Ball bats are well known and typically include a handle portion, a barrel or hitting portion. Ball bats can be formed as a one-piece body with the handle portion integrally formed with the barrel portion, or as a multi-piece body in which the handle portion is formed separately from the barrel portion and are connected either directly or indirectly with one or more intermediate elements. The materials used to form bats have changed and become more varied overtime, including materials such as wood, aluminum, other alloys, fiber composite materials and combinations thereof. In many instances, the incorporation of new materials and compositions for ball bats has led to increased durability, reliability and performance. The new materials and compositions have also increased the number of bat configurations and choices available to ball players. Still further, the number of baseball and/or softball organizations has also increased over time. Such baseball and softball organizations periodically publish and update equipment standards and/or requirements including performance limitations for ball bats.
Performance limitations placed on to ball bats are often targeted toward reducing the maximum coefficient of restitution (COR) a ball bat provides when impacted with a ball. With such limitations, bat manufacturers are continually looking for bat constructions that improve the bat performance without exceeding bat COR limitations. Additionally, hitting a baseball or a softball is considered to be one of the more difficult activities in all of sports. Hitting a baseball or softball is considered both an art and a science.
In baseball, extra base hits and home runs are significantly more valuable than singles. So much so that when evaluating hitters, a statistic called “slugging percentage” (total bases divided by at bats) is valued as highly (if not more than) the traditional hitting metrics: batting average, home runs and runs batted in (RBI). Depending on the type of hitter or batter, and game situation, batters often attempt to just make contact with the ball to get a hit, such as a single, but extra bases are always advantageous. There is an ideal launch angle range for batted balls that increases the likelihood of the batted ball resulting in an extra base hit and/or a home run. Typically, this range is from 20-30 degrees with respect to a horizontal plane. Balls hit in this launch angle range do not become low angle line drives and ground balls, and they also don't become very high angle, low velocity pop up and fly outs. Table 1 summarizes home run data from the top 12 home run hitters in the major leagues from the 2015 season to the first half of the 2018 season.
TABLE 1250 Farthest MLB Home Runs- 2015-2018 Regular Season (Jun. 26, 2018)Launch # of % of Ave Launch Ave Exit Ave Angle RangeHRsHRsAngle (deg)Velocity (mph)Distance (ft)15-2083.218.4115.7462.520.1-258132.423.2112.2461.925.1-3013453.627.3110.6462.730.1-35249.631.0109.3462.735.1+20.824.471.8307.0Table 1. Summary of 250 Farthest MLB Home Runs-2015-2018 Regular Season (Apr. 16, 2018) (www.baseballsayant.com)
As shown above, 86% of all home runs were hit with launch angles between 20 and 30 degrees and distance was maximized. Exit velocity decreases at a rate of approximately 2 mph per 5 degrees of launch angle from 15-35 degrees. Although balls hit with launch angles greater than 35 degrees had slightly higher exit velocities, average distance and rate of occurrence was the lowest. Also note that out of the 100 farthest hit home runs in the 2015 MLB season, 89 fell in the intermediate launch angle range of 20-30 degrees (Table 2).
TABLE 2Ave Launch Ave Exit Ave Launch # of % of Angle Velocity Distance Angle RangeHRsTotal HRs(deg)(mph)(ft)15-202218.6116.4444.520.1-25353523.4112.2451.925.1-30545427.2110.3451.330.1-358831.1110.1449.335.1+1135.1107.4456.0Table 2. Summary of the 100 farthest hit home runs in the 2015 MLB season (www.hittrackeronline.com)
A recent trend in batting instruction is to encourage batters increase their launch angle when impacting a ball by altering their swing. A ball hit with an increased launch angle can travel further in the air than a ball hit at a lower launch angle, thereby in many instances increasing the likelihood of hitting a home run.