Baseball bat weight vs. swing weight
By:
What many new players don't
seem to grasp is the concept of bat weight vs. swing weight. If you take a 34
inch, 32 ounce thin handled, big barreled bat and hold it by the handle, it
feels very heavy because the weight is all at the end of the bat where the wood
is. If you pick the same bat up and hold it by the barrel, it suddenly feels
very light. You didn't change the weight of the bat, you changed the balance.
Aluminum bats feel light because the barrels are hollow and the weight is in
the handle. To get the swing weight feel of an aluminum bat in a wood bat, the
wood bat would need to be a -8.
To get the light swing weight feel for wood that some players (mostly younger
players), the bat must be well balanced. This is achieved by making the barrel
smaller or by making the handle and transition thicker, better distributing the
weight, or adding by weight to the knob as we have done with the Model 73. The
Model 73 is by far our most popular model because of the balance. It has a big
barrel, yet It swings like a -4. It feels lighter than ANY -3 bat we make. The
JR42 has a very thick handle and transition and a medium sized barrel. At 34
inches and 34 ounces, it feels lighter to swing than any bat we make.
We bring a Model JR42 to Spring Training each year at 34 inches and 35 ounces
and ask Major Leaguers to swing it and tell us how much it weighs. Not a single
one has guessed more than 31 ounces. Each time, we need to get out a scale and
prove that it weighs 35.5 ounces. It's all about how the weight is distributed
in a wood bat, not how much the bat weighs.
The key is how a bat is balanced, bat weight in itself is unimportant.