At that age there will hardly be a difference. Short answer - hell no.
Wrong. At that age there can be a SIGNIFICANT difference.
If your kid is good, he's good. If he's not, a bat isn't gonna matter.
I had a $20 bat from Target, and almost all the other kids had the expensive, top-of-the line models. My $20 bat won me team MVP both years I had it. An 11-year old doesn't have the strength for there to be that much of a difference. How fast do you have to swing that bat and how fast does the pitch need to be coming to see that 50 foot difference you're talking about?
IF you spend that kind of money on a youths bat you are fucking insane. not for 11 games a season.
now if they are traveling teams then maybe.
And yes, and 11 year does have the strength to make a difference. If an 11 year old hit a ball with a plastic bat, I assume you think it would go just as far as that $20 bat you had from Target?
No, I'm saying the difference in how much further and faster an 11-year old can hit a ball with a composite bat compared to an aluminum one is negligible and in no way justifies spending that much money. The average boy that age is 4'7" and weighs 80 pounds.
meh. i wouldn't base it off "average". i have seen kids with a wide range of strength and speed.
Sure, but even in extreme cases the difference would be small.
http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/bats/alumwood.html
Here's a study comparing wood to aluminum. Everything else equal, it shows a player will hit the ball 52 feet farther and the ball will travel 8mph faster using a top-of-the-line aluminum bat instead of a wood one (when the wood bat hits the ball 388 feet). That's wood to aluminum and those are major league distances. This is aluminum to composite and the difference in strength is enormous.
True. Last summer, there were 12 year olds on my son's team that could hit the ball 250+ft. And other 12 year olds that couldn't hit it out of the infield.
http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/bats/compalum.html
And we're both citing a 10 year old study. I assure you, the advancements in composite bats in 10 years has been quite impressive.
yeap. both of my kids play summer ball. On my sons team him and another boy were the only two that could hit the ball out of the infield on the fly (both were 8) nobody else could come close.
I got him a cheap walmart T-ball bat. cost us $12 though he is going to need a new bat and glove this year.
At 8, I think you're safe with a Walmart bat
But once they start to grow, and depending on the seriousness of their play, you'll be shopping for last year's models on ebay with the rest of us! (don't drink the Easton Kool-Aid!)
I don't think either will take it serious. My daughter is a level 7 gymnast. she spends most of her time in the gym. she enjoys softball but not much.
my son prefers wrestling and gymnastics. though he wants to play football beyond pee-wee stuff.
As price increases, the quality of the price also increases. I would not recommend buying a 300 dollar bat unless your child is serious about baseball and will use it for a couple of years. I have purchased many bats at www.baseballbargains.com and they offer a large selection.
Composite bats take 700-1000 (depending on who you talk to) hits before they are broken in and in prime hitting power. So his 1 year old bat may be in it's prime right now depending on how much it was used. If he bought a brand new bat, the exit velocity on it may be significantly decreased over his "old" bat from last year.
I actually thought they pre-rolled bats now for a couple of reasons, 1. So that the bat won't "break in" and exceed the max exit velocies, and 2. So that idiots can't roll/shave them to make them more powerful.
But that's just something someone said to me on a sandlot somewhere.
I remember when the Mikkens first came out ~ 10 years ago, it was absolutely crazy how hard you could hit the ball with those things.
Edit: I also don't understand why metal/composite bats are even allowed at all. Why not just make everyone use wood? Doesn't anyone care about pitchers?