Bat Changes for High School and College Teams

College baseball teams across the country can expect a big change early next year. The NCAA has announced that starting in January of 2011, all NCAA baseball teams must use bats that are BBCOR certified. The NCAA announced back in September of 2008 that baseball bat manufactures will be replacing the Ball Exit Speed Ratio(BESR) with the Ball-Bat Coefficient Resolution (BBCOR) as the means of testing bat performance. The memo sent to the manufacturer’s states that “the NCAA Baseball Research Panel believes the BBCOR eliminates some discrepancies with different length bats and is a more direct measure of bat performance. Additionally, the Panel believes most bat designers understand and deal with the concept of the BBCOR more frequently than the BESR and that this should ease the process of trying to create bats that meet the NCAA performance standard. It should be noted that the actual testing procedure has not changed.”

The memo sent to the manufacturers also states that the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee has determined, based on a large sample of wood bats, that an appropriate standard for BBCOR is 0.50. This reaches the NCAA’s intention to maintain its non-wood standard using available scientific data and as nearly as possible achieving wood-like performance in non-wood bats. The 0.50 standard sets the performance line slightly higher than the best available wood bats. This will ensure that all wood bats continue to be legal under the new standard. The NCAA will maintain the current length-to-weight “difference” (i.e. -3); moment-of-inertia (MOI) standard, and bat diameter limit. There will be no “sliding scale” associated with the new BBCOR standard; thus, all bats must meet the 0.50 limit regardless of length. NCAA is also anticipating that this new standard will require an adjustment in the design of all bats currently legal under the BESR.

High school baseball teams will also be facing the same change, but not until the start of the 2012 season. The change to BBCOR means that high school level baseball teams will not have a much stricter standard than they did with the old BESR standard. The Baseball Bat Review Blog explains that the reason for the change in high school baseball is that “the new standard ensures that performances by non-wood bats are more comparable to those of wood bats. It’s also expected to minimize risk, improve play and increase teaching opportunities”. They say “After working with the NCAA and having access to its research, we’ve concluded it’s in our best interest to make this change”. “BBCOR includes the BESR standard, so we’re actually expanding upon our current standard, which will be more appropriate for our age and skill level.

It’s easy to get confused between the differences of BESR and BBCOR, but here's an easy way to remember. Thanks to sport writer Cheryl Mathis, you can think of it in terms of jumping up and down on a hard floor. It takes a lot of energy in your legs to get off the ground, but compare that feeling to jumping on a trampoline. Even with very little energy, you will still get a bounce because that energy isn't being absorbed by the trampoline. Instead, the trampoline is flexing with the impact and then "bouncing" back to its original shape, therefore launching you higher into the air. Although these changes will not take effect until January of 2011 and 2012, three bat manufacturing companies already have bats on the market that are BBCOR certified. DeMarini, Rawlings and Louisville Slugger combined have 4 new BBCOR bats on the market. Easton Sporting Goods will start selling their bats in November of 2010.

The below chart shows the BBCOR certified baseball bats that are available as of October, 2010. Easton bats will be carrying BBCOR certified bats starting on Black Friday in November.

	BBCOR Certified Bats	Manufacturer
1	Omaha College -3	Louisville Slugger
2	BBCOR 5150	Rawlings
3	Voodoo	DeMarini
4	Vexxum	DeMarini

The picture above features BBCOR certified bats from Easton and DiMarini.