ELI5: why don’t professional baseball players use bats made from composite materials or metal? Both hockey players and golfers moved from wooden equipment to carbon fiber, composite or metal. Why doesn’t baseball?

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ELI5: why don’t professional baseball players use bats made from composite materials or metal? Both hockey players and golfers moved from wooden equipment to carbon fiber, composite or metal. Why doesn’t baseball?

Comments

  1. trufus_for_youfus Avatar

    Safety. The higher batspeed and the interaction of harder materials such aluminum or composite vs wood with balls thrown at a hundred miles and hour could result in the death or significant injury of the pitcher in a line drive scenario.

  2. Desdam0na Avatar

    It is against the rules of baseball.

    Even having a core of a different type of wood is considered cheating.  (It used to be somewhat common to cheat with cork-cored bats.)

  3. Esc777 Avatar

    If they did the game would be all home runs all the time break every record. 

    They use wood in the MLB as a power limiter. 

  4. luckystrike_bh Avatar

    I heard that if professional baseball players used metal bats, they would generate enough force to kill or injury the pitcher with a line drive. So all wood bats to take the edge off.

  5. Odins_Infantry Avatar

    Metal makes homeruns too easy if i remember correctly. But i think hockey players still use wood though. Maybe its optional but theres defijitely still wood sticks.

  6. TheTardisPizza Avatar

    A wooden bat makes a distinctive sound when it hits the ball and people like it more than the sound an aluminum bat makes.

  7. Heavy_Direction1547 Avatar

    Too expensive to change field/stadium sizes, the equipment needs to match.