Little League Baseball bat?

[Spackler]

The Easton OMEN and the DeMarini CF4 and 5 are great bats.

This right here.

I coached my godson all the way thru he's 13 now and his CF4 was really hot compared to other bats and now he loves his OMEN. Buy a used composite. Most good players get an excellent bat every year and its barely broken in by end of season then sell it at the end of the season to get a bigger one. Whoever got our CF4 got lucky.

 

[mattun]

Yeah, I'm keeping an eye out for a used 28 or 29 composite, but it's pretty thin on the bay right now. I figured he could hit metal in the games this year and bang on a new 30 in the cages until it's good and broken in and then use it next year when he's a little bigger.

 

[mattun]

Final take (sound like a decent assortment?)...

New
29/16 Rival from Hardballfans (thanks Coach)
30/18 Omen (birthday gift)

Used (to mess around with)
28/18 B1 Alloy
29/15 used Grifter

Dump
Easton Convert (need to return, too small)
Stealth Speed LSS1 (this is illegal most places, right?) to probably sell.
Reflex 99 cent special to sell

 

[Rob Ots]

That's because they aren't better. Get it out of your head.

I have to disagree with you on this one. If you're saying that aluminum softball bats are better than compostie bats, then I say you're wrong. I used to love my old Worth EST, the red one, but it doesn't compare to my OG freak that I traded it in for. I own several Aluminum Eastons and they're just not as good as the new bats that are out today.

 

[mattun]

jaj23 thinks metal outhits composite in softball, so obviously he's going to think that about baseball. The thing I'm assuming is

broken in composite > metal out of the wrapper > composite out of the wrapper > beat to crap non-PST metal

 

[ballbuster]

I second that...Easton Omen. My son and his teammates love the Omen.

My 9 year old son swings the 29/19 Omen. Its not even broke in (about 600 hits ) and its stupid.

 

[burned_ya]

are you trying to punish the kid or help him? 29" or 30" is insane. Don't use the cage as a determining factor, you can put just about anyone in a cage and they will hit balls that are at the same speed and location everytime..
Most 9-10yr olds can bareley swing a 30".

 

[mattun]

I assure you, this cage never throws two balls in the same place twice. That's what amazed me yesterday. He was able to turn on pitches inside up in his face and then reach low outside pitches. Given, he was able to hit pitched balls with my 27oz SSEST when he was two-years-old so maybe I shouldn't be that surprised.

 

[Rob Ots]

sounds like you got a heck of a ball player. My son was born premature and is still "Catching up" in his height and weight, but he has always had a really nice natural swing. He is currently swinging a 16.5 oz 28" bat and I think it may be too small. He's ten years old and weighs 60lbs. Probably going to move him up to a 17.5 oz 29" this season. Another thing about the cages, My son played machine pitch when he was 7 and 8 and was a hitting machine. Last year he moved up to kid pitch and he went from having the best average on the team, to having the worst. I think alot of it had to do with being scared of getting hit among other things, but that is a pretty drastic decline. So far this year he looks real good in the cages and hitting of the coach, but we will see what happens once he gets on the field. Just saying that you might want to be careful with the cages, because it may give them a false sense of confidence.

 

[mattun]

Oh sure. I mean, I try to pitch to him outside the cages too whenever I can. One of his favorite games is for me to get a bucket of balls and just chuck them one after the other from close range quick enough that he barely has time to get reset after each swings. So I think he's going to be fine contact-wise with the pitch wildness, but he's no where close to knowing when to take a pitch and is going to get abused when pitchers see him swinging out his shoes at everything. There were two leagues locally he could have played in. One was machine pitch, the other was kid pitch. Given, small sample size, but the kid pitch game I watched just looked miserable. It was just a walk fest for both teams. But, like you said, maybe it would teach him how to take a hit because kids were ducking pitches and getting dotted every inning. Maybe it's better to get that out of the way at 7/8 than 9/10. However, personally I wouldn't mind holding off that lesson until he's 7/8 instead of 5 and can always swing leagues.

 

[ddoubler]

also, my kid started playing on a new travel team this season and one of his coaches was a former major leaguer who played briefly for the Yankees and Tigers. He pretty much told us that everything we were ever taught about hitting is wrong. No raising the elbow or taking large steps toward the ball for power. His philosophy is to have a wide stance and keep your feet planted in the box, with your left arm as straight as you can with just a little bend in the elbow (for right handed hitters). This is for kids who as they advance will see faster and faster pitching and it will help them catch up with the ball. Might take away a little power, but at this age, it's all about making contact. My son is learing to adjust to it, because he usually lifts that front leg and steps into the ball, but ever since he's started doing it this way, he is making contact with every pitch and hitting alot more line drives.

Listen to this man...

 

[Goosepimp]

Great Hitting Mechanics will outweigh any choice of bat you make...

I would try to introduce swinging a wood bat as soon as you can ...

By the time he starts playing in HS or in competitive travel ball he will be ahead of the curve...the new BBCOR bats are mostly duds and are way over priced and essentially gonna be phased out again as the years go by...

I would still get him a LL metal or comp bat to keep up with the other kids but like I said I would mix in a wood bat eventually to get him used to swinging it in the future ....

 

[mattun]

Already has a custom 27" Birch Viper. He even stuck a camo Easy Kid grip on it.

 

[Rob Ots]

It's funny, I see a ton of kids saying they would like to swing a wood bat. I guess they wanna be like the pros and they think a wood bat is going to make them a better player. Hey, who knows, it may boost their confidence.

 

[hacker72]

Yeah, that deal (especially the combo if you can unload the extras for a bigger discount) is pretty tempting.

Its exactly what I did for my daughter and her fastpitch bats. Bought a couple for her and a couple others.. added 10-15 a bat and almost got hers fro free. It worked out great. She has a metal bat for league play and a comp for travel ball, (she's 8).