My son likes Axe bats so much that he now refuses to swing bats without an axe-like knob. Though he likes all of the Axe bats he’s tried, the MB50 is the first bat he’s truly loved. He loves the appearance and grip (designed by Mookie Betts). He loves the feel of the swing. But more than anything, he loves the performance off live pitching.
I’m not new to describing my son’s experience with Axe bats. My first review covered two 2 1/4″ 2015 models, while the second review covered the 2 1/4″ 2016 Origin.
This review is for my son’s first big barrel bat, the 2017 MB50 2 5/8″ barrel (since replaced by 2018 Origin), 30″, 20 oz. (for 10% discount, use code JGOL10, though note that this code is usually disabled when Axe is having a sitewide sale, as often happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas), which Baden Sports provided to us for testing:
The $129.99 MB50 differs from the $99.99 L144E Origin big barrel only in appearance and the tape used for the handle, so any experience with the MB50 applies to the L144E as well.
How did the MB50 work out for my son?
The short answer:
My son recently turned 12, though you might think he just turned 11 given his size.
My son’s hitting performance with the MB50 is his best ever. In games, 75% of balls he puts into play make it to the outfield, as compared with a consistent rate of approximately 40% in prior years.
Despite being the smallest and lightest player in his age group, my son is for the first time hitting the ball harder and more consistently than all but a few players in his rec league.
Unsurprisingly, my son loves this bat far more than any other bat he has ever tried. He loves the knob. He loves the paint job. Most of all, he loves the performance. The combination of the axe-like knob and HyperWhip barrel design makes it easy to control despite having a big barrel.
Note: Before buying this or any other bat in 2017, consider that this bat may not be legal for your local rec league starting in January 2018. Please read about the new bat standard coming out in 2018 for details.
The MB50 can be purchased at the company web site. If you choose to buy this bat, be sure to type in the following code for a 10% discount:
JGOL10
2017 MB50 L145E (-10) 2 5/8″ Baseball Bat
2017 Origin L144E (-10) 2 5/8″ Baseball Bat
(Note: Both models are sold out, replaced by the 2018 Origin which is also available on Amazon.
The rest of this post is the long answer to how the MB50 worked out for my son.
What Kind of Hitter is my Son?
In my opinion, understanding the kind of player doing the testing helps understand the bat. My son received this bat as a sample from Baden Sports in November 2016. He turned 12 while testing the bat over the past few months.
My son is the smallest player in his rec league’s 12u age group at 4′ 9″, 77 Lbs. This is his 8th year playing PONY baseball. He has also played summer baseball since he was 8, mostly with select/all-star teams. He took 7 hitting lessons when he was 10.
Before this season, my son didn’t strike out much, but was not able to hit the ball as hard as the top 10 hitters in his rec league. This season, he is consistently hitting the ball much harder than he has in the past, and harder than all but a handful of players.
If you are considering getting a bat for a small 12-year-old, average to slightly-below-average size 11-year old, or above-average size 9- to 10-year old, then this review would be especially relevant for you.
Methodology
This review is based on data collected over several months, just like prior reviews. My son used the MB50 in a wide variety of settings, including games. I have seen many players swinging bats well in practice settings such as tee, soft toss, front toss, and cage work, only to struggle during games using the same bat. So it’s important to me to observe how well the bat works in a wide variety of settings, especially games.
In prior reviews, I did some testing at the cages. Unfortunately, my son refused to test this bat at the cages. Why? Because he loves the MB50 so much. He didn’t want to risk harming the bat from harder cage balls, nor did he want to scuff up the paint.
What is Different about an Axe Bat?
Axe bats have an oval, angled, asymmetrical knob design, just like the knob of an axe. This design helps position wrists for optimal power, which for many youth hitters doesn’t come naturally or easily. The knob also has ergonomic benefits. Axe bat users are much less likely to injure their hamate bone. Axe bat users also last longer at batting practice before getting tired . . .
At a recent all-hitting baseball practice, the hitting coach told the players on my son’s team that they were going to swing their bats so much over the next 90 minutes that he expected everyone to come home with sore hands. So of course my son has to blurt out “not me, I’ve got an axe bat.” His hands were not the least bit tired after that practice.
Yet another benefit of the Axe bat design is that it can only be held in one of two ways (right-handed or left-handed), which means that only certain parts of the bat ever hit the ball. This allows Baden Sports to engineer bats with more durability or pop on certain parts of the barrel. This also makes it possible to design the end of the bat differently, which is something Baden Sports in fact did starting in 2016 with their most expensive BBCOR bats.
Axe Bat’s new HyperWhip Design
The different bat-end design is very relevant to this review. Baden Sports introduced the HyperWhip feature to high end bats in 2016 and incorporated this feature throughout most of the 2017 Axe bat lineup.
With the HyperWhip design, the last couple inches of the bat slope away from the contact side(s) of the barrel. This removes close to an ounce of weight from the part of the bat that adds most to the perceived swing weight. A side effect of shaving weight off the end (and also off the handle) is that the sweet spot is lengthened.
Some bats with the HyperWhip design have no end cap, but the MB50 has a white endcap. The following image shows examples of this HyperWhip design:
What does all this technical jargon mean in practice? It means you can design a big barrel bat with a big sweet spot that is also easy to swing. I find this especially interesting for single-piece aluminum bats. To clarify:
In recent years, big barrel bats with a composite barrel have become very popular. They are lighter than single-piece aluminum designs and can be designed with weight shifted away from the barrel. These types of bats do not require players to be nearly as strong or mechanically sound as they need to be with single-piece aluminum bats of the same weight.
Because of the reduction in barrel weight caused by the HyperWhip design, single-piece aluminum Axe barrels are now about as fast-swinging as composite barrels, while retaining the control advantage that many players experience with single-piece aluminum. For more detail on this, see Why You Never Again Have to Sacrifice Bat Speed for Barrel Control.
It works. My son said it hardly feels heavier to swing than the drop 12 Origin model he swung last year. His 2016 Drop 12 Origin model does not have the HyperWhip design so it feels nearly as heavy to swing for him as the MB50, which weighs nearly 3 oz more:
| Year | Model | Length | Printed Weight | Actual Weight |
| 2016 | Origin L135C | 30″ | 18.0 oz | 19.0 oz |
| 2017 | MB50 L145E | 30″ | 20.0 oz | 21.75 oz |
I always weigh bats because actual bat weight typically differs from what is stated on the bat. These two bats use the same aluminum alloy, and differ in weight by 2.75 ounces according to my scale. I can only conclude that the HyperWhip design explains why this bat is nearly as easy to swing as last year’s much lighter model.
How the MB50 Performs
My son has used the MB50 with a tee, soft toss, easy batting practice pitching, and during games.
I don’t have any devices for measuring ball exit speed so I just have to use the “eye test.” With tee and soft toss it is very clear that he hits balls harder with the MB50 than with his lighter bats. It looks like his swing speed is only very slightly slower than with his lighter Origin bat. He is just as consistent, if not more consistent, at hitting line drives and his mechanics appear unchanged. Though not a big kid, it is clear that 4′ 9″ and 77 lbs is plenty big enough to swing this bat.
With heavier, more end-weighted bats, my son’s swing speed is very noticeably slower, with an occasional hit that is harder than anything I’ve seen on the MB50. But he has much more difficultly consistently squaring up a heavier barrel to the ball. His hit quality is therefore much better, on average, with the MB50.
A couple days after receiving the MB50, we went to a small baseball diamond with fences located about 170′ away from home plate (the field used for ages 8 and below). I gave him some easy pitches to hit from about 45′ away. The results were stunning. With his 2 1/4″ Axe bat he could hit the ball pretty well, but typically 100′ to 120′ and only occasionally to the fence. With his MB50, most balls went past 120′, around 30% made it to the fence, and 1 in 15 went over the fence. Over 90% of swings resulted in the ball travelling at least 100′.
Note: 5 days after this was published, my son hit a batting practice home run over a 195′ fence with his MB50.
He also tried his Anderson Techzilla bat, which is heavier and more end-weighted. Just like with the tee, he could occasionally hit the ball harder than with the MB50, but the majority of hits were of low quality as he had difficulty controlling the Techzilla. Nearly all of his hits with the MB50 are of high quality when I pitch to him.
While tee, soft toss, and batting practice pitching are modestly useful, what we all care about most is how a bat actually does against live kid pitch during games, when the goal of the pitcher and defense is to get an out.
I don’t think batting average or OBP is the best way to measure how well a bat is working, because whether a ball hit into play results in a hit has a large random element. Strikeout rates and percentage of balls that make it to the outfield are less random. There’s also the “eye test.”
After 29 plate appearances, my son’s strikeout rate at just under 1 in 7 plate appearances is close to prior year rates. However, the number of balls in play that made it to the outfield increased to 75%, as compared with 40% in the prior 3 seasons. I could easily tell with my eyes that he is hitting the ball into play much harder this year. Two of the 25% that didn’t make it to the outfield were hard line drives that went right to a shortstop’s glove.
So Where Did the Hitting Improvement Come From?
I would love to fully understand where my son’s improvement comes from. To some extent he’s improving as a hitter, but I find it hard to believe he hit 40% to the outfield for several years and then suddenly jumped to 75% just from gradual improvement. He is finally big enough to handle a heavier 2 5/8″ barrel instead of a 2 1/4″ so some of the improvement is likely due to a bigger barrel with a bigger sweet spot.
However, the MB50 weighs nearly 3 ounces more than his prior bat. My son would not have been able to control this bat so well if there wasn’t something going on to make this less end-weighted. That something is HyperWhip, as already explained above.
There may also be a gradual improvement in Axe bat quality over the last few years, though that’s not something I can test.
I suspect there’s also a more subtle reason for the improvement. My son has used 2 1/4″ one-piece aluminum bats for most of the 8 years he’s played baseball. These bats generally have less pop than bats with composite barrels, and no “whip” that occurs with some two-piece or composite bats. Most importantly, one-piece aluminum bats tend to have smaller sweet spots. What these stiff aluminum bats do give you is better control.
Given the smaller sweet spots on the bats my son has used, he’s spent 8 years developing bat control. Many of the bigger all-star caliber players in our league started using big barrel bats around the age of 9 or 10. While many of them had higher strikeout rates, they also more often hit the ball very hard. Now that my son has finally made the switch to big barrel, he’s had 2-3 extra years of squaring up a small sweet spot. My theory is that the extra 2-3 years forced him to develop more precise mechanics. With a big barrel, you can be slightly off on squaring up and still get solid contact off the sweet spot. With the MB50, my so gets solid contact off the sweet spot on the majority of swings.
My son is sold on the idea that 2 1/4″ bats with small sweet spots force him to be more precise. He has enthusiastically started using the 2 1/4″ wood version (-5) of the Axe bat (which was unfortunately discontinued in June 2016), both to build up his muscles and to continue challenging himself to be more precise with his swing.
Final Thoughts
As I’ve mentioned a few times on this site, the batter matters more than the bat. The batter needs to be appropriately ready before each pitch, then see the ball, then hit the ball. The “readiness” and “seeing” have nothing to do with the bat. The “hit the ball” part is more influenced by body type/size and mechanics than bat technology. So despite all the hype about high-priced high-tech bats, the batter still matters far more than the bat.
Is my son hitting better than ever with the MB50? Yes.
Is my son’s improvement entirely or even mostly due to the MB50 or the switch from 2 1/4″ barrel to 2 5/8″ barrel? Probably not. But . . .
Wouldn’t it be great if certain types of bats could help a player develop better and more precise mechanics?
I had a conversation earlier this month with Axe Bat’s Product Marketing Director, Trevor Stocking. Trevor played Division I college baseball, ran a youth baseball academy for over a decade, and worked for several years at sports sensor company Zepp Labs (which sells training products and measurement devices for baseball and other sports). Our conversation revolved around what types of bats best promote player hitting development at what ages? Aluminum or Composite? 2 1/4″ or 2 5/8″? One piece or two piece? Are underweight/overweight bats helpful (and if they are, at what age do you start)? Tee work or live pitching?
As our conversation came to a close, Trevor told me that one of the main reasons he joined Baden Sports’ Axe Bat team was because he believed that Axe Bats have advantages over bats with regular knobs for aiding players’ hitting development. This belief comes from large amounts of data he gathered while working at Zepp Labs.
I too believe that the Axe bat helps long-term development of player mechanics. There is the obvious benefit of the knob of getting the hands into the right position at contact. But there is also the fact that there are now a few aluminum big barrel bats on the market—Axe bats with the HyperWhip barrel design—that are as easy to swing as composite bats. This matters because one-piece aluminum bats are stiff and therefore easier for most players to control. Players who prefer the stiff feel of one-piece aluminum no longer have to settle for an end-weighted barrel that is slower to come around than composite.
That’s what makes the MB50, the L144E, and presumably any other big barrel one-piece aluminum Axe Bat (with HyperWhip) such a unique and effective bat.
To say that my son is doing well with this bat would be an understatement. He’s doing very well with it, and he loves it.
This bat is an ideal bat for kids between the ages of 9 (very big kid) to 12 (small kid) who value contact and control and want a bat which well compliments efforts to improve mechanics.
I highly recommend Baden’s MB50 Axe bat, as well as the nearly identical L144E. I also have every reason to believe that future one-piece drop 10 Axe bat youth models will be just as good, if not better.
don’t usually take the time to comment on blogs…however, unsure if I have ever seen a better bat review, supported by research, ever crafted……kudos to you Joe. Buying the 31/21 L144E for my 12 year son tonight(don’t see the need to cough up the extra dough for the paint job :^))…he’s been using the two piece Voodoo for two years…..he hits it well…..cant wait to see what happens when he barrels up this AXE.
Pitch – I’d love it if you could report back a month from now on how your son does with the L144E Axe. Good luck!
After writing this review, my son continues to hit the ball harder and farther with the MB50 and continues to ask for “home run” practice where he tries to hit it over the fence. He hit one over a 195′ fence a week ago, and a couple days ago he had a session where about 35% of his hits went over 180′, typically hitting the fence after one bounce. This is better than what I reported in the review. I continue to be impressed with the MB50, and with my son’s determination to hit the ball harder.
Joe- I’m interested in hearing about the MB50 performance, I’m looking to buy this bat or the L143E which has a different alloy (Mantic Alloy – Military Grade) vs MB50’s LP1 Alloy. I seen on some reviews there has been some denting on the MB50’s. Have you seen any? Thanks.
Joe- Thx for the discount code, just ordered my son a 31/21.
Cody – The MB50 my son has been using in 2017 has not dented. As I wrote in my review of the MB50, he refuses to use it at the cages because he doesn’t want to risk denting it (or scuffing the paint unnecessarily). Yellow cage balls are harder and have been known to dent or damage some bats so I’m wondering if any of the reports of denting were because of use at the cages? At any rate, I can’t vouch whether the MB50 will hold up at the cages, but I can certainly vouch that it’s holding up to thousands of regular baseballs being hit, many over 180′.
On July 20th, the MB50 my son was using cracked when used to hit a ball during a game. The ball was hit off the very end of the bat and the crack spread from the end cap.
Just received replacement bat which is not the MB50 (they ran out of stock of that size), but the nearly identical L144E which differs only with the grip tape and the paint job. The weight of the new bat according to my scale is 21.85 pounds, nearly identical to the 21.75 pounds of the MB50 bat that cracked.
My son used that MB50 a lot and really loved it. One of his teammates also has the MB50 but unfortunately was not at that tournament so he had to use a different bat that he didn’t like as much. But he’s happy to get this nearly identical bat to finish out the season.
That teammate with the MB50 – he is hitting far far better in the last couple months than he’s ever hit before. This is a really good bat.
Joe, I just recently found your blog while searching for more information on the AXE bat designs. My daughter is playing 8U fastpitch softball. Considering her age she likes the game but hasn’t reached fully committed status yet and I’m not pushing her. However, she does see a hitting coach for mechanics and he raves about her swing and how far she has come. All of that to say we are at a stage where she needs a new bat, she is significantly above average in height and portionately size, and can swing a bigger bat easily. The one thing she complains about the most is “hand sting” when mishitting which is why the AXE lineup caught my attention. Now that your son is 3 bats into the AXE line up are you comfortable in saying the AXE is more than a gimmick? Ive spoken with several people some see benefits and some purest are stuck in the traditions of the game.
Since she isn’t playing fall ball (opted to give volleyball a try) I figured now would be a great time to try the AXE so she can get comfortable with it if she chooses to go with the bat.
Walter – Personally, I like when bats sting because it gives the batter feedback about when they are mis-hitting the ball. A batter who squares up the bat so that they hit the ball on the sweet spot will not feel sting. On the other hand, some batters become skittish to swing hard when they have experienced sting many times and that’s not a good thing either – it’s best to approach the plate confidently, not fearing a negative outcome. You probably know all this but before I said anything else I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page about this.
So Axe bats can help a slight bit with sting but a bigger impact on sting is how big the sweet spot is and whether there is any sting dampening technology built into the bat. Axe bats do have some of this anti-sting tech built it but I don’t think they’re the leaders in this – I think DeMarini is the leader in anti-sting tech and Easton is probably a pretty close second – but only in their high end expensive bats. It is easier to make huge sweet spots with composite bats than it is with aluminum bats which also helps the issue, though in many cases there are two-piece bats that reduce the sting with a special connecting piece between barrel and handle, as well as the end-cap.
If you go with pure aluminum, Axe bats have the edge in terms of reducing sting. This is because the one-sided hitting allows them to shave off part of the end of the bat, and therefore lengthen the sweet spot. Bigger sweet spot means fewer mishit balls. But the very best of one-piece aluminum bats won’t be as good at reducing sting as the very best composite or two-piece bats.
So what does that mean for your daughter? Is Axe bat for her? If she has her heart set on avoiding sting above all else, then an expensive DeMarini bat is going to be her best bet. I’m not familiar with what brand names they have for softball bats but make sure it’s either a two piece bat or all composite.
As for whether Axe bats are for real – yes they definitely are. They’ve made more inroads at the college level and MLB level than youth baseball so far. But I saw more of them in the past year, perhaps on account of a few popular major league players using them.
The knob really is much more comfortable and cannot possibly hurt the swing, and it can help in some ways, particularly with where the hands are at contact with the ball. But it is definitely a personal preference thing – I’ve seen some kids try an axe bat and actually hit much better with it but put them aside for a different bat because they simply did not like the knob much.
Can’t hurt to try an inexpensive model (perhaps a closeout from a prior year) and see if she likes the handle. If she does, then maybe you can invest in one of the more expensive two-piece or composite models in order to further reduce sting. If she doesn’t like it, a high end DeMarini may be the best way to go. If I remember correctly, they have many models for softball.
thanks Joe. I was considering their one piece lower end model thats at litte cheaper to try. While bat sting is an important factor for her, so is bat speed. At her hitting practice recently she was allowed to try a longer higher end bat than her current and her swing was faster despite the bat being a little heavier. Of course she liked that balanced lighter feel.
There are so many options out there that its almost impossible to even determine a starting point.
Yes there sure are a lot of options. If you want to deeper your understanding of all the underlying technology and science, I suggest reading my comprehensive bat guide if you haven’t already. It’s a long read but it helps make sense of it all (it’s geared to baseball but most of the same principles apply to softball bats – only thing different is that slow pitch softball is less concerned about bat speed than baseball or fastpitch softball):
https://www.filterjoe.com/2015/05/13/best-youth-baseball-bats-comprehensive-guide/
Thanks for the thorough review, lots of good information. Curious on how you found the length/weight issue. My son is a smaller 10 year old (4’5″ and 68 pounds) and I’m struggling to decide between a 28 inch bat and 29 inch bat in this model. He’s generally swung a 28 drop 12, so I’m nervous to move him up to much. He’s demoed the Origin USA Bat (28 inch drop 8) and really liked it. From your experience what do you think since your son was on a similar growth trajectory it seems?
Frank – my son was almost exactly the same size as yours at the age of 10. He used a drop 12 30″ Axe at the time which I think was slightly too long for him but he did well with it. One thing about the Axe that is slightly different is that the knob pushes your hands slightly up the bat compared to a traditional knob. So it’s as if you’re automatically choking up by 1/4″. Or another way of looking at it is that if your son uses a 29″ bat, it would be more like a 28 3/4″ bat.
Drop 8 is likely to be too heavy for him. He may do very well with it in batting practice but he won’t be able to control so much weight very well against live kid pitch unless it is a mediocre pitcher throwing nothing but slow fastballs. I would recommend either a drop 10 29″, or drop 12 30″. He might be able to handle drop 8 in 28″ size but then he gets less plate coverage, which matters for umpires who give a couple inches to the pitcher on the outside of the plate (which is very typical at this age).
I just got in a 31″ drop 8 Axe bat for my son to test. He tried it for the first time a couple days ago and it was clearly slightly too heavy for him – swing speed was noticeably slower than with his 30″ drop 10 Axe. My son is currently 12 1/2 years old, 4′ 10″ tall and 86 pounds. So I’m expecting he’ll be able to handle this bat (barely) by the time rec season gets into full swing next March, when he’ll be 13 years old and presumably 5′ 0″ tall and 90-something pounds. I can’t imagine him swinging a drop 8 at the age of 10, though it might have been possible with a 28″ length.
Appreciate the response Joe. Axe can’t really explain why the USSA is drop 10 and the USA is drop 8 (he plays with both affiliations now), but insist they swing the same way. The USSA bat is the most important one for him for travel, so perhaps the 29 inch will work there in the Element or Origin model where they are drop 10. Once he gets used to that he can find the length in USA that works in the Origin model. I will say that he stated that the 29 drop 8 Origin felt lighter to him than a 28 drop 12 2015 S1. Of course that only adds to the mystery of stated weights vs. actual swing weights which perplexes many of us.
Do note that more USAbat Axe models are coming out in December. Perhaps one will be drop 10. I anticipate that some will be 2 1/4″.
As for surprising swings weights – some of the surprise may be that the actual weight printed on a bat is different by up to 3 ounces from the printed weight. I have measured several Easton bats that were over by nearly 3 ounces, for example.
The experience of my 8 yr old son is almost identical to this. He is on the smaller, lighter side, but is a great athlete and is strong for his size. We tried the Axe USABat even though the lightest drop they had was -8 at the time (28″/20oz) mostly because we knew if it was too heavy or didn’t work we could return it. At 20oz it was 5oz heavier than the bat he was swinging previously. He has great hand-eye and almost always gets the bat on the ball, however due to size they were generally slow rollers in the gaps. Well, not any more with the Axe bat (L139F). He now hits line drives and gets some in the air into the OF grass. Just like you, it’s hard to say whether he’s just getting bigger and stronger, or if it really is the handle/bat? He loves it. We just bought the Element L143F for the travel team we just joined. Excited to see what the -10 does with a little more pop between the USSSA and USABat restrictions!
Joe, thank you for the honest review and the 10% discount. I’ve been on the fence with the Axe bats but decided to pull the trigger last night and bought the Element. My son is 8 yo on a AAA team and they are playing their first year of kid pitch so I needed to transfer him over to a senior league bat. Can’t wait to see how he does with the new bat.
Hi Joe, I left a comment on your other post, and I really appreciate the advice you left for me. I thought maybe my next comment might be more appropriate in this article because a number of parents are wondering about the USA Axe Bats. So in chatting with the person on their website, the new speed series won’t come out until early 2018. The Speed Series being: a lighter bat than their current USA bat offerings. Although the person was only able to give me limited information about the lighter bat, it appears to be a -10 two-piece composite 2-5/8 barrel. I wasn’t able to get a price point, but I gotta imagine something consistent with the Easton Ghost-X Hyperlite which is running about $250+.
While I would like to wait for the new lighter Axe Bat, I think a 2-piece composite might be out of my price range especially if it’s only going to be used in RecBall. Wondering if you could speak to the Axe rep. that you referenced in your article, and verify whether they might come out with more -10 or -12 bats?
Hi Roy – I have been communicating with my contact at Axe bats and also found out today what you did – that the lighter bats are not going to be ready by December as originally intended. I’m trying to get your question answered as to whether an affordable one-piece bat similar in pricing to the Origin will be part of the product launch, and whether it will be ready by March (which is when games begin for rec leagues in parts of the country where the weather is warm and dry enough).
As soon as I find out anything I’ll add more information here.
Roy – After a few email exchanges with my contact at Axe bat today, here’s what I have to say:
First – Baden does not like to announce or commit to anything unless they’re 100% sure it will happen. So they’re reluctant to say exactly what models are coming out, by what date, at what price. Given the more stringent testing process, I’m guessing that they have yet to pass certification for the lighter bats and are having to make adjustments to some or all of the lighter bat models. Seems possible that the price of the bats could be difficult to pin down until they know how much the adjustments are going to add to cost. I didn’t really get any hints that this is the case – this is just speculation on my part as it only seems logical that they would rather come to market sooner rather than later, so something must be holding them up.
All that being said, I’m sure they would love to have their bats out in time for the spring rec season, which starts as early as March in some parts of the U.S. My sense is that their intention is to have at least one model that aims to hit the same spot in the marketplace as the Origin has been doing for the last couple years – a one-piece aluminum alloy bat with a reasonably affordable price.
Understand that I was NOT told this directly, but I’ve had a lot of communication with them over the last couple years so this is based on what I know of how they’ve done this historically and what logically makes sense for them.
If you think your kid is almost big enough to try a drop 8 bat, you could do that and if it turns out to be too heavy, then you can return it within the 30 day satisfaction return windows.
One final thought is that some local leagues may not be going to USAbat fully or at all in 2018 so you should check your league rules. Our league, for example, has decided to go with the PONY national take on USAbat, which is that 2 5/8″ must be USAbat compliant, but 2 1/4″ can be either USAbat or USSSA. I have heard that PONY may actually tighten up on that for 2018 and also require 2 1/4″ USAbat models but our local league is going to allow USSSA BPF 1.15 2 1/4″ bats for 2018 even if PONY decides to change at the last minute.
So the two takeaways here are:
1) Something is happening at Baden to cause uncertainty right now for the lighter end of the USAbat line.
2) Check your local rec league to make sure they are actually requiring full USAbat compliance for the 2018 spring season.
Thanks for the thorough review and for the coupon code.