When purchasing a baseball bat the first step you need too understand is the material. This is an in-depth article on composite vs. aluminum bats.

Composite material baseball and softball bats have been around for quite a while, but only in the last few years have they begun to seriously compete with aluminum bats. As far back as 1985, graphite and plastic bats were available^[1,2] and by the late 1980’s each of the three big bat companies – Easton, Worth, and Louisville Slugger – had graphite bats on the market. These early bats were advertised as “having the strength of aluminum and the performance of wood.” They were very strong and held up to a lot of abuse, but because they did not perform nearly as well as the more popular aluminum single-walled bats then available they did not remain on the market very long. For about 10 years graphite bats pretty much disappeared from the scene, but by the late 1990’s a few small bat companies – most noticeably Miken – were reintroducing carbon fiber, or composite material, bats into the market again. Like their predecessors, these composite bats were pretty durable, but not very high performing. Continue reading →