For the first time in recorded history (i.e., since the 70’s), the Kingston Softball league used wooden bats for some games this year.  Each team was set to play two wood games each.  Actually what ended up happening due to a scheduling failure was that some teams had three wood games and some only had one.  But anyway, the league (not necessarily the players) has deemed the wooden experiment a success.  With 2009 likely to have four wood games per team, I thought it would be prudent to review the statistical differences between the wood and metal bats.

Since league wide stats are not readily available we have to work with what we have access to.  Conventional thinking will say that the ball comes off the metal bat faster, so teams should have a higher batting average while using metal in comparison to wood:

Their batting average with wood bats should be lower, right?  Nope.  Not a large difference, but what is going on here? 

Slugging percentage is where you can see the difference in the bats:

That’s 18% less bases per at bat, a significant change.  So, Casa Villa had more hits but less extra base hits.  Extrapolating the data, we find that Casa Villa had 17% more singles with a wood bat, but 21% less doubles, 41% less triples and 78% home runs.  78%!  What?  And to make things worse, the sole home run they did have with a wood bat was an inside the park home run.

What did we learn here?  You just can’t go deep with the wood bats?  Well, not quite.  The Charlton Precision Jets hit three home runs in their two wood bat games.  While that number is well under their metal bat home run percentage, it shows it can still be done.  If you combine the stats from both Casa Villa and the Jets, you get the following result:

It is clear that the wood bats favor singles hitters and punishes home run hitters.  So I’m sure you’re wondering what effect less extra base hits had on overall scoring.  I’m glad you asked. 

Without as many extra base hits, scoring was down a whopping 27%!  Is there anything else that we can learn from the data?  How about players who had experience with wood bats (Saugerties modified league, etc)?  I broke the players into three categories based on their experience with wood:  lots, some and little.  The results are quite interesting.

The players who knew how to wield the wooden bat had a distinct advantage over players who were not used to it.  They had more hits.  They even had more extra base hits.  In fact, their slugging percentage was actually higher with wood bats than with metal bats!

What is the conclusion of all of this?  When you’re building your 2009 team, fill your roster with more Phil Denises and less Fred Duffuses.  And remember – if chicks dig the longball, make sure to leave your wood bat at home, unless you really know how to use it!