Posted by: Mike Myers () on Thu Oct 3 07:19:48 2002

My question is does a longer or heavier bat produve greater bat speed or make the ball go farther?
> > >
> > > No they dont.
> > >
> > >Isn't it true that the longer the bat the greater the torque though? Even though the hitter would have to exert a greater force to swing the longer bat it would produce a greater rotational
> velocity? In doing so producing more bat speed? Explain please?
>
> Go to http://www.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/Parkland/sld001.htm for a short web slide show based on Robert Adair's 'Physics of Baseball'.
> He is a physicist. His conclusion is that batspeed matters most. Weight of bat matters but not nearly as much. Speed of pitch has an effect also but batspeed is primary. There are graphs that show how this happens.
> And, hey, this is batspeed.com, so you must be at the right place!!!

Major Dan,

Studies which minimalize the effect of bat mass are only considering momentum transfer at time of contact with the ball. Bat mass is not very important at this time because only a small fraction of the bat mass is effectively hehind the ball during the contact interval.

Bat mass, however, is important as it relates to the hitters ability to generate significant batspeed before contact. To maximize batspeed, generally one should find a bat with long length and small mass. The greater the differential between length and mass (long length, small mass), the better. Many leagues will not allow combinations over -5 (in - oz), however.

Regards,
Mike.