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Newton's Second Law of Motion - In the Batter's Box

July 26, 2017 2 min read

One of the most common questions we field is "How light can you make my bat?" or "I want the biggest barrel possible but it has to be -3!".  Something has to give and the majority of players hink that swinging a lighter baseball bat is the best thing they can do for their performance at the plate.  

 Baseball players need to stop thinking like this. Why?

1) The lighter a wood bat, the less dense the wood.  In order to produce a wood bat that is a -3, we need to start with a lighter wood billet.  The billet is lighter because the wood is lower in density.  The lower the density, the weaker the wood.  If you start with a lower density wood billet, you’re more likely to make a wood bat that is weaker than a wood bat made from a heavier or high density billet.

2). A weight difference of 1 ounce (-2 compared to -3) is virtually undetectable.. A stack of ten pennies is about an ounce. That extra ounce is distributed throughout the bat’s length and not focused on the barrel’s end.  Picture a bat with ten pennies placed on it that are spaced from knob to barrel end.

3) Swinging a -2 wood bat, compared to a -3, will NOT reduce your bat speed.  Remember that some of that weight  is located in the handle and distributed thoughout the bat evenly.

4) A bat that is one ounce heavier has more mass, and is made from harder/stronger wood.  Science and  physics tells us, and proves that the more mass you apply to something (in this case, a bat on ball), the more force you will apply to it.  This is Isacc Newton's Second Law of Motion F = ma.

So, there it is - all backed by SCIENCE! When you are on our custom side of the site, you'll see in the weight drop down "-2 Recommended"; and what you've read above is why.  The stock side of the site we get the bats in between a -2 and -3.  If you’re shopping our Teen and Youth Series, you'll notice the maximum length to weight differential is -5.  Anything greater will essentially be a piece of extremely low density balsa wood.


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