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How To Determine The Best Wood Bat For Your Game

Wood bats are the clear choice for baseball players wanting to improve their game. With the dynamics that a wood bat provides, the material can make a mediocre player a great player with enough practice handling a wood bat. However, the question still remains: which wood bat is best, and why? With leading baseball companies such as Better Baseball offering every kind of bat, the choice can be a hard one to make. The following options are the choice for a wooden bat and what to consider when deciding on which one to buy.

1. Maple Wood Bats. Over 500 pro players choose to use this kind of wooden bat. This is because even though the bat is light, it gives the player the hardness in a bat that he needs. The harder that the bat is, the less that the player has to work to propel the ball farther. When a wood is less dense, the ball can go up to 15 feet shorter of a distance. As far as looks go, the maple bat is definitely the top competitor. With the small wooden grains, the bat is able to reflect more of a shine than other bats. Because of these factors, about 70% of baseball pros use this bat.

2. Ash Wood Bats. This type of wooden bat is not quite as popular as the maple wood bat, but still holds it's own in the baseball bat field. The ash wooden bat was the most popular before maple bats were introduced into the game. Because ash is softer material, it does not hit the ball quite as far as a maple wood bat would. This type of bat requires a time of breaking it in to gain the kind of hit that is important for the player. While ash bats break more easily than maple bats, maple bats break a great deal more violently. Ash also tends to flake after repeated use and does not have the shine that a maple wood bat provides.

3. Birch Wood Bats. The birch bat is more flexible than the maple wood bat with more flexibility than the ash wood bat. Even though it has not been the number one selling bat in the past, it is on the rise for the next bat that may be preferred. It is flexible while also being dense, and it has become one of the more durable bats in the game. Because of the combination of flexibility and durability, it creates a rebound off of the bat that causes the ball to go farther.

Some players may choose to use something that is less hard in order to improve their game or a player might want to find the hardest bat possible in order to push the ball as far as possible down the field. Whatever the case, each of the above characteristics are important to remember while searching for the best wooden bat for your playing style.