Baseball’s power numbers down with implementation of new bats

This is a story about the implementation of new bat standards in college baseball and its effect on power numbers. 

Jake Naumann’s fastball had no business surviving.

The Evansville right-hander threw a 2-0 meatball down the middle of the plate to an All-American, the Big Ten’s reigning Player of the Year and triple crown winner.

Mistakes like that were the reason Alex Dickerson hit 24 home runs last year, and why he sits five home runs short of Indiana’s career record of 47.

“A year ago, for the most part, that ball goes out,” Dickerson said.

But times have changed and most importantly in this case, so have the bats. College baseball is beginning a new era, and this was Sembower Field’s introduction to it.

Dickerson hit that pitch in the Hoosiers’ home opener on March 27 just slightly less than square. However, with a bat much less lively than the one he was using a year ago, it was enough to keep the pitch in the yard. His drive to right center caromed off the wall for a two-run double rather than clear it for a three-run homer.

Dickerson is far from alone in such an experience. In the offseason, the NCAA significantly altered its testing standards for non-wood bats, effectively requiring manufacturers to produce bats without nearly as much juice as the old models.

The change has caused an almost instant revolution. Long the province of the long ball, four-hour, 20-plus-run slugfests and pitchers too spooked to throw inside, the college game is playing much more like the professional one this season.

Home run numbers have dive-bombed. Runs have plunged. Earned run averages have shriveled, game speeds have accelerated, pitching and defense have become even more critical and small ball tactics like bunts and hit-and-runs have become more prominent.

“It’s definitely changed the game, the complexion of the game and the type of baseball we’re gonna play,” Ohio State coach Greg Beals said. “There’s no more of the gorilla ball going on out there.”

The change has had an especially significant effect on the Hoosiers’ style of play. Last season, the Hoosiers hit 85 home runs, 29 more than any other team in the Big Ten and 19th in Division I at the end of the regular season. Through their first 27 games this season — which accounts for just under half of the 56-game regular season — Indiana hit just 12, despite returning most of the power from last year’s order.

And that’s still good enough for third in the Big Ten. Purdue and Penn State are the only two other teams who have hit double digits. After combining to club 451 home runs last season, the entire conference has just 81 as the season nears the halfway point.

Dickerson’s numbers are just as much of a microcosm. After hitting 24 home runs last season, he has just four so far. However, that leaves him just two back of the Big Ten lead.

“It is a lot more (dramatic of a change) than I actually expected that it was going to be,” Indiana coach Tracy Smith said. “The balls that normally get out aren’t getting out. I like it. . It’s more like real baseball. But it has been very, very different.”

The standard

The NCAA first established a testing standard for its bats in 1999 after a period when offense was particularly out of hand. It established the Ball Exit Speed Ratio standard — or BESR — which regulated bats based on the speed of the ball after impact compared to the speed of the pitch and the bat before impact.

That didn’t have as much of an impact on offense as the NCAA hoped, however, so it announced in September of 2008 a new standard would be implemented this season.

The new standard has less to do with the speed of the ball than to what happens to the ball and bat at the point of impact. The standard is called the Bat-Ball Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR). Determining a bat’s BBCOR requires a complex physics problem, but it’s a measure of the “give” or “bounce” in a bat.

There isn’t a lot of give to wood bats because they are made from one solid piece. Aluminum or composite bats have a barrel with a cylindrical metal wall and a hollowed-out middle. Physicists compare the difference between a ball hitting a wood bat and a ball hitting an aluminum bat to the difference between a person jumping on a concrete floor and jumping on a trampoline. When the ball hits a wood bat, it compresses and loses energy. When it hits an aluminum bat, the bat flexes slightly and produces a rebound or trampoline effect that sends the ball further.

To lessen the trampoline effect, the NCAA established a legal BBCOR of .5 making bats that qualify under the new standard just slightly more flexible than wood.

The bats

The NCAA figured the 2 1/2 year window between the announcement of the new standards and their implementation would give bat manufacturers enough time to adjust.

Not quite. It’s given them time to produce something legal, but not to make the best product they can possibly make under the new standards.

“At first, everybody was scrambling,” said Mike May, director of communications for Sporting Goods Manufacturers of America. “You can’t just change this with a flick of a finger and put everything in a big shipment container. . We had about 18 months to redesign them, test them and mass produce them. To the average person, that might seem like a long time, but it’s a pretty tight deadline.”

College teams first had the opportunity to work with BBCOR approved bats in fall practice this year, but supply was limited. Several schools reported getting just two bats — one a 33-inch model and one a 34-inch — to use in the fall. By the beginning of spring practice, teams from Division I through the junior college ranks had full supplies, but many players weren’t thrilled with the product.

There isn’t much difference to the untrained eye or ear for that matter. There’s still a ping, but it’s not quite as shrill. And if you hit the ball square, the ball still feels weightless.

But the bat is significantly more end-loaded with weight because there’s basically an extra layer of metal in the barrel, which has thrown a lot of hitters off.

“They’re not very good,” Dickerson said. “They’re dulled down a pretty good amount. It’s not as much how much they’re dulled down as the weight distribution. You get used to something for your whole life, your whole 20 years of playing and then it all the sudden changes. You gotta get used to it again.”

The game

The NCAA compiled a mid-season statistical report this week and the numbers were as startling as expected.

Home runs have fallen from an average of 0.85 per game at the midpoint of last season to 0.47 so far. Runs are down from 6.98 to 5.63 per game. The overall earned run average of Division I is down from 5.83 to 4.62 and batting average is down from .301 to .279.

Last season, 111 Division I teams finished with an average of at least one home run per game. This year, just nine teams are averaging that many.

In 2010, 53 teams averaged at least 8.0 runs per game and 147 teams averaged at least 7.0 runs per game. So far this year, those numbers have shrunk to 12 and 39.

Texas was the only team in college baseball last season to post an earned run average under 3.00, finishing at 2.45. There were only 21 teams with an ERA under 4.00. This year, four teams are under 2.00, 33 are under 3.00 and 97 are under 4.00.

“If good hitters hit it on the sweet spot like they would every other bat, it’s gonna go,” Smith said. “It’s just taken that area and condensed it. There’s no more cheap home runs if you will. You gotta hit them to get them.”

The new bats have forced Smith to shuffle his lineup. Despite having back players who hit 61 of the team’s 85 home runs last season, Smith found out quickly the Hoosiers couldn’t simply out-bash opponents anymore. Still, his team is third in the Big Ten in batting average at .292 and second in runs scored with 173.

“I was a creature of my own habits early in the season and just said, ‘OK, we’re gonna slug with everybody and keep with it,’” Smith said. “But we’ve made, if you’ve looked at it, some different changes. (Center fielder) T.C. Knipp we’ve started in the lineup now and put in there because he’s got a high on-base percentage. (Rightfielder Justin) Cureton, an athletic kid who hadn’t gotten a lot of time in the past. (Outfielder) Matt Serfling, same thing. They’ve kind of evolved. They’ve always been valuable, but they’re even more valuable this year because they give you a quality AB there, and they’re very good defensively.”

And players like that will become even more valuable, Smith said, in recruiting, where teams have to put a dollar figure on what that means. Baseball teams are allowed 30 players but only have equivalent of 11.7 scholarships to use. Pitching is always a priority and may draw even more scholarship money now, and teams must decide how much they can spend on power and how much on faster, more defense oriented lineups.

Every coach is going to have to those sort of decisions, but that, they say, is what makes this a good move for the college game. Brute strength can still be a factor, but this makes it more about skill and strategy.

And like Smith says, more like real baseball.