Big barrel or Not??....Composite or Aluminum??

[saintjudah]

Hello guys ,

Need your opinions here...

If you had the option for an 8 yr. old in coach pitch...His League does allow bats up to 2 3/4 barrels....

Which bat would you choose if you had the option of ANY bat no size rules and lets say money is not an option....

Would you go Big barrell EXOgrid,catalyst. Comabt Da Bomb or something of the sort...

Or go Demarini F3 or Techzilla......My son has a very good swing not the best but getting better everday day......He makes solid contact every at bat and is selective on his pitches..He hits for medium to long power..Which bat would you choose and why...

he is currently using a -10 Catalyst but I have heard SO MANY good things about the techzilla that i bought him one 2 days ago and have yet to recieve it.....Did I make a bad move by going away from the 2 5/8 and 2 3/4 barrells or is barrel size overrated??

Any input appreciated.....

[BaseballFanatic22]

Hello guys ,

Need your opinions here...

If you had the option for an 8 yr. old in coach pitch...His League does allow bats up to 2 3/4 barrels....

Which bat would you choose if you had the option of ANY bat no size rules and lets say money is not an option....

Would you go Big barrell EXOgrid,catalyst. Comabt Da Bomb or something of the sort...

Or go Demarini F3 or Techzilla......My son has a very good swing not the best but getting better everday day......He makes solid contact every at bat and is selective on his pitches..He hits for medium to long power..Which bat would you choose and why...

he is currently using a -10 Catalyst but I have heard SO MANY good things about the techzilla that i bought him one 2 days ago and have yet to recieve it.....Did I make a bad move by going away from the 2 5/8 and 2 3/4 barrells or is barrel size overrated??

Any input appreciated.....

The bigger the barrel, the better the chance he has to square a ball up. I'd stick with the big barrel bat if that's an option.

[baseballz20]

Hello guys ,

Need your opinions here...

If you had the option for an 8 yr. old in coach pitch...His League does allow bats up to 2 3/4 barrels....

Which bat would you choose if you had the option of ANY bat no size rules and lets say money is not an option....

Would you go Big barrell EXOgrid,catalyst. Comabt Da Bomb or something of the sort...

Or go Demarini F3 or Techzilla......My son has a very good swing not the best but getting better everday day......He makes solid contact every at bat and is selective on his pitches..He hits for medium to long power..Which bat would you choose and why...

he is currently using a -10 Catalyst but I have heard SO MANY good things about the techzilla that i bought him one 2 days ago and have yet to recieve it.....Did I make a bad move by going away from the 2 5/8 and 2 3/4 barrells or is barrel size overrated??

Any input appreciated.....

I would go with a stealth Composite big barrel I am in my sophmore year in high school and thats the best bat I have ever used and with a big barrel you can have a better chance of making contact.

[jamespaul94]

go with the big barrel. I wouldn't buy anthing to expensive. Get hitting lessons. He'll probably grow out of the bat in a year anway.

[coachld]

I am confused. Why would you not want your child to hit with a smaller barrel at an early age? My son is 8 and uses a 2 1/4 bat (29/17...he is 4'6/88lbs) even though most of the kids on his team use 2 3/4. I don't know what his batting average is but I know that he has not K'd all year and I could count on one hand how many times he has hit into an out.

I am a football coach so I don't know much about baseball other than what I have learned on sites like this along with my little league experience. However, it seems to make sense to me that learning to hit the sweet spot with a smaller barrel would make them that much better when they move to a bigger barrel. Am I way off base or should I look at getting my kid into a larger barrel?

[digglahhh]

I didn't even know leagues allowed kids to use the big barrel at that age. We weren't allowed to use a big barrel until 13.

Especially considering this is coach pitch, my philosophy is to avoid giving young kids to opportunity to build an inflated sense of self. As is, there are a considerable amount of kids who are in for a rude awakening when they go from coach to kid pitch. The coach wants you to hit the ball - the kid pitching for the other team doesn't...

Anyway, if you want to teach good habits, I'd say the idea is to reduce the margin for error. With a big barrel AND coach pitch you tip the balance so that bad poor technique can be easily hidden.

[59FIFTY]

Get him a youth wood bat for BP and get any of the bats you mentioned, all of those are great bats and there is no huge difference between a CF3 and a Stealth.

And get your son a wood bat for BP, if you can square the ball on a wood bats sweetspot he will have alot more succes with Comp/Alu.

I'm 14 and hitting exclusively with wood for about 1 year and i've improved by a mile, if you start he will have even more succes, and if he gets really serious about playing baseball it will come in really handy.

Just my 0.02$

[coachld]

I didn't even know leagues allowed kids to use the big barrel at that age. We weren't allowed to use a big barrel until 13.

Especially considering this is coach pitch, my philosophy is to avoid giving young kids to opportunity to build an inflated sense of self. As is, there are a considerable amount of kids who are in for a rude awakening when they go from coach to kid pitch. The coach wants you to hit the ball - the kid pitching for the other team doesn't...

Anyway, if you want to teach good habits, I'd say the idea is to reduce the margin for error. With a big barrel AND coach pitch you tip the balance so that bad poor technique can be easily hidden.

Thanks. Makes sense to me but thought maybe I was missing something. I will continue to have him use the 2 1/4. Should I also have him start using a wooden bat? If so, any suggestions on length/weight?

[Baseball gLove]

I went with a 2-5/8's barrel. My 8 year old son has hit the ball further than anyone in the U8 division with a previous year's model that cost me less than $100. A few kids have Stealths, Exo Grids etc. They are not big enough yet to take advantage of the technology. My eldest son on the other hand swings an 33-30 Easton Stealth Comp and has hit several as long as 400 feet.

[59FIFTY]

Thanks. Makes sense to me but thought maybe I was missing something. I will continue to have him use the 2 1/4. Should I also have him start using a wooden bat? If so, any suggestions on length/weight?

The weight doesn't really matter, the big difference is the swing weight and the sweetspot.

You can get a Youth Wood bat at D-bat, -5

[5LilPlayers]

Give him a broom handle and invest in some golf-ball sized wiffle balls and practice as often as he wants. If he can hit those squarely (still teaching proper mechanics), he'll have no problem hitting a baseball with ANY sized barrel of bat that he feels comfortable with.

As for wood, the younger they are when they start, the less worry about transition. My 12 yr. old son and 9 yr. old daughter both use wood, they actually prefer it, though it did take a while for my son to get used to hitting with the wood (he'd been using aluminum/alloys since he was 5 and playing t-ball)...my daughter's only used wood and the aluminum/alloys "feel weird" (her words) to her now that she's tried using them.

Length/weight (wood, aluminum or alloy) doesn't matter as much. Have him extend his arm out to the side, horizontal to the ground, put the bat in his hand so he grips just the knob, holding the bat horizontal from the ground - an "extension" of his arm. His body and arm should form a 90 degree angle. If he can hold it like that for at least 30 seconds, it's fine. If you want, you can keep going up in length and/or weight and once he can't hold it for 30 seconds, that's the length and/or weight that's too much for him right now, pick one of the others. After the correct length/weight is chosen, keep working on his mechanics.

[TG Coach]

If you're more concerned with him being an 8U hitting hero than learning how to hit and get the ball on the sweet spot, get the big barrel. The big barrel covers a lot of hitting flaws.

[NotAboutEgo]

Wood bats make you a much more honest hitter. Most former pro's who teach hitting lessons who I know make their students use wood bats while getting instruction. This is to teach them to hit the ball much better and on the sweet spot of the barrel, which makes them better hitters. With wood, you can't get away with as much as when you hit with composite/aluminum. The ball doesn't jump off of wood like it does off metal, so you have to hit the ball more squarely.

[TG Coach]

Give him a broom handle and invest in some golf-ball sized wiffle balls and practice as often as he wants. If he can hit those squarely (still teaching proper mechanics), he'll have no problem hitting a baseball with ANY sized barrel of bat that he feels comfortable with.

My son is in high school. He practices hitting whiffle golf balls off a tee with a Swift Stick. It requires concentration and a perfect swing to hit line drives. The ball is small. The Swift Stick has a six inch sweet spot.

[PowerHitter101]

This is for an 8 Year old?

I'm sure your son has the talent to progress to a big barrel bat, and i know you want to see him work to the best of the ability. But the kid is in Coach pitch. Kid's this young, it does not matter what brand of bat, or how expensive the bat is. Whether the bat is $50.00, or $200.00, odds are, the performance of the bat doesn't effect the performance of the child.

Giving an 8 year old a 2, 3, or $400.00 bat is not a very smart decision, based on the child's age. Although i cannot stop you from buying a bat, i can tell you that until the child is at least in Majors, (right above minors) which would make the child about 11 or 12 years old, then i would not buy an expensive bat until then.

At that age, i would reccomend maybe a 2009 TPX Exogrid, seeing how in majors, kid's usually do not threow hard enough to break, or crack the bat. By then of course, there will be bigger, better bat's out there.

Here are some bat's i would get for a kid that will make a difference with the bat:

-2009 Easton Stealth Composite
-2009 TPX Exogrid
-2009 Demarini Vendetta
-2009 Demarini CF3 Pitch Black
-2009 Demarini Voodoo
-2009 Demarini Vexxum
or, the 2009 Easton Synergy.