Your Bat Recommendations
What do you get from us when you go through our bat fitting process? Within about 15 minutes of inputting your data into the form on our website, you'll receive an email that looks like this...
What does it all mean, though?
Let's start at the top, and work our way down. Before you get to what you see pictured, you would see your Power Efficiency metrics at each fitter location (each place you move the adjustable weight to), this is shown really just for transparency sake, because our recommendation is based on where your power efficiency is greatest, already.
Next, you see the swing weight you performed best at during the fitting. The ideal swing weight is listed at 8.4 for the fitting in the example above. What does 8.4 mean, though? It is really just a value to help you compare apples to apples, so to speak. We use a consistent method to translate each bat's moment of inertia (MOI), which is the more scientific way to refer to swing weight, for easier comprehension and discussion. Does our swing weight scale translate directly to that used by other manufacturers... probably not. The industry is yet to come together to speak the same language, but our fitting process is one way to help cut through all of that.
Below the swing weight, you'll see the wood bat recommendations. We only recommend our wood bats through our bat fitting process. Two reasons for it, really... One, with our bats, we have the data we need to make the recommendations. Two, we are a wood bat company and would like to have people swinging our bats. If enough interest was there to warrant recommending other manufacturer's wood bats, we might consider it, but right now you will see a recommendation for bats in our wood bat lineup. (IMHO... they are the ones you should be swinging, anyway.) The wood bat recommendations are all based on a standard wood drop of -2.5, but if someone needed a lower swing weight option, it is capable of recommending our transitional (-5) models at 32".
Next in the recommendation email you would receive is our non-wood bat recommendations. As it stands right now, we have some of the early 2019 data from a couple manufacturers, and we will be adding more in the next couple months. Our goal is to have a significant percentage of the 2019 models in our database by early January. Since our bat fitters have been focused on high school, college, and professional players, our non-wood recommendations have focused on BBCOR bats, and we provide a referral link to a trusted online retailer where you can buy them (since we don't make or sell them).
One thing that raises some eye brows for people is often the the difference in bat length between the wood and BBCOR recommendations. These are not a mistake and just require a little education on how swing weight is determined. Essentially the swing weight is a function of the length, weight, and weight distribution. Since the swing weight is generally lower for BBCOR bats, when compared to wood bats, to reach the ideal swing weight you generally need to go with a longer BBCOR bat. If you are swinging a 34" wood bat, then it is important to pay attention to the swing weight of the BBCOR bats you're looking at (or just take our recommendation, which already considers it for you). In short, it is very reasonable for a 32.5" end loaded wood bat and a 34" balanced BBCOR bat to have the same swing weight, so that is not a misprint.
That is basically it... That's how the recommendations are delivered to you, and that is a little insight as to what they mean. At the end of the day, our recommendations are rooted in science and based on individual performance, so you aren't left trying to fit yourself to a bat based on some broad generalization of your height and weight.
As always... don't be shy about reaching out with questions!
Aaron Chamberlain, M.S., M.B.A.
Co-Founder, Great Lakes Bat Co.
Inventor, Bat Fitter (patent-pending)
