This is a continuation on my last post about bat balance points and swingweights. What nice about this post is that most of the work has been done on the golf side. Lets look at it. I found this website and this club fitter experimented with different swingweights and tested with 6 players. His findings are interesting yet expected.
https://pluggedingolf.com/can-swing-weight-affect-performance-golf-myths-unplugged/
It should be noted that DO to D3 or any change in 3 steps of swingweight is adding or subtracting 6 grams or 0.2 oz. Each swingweight change (DO being the lightest) is 2 grams or 0.07 oz. (almost nothing) yet each golfer immediately noticed the change in weight. Now a bat is shorter and heavier so the addition or subtraction in weight needs to be more. I found that 3 oz showed a very noticeable change. The information is in the post link below.
The data:
This is very interesting because golf will track launch angle, ball speed, spin, carry, attack angle, path, offline, and smash factor. All of these should look familiar to the baseball guy and statcast. It should be noted that golf is 10-15 years ahead of baseball in this regard.
Lets break down each player and only look at speeds and contact. This is because in golf there is more than launch angle and ball speed because spin rate plays into carry but after the ball hits the ground, the less spin, the more roll. So golfers look at total distance vs baseball looks at total carry.
- Player 1
- As weight increases, Club head speed decreases.
- Ball speed decreases slightly.
- Smash factor stays consistent (quality of contact where 1.5 is the best)
- Total distance decreases slightly but control increases.
- Player 2
- As weight increases, Club head speed decreases.
- Ball speed decreases substantially.
- Smash factor stays consistent.
- Total distance decreases substantially and control decreases.
- Player 3
- As weight increases, Club head speed decreases slightly.
- Ball speed decreases substantially.
- Smash factor stays consistent.
- Total distance decreases slightly and control stays consistent.
- Player 4
- As weight increases, Club head speed decreases.
- Ball speed decreases substantially.
- Smash factor stays consistent but does increase in the middle swingweights.
- Total distance decreases substantially and control decreases.
- Player 5
- As weight increases, Club head stays consistent.
- Ball speed increases substantially.
- Smash factor increases
- Total distance increases substantially and control increases.
- Player 6
- As weight increases, Club head speed decreases slightly.
- Ball speed stays consistent.
- Smash factor stays consistent.
- Total distance stays consistent and control stays consistent.
Conclusion
Player 5 gained the most from increasing swingweight. This allowed him to hit the ball 25 yards further and more in the center of the fairway. But no other player saw an increase in distance or control. The next step to this test would be to then take those players and decrease the swingweights lower than D0 and see if they gain an advantage going lighter.
Why I said that the results were to be expected earlier in this post is because everyone is unique and swing differently. This means that there is no one magic club or bat for everyone. A lot more time needs to be put into the idea of bat fitting and we need to look at it like golf club fitters do.
I learned that I can change the swingweight of a baseball bat. I can notice a difference that makes the bat feel lighter and quicker. Now I need to get to the point where I can test this and hit balls to get swing speed and exit velo numbers and compare. We need to know whats best for each hitter. End loaded, balanced, handle loaded, length, and overall weight.