Over the years, I’ve had countless people ask me, “Why would you use a wood bat in practice when you will be using a metal one in games?”  Simply put, it’s a lot better for you and your development as a ballplayer.  Let’s discuss why.

Training Your Unconscious

When we are practicing, we are supposed to be working towards becoming the best we can.  The sweet spot within wood bats is much smaller than within metal ones, meaning it takes greater concentration to hit the ball where we want to on the bat.  If we can train ourselves to find the sweet spot every single swing with wood, hitting with metal becomes much easier.  I always liked to take most of my rounds with wood and then finish with a round or two using metal.  While I might have hit a few here and there off the fists or the end of the bat during my rounds with wood, when I switched to metal, finding the sweet spot on the barrel had become like second nature.  And the balls just seemed to be jumping off the bat.  This is part of the reason professionals use wood bats; it is much more challenging.  

I like to compare this mental process to that of using a weighted doughnut.  The doughnut makes the bat feel lighter after you take it off.  It increases your bat speed and loosens you up.  In the same way, hitting with wood makes the sweet spot on metal feel bigger because you become accustomed to having to hit it perfectly no matter what kind of bat you are using.  It increases confidence and awareness.

The Sound and Feel

In my humble opinion, there is no better sound on earth than that of a perfectly struck baseball with a wood bat.  My favorite part of attending Major League games is getting to the ballpark early to watch batting practice and just soaking in the sound, swing after swing.  This is drastically different than my feelings about metal bats.  I’ve had multiple experiences as a player and a coach where I wished so badly that I had ear plugs while people were hitting with metal.

In conjunction with sounding much better, wood bats provide users with much better feedback about where they are hitting the ball.  After only a couple sessions with a wood bat, you should be able to start detecting where exactly you are making contact on the bat based on the feeling you get through your hands and the sound that each swing produces.  This isn’t to say that the feeling is better with wood, it definitely stings if you hit a ball in the wrong place, but what you can learn from it is the important part.

For example, if you keep hitting balls off the end of the bat (which you will definitely learn to know by the feeling and sound), it is a good indication that you are either too far out in front of pitches or you are swinging at pitches that are too far outside.

Closing Thoughts

If I haven’t convinced you of the merits of using a wood bat in practice yet, this will probably do the trick.  Metal bats are engineered to run out of pop relatively quickly.  If you insist on swinging your metal bat in the cages, it is going to have a much shorter “life” in terms of optimal performance.  When you team this with how expensive top-of-the-line metal bats are, it makes sense to save those hits for games and train with a cheaper, more efficient wood bat.

I hope this gives you a sense of why I prefer and encourage my students to use wood bats (most of the time) in practice.  Please feel free to contact us at The School of Baseball with any questions regarding this information.  We love hearing from our readers and will get back to you shortly.  Good luck!