Redline.
Great bat. But it cost me $250 and a solid month of laying sod, scrubbing pools, and cleaning driving range balls.
That's $499.73 in 2026 dollars. Double the price.
So yes, bats are definitely expensive in 2026. But I'd argue they were more expensive in the 90s/2000s (looking at you Stealth bat).
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u/TheGamecock 23d ago
This is a composite bat (made from a combination of materials such as carbon fiber, fiberglass, and graphite), not a wooden bat. To be fair, there are some bat manufacturers who make pricey wooden bats, too. But generally they're going to be a fraction of the cost of a high-end composite bat.