Young Guns

We're creeping up on the half way mark of 2010, the Draft is over and all eyes are set on the All-Star game. So far it appears that there may be a changing of the guard in terms of team leaders.

No longer is Chipper Jones the face of the Braves, or Mannywood the place to be in LA. Instead it's Martin Prado and Jason Heyward in Atlanta and Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier and James Loney in LA.


It's a similar story all over the league. Elvis Andrus is batting over .300 for Texas and seems to add the perfect mix for the 1st place Rangers. Add in Ian Kinsler, Justin Smoak and Joaquin Arias and you have a bundle of talent at a very young age.


They're not just young and talented, they know how to win. Texas leads the AL West, albeit barely. Yet, these young guns may have more in their tank then the A's or Angels who are significantly older (especially in the Outfield).

In Seattle, the age has definitely had an impact. Griffey, Jr. recognized it and decided to get out of the way, retiring after a Hall of Fame career. The problem is Seattle can't seem to find the spark to get it moving up in the standings. They don't have that young superstar that ignites the team, the fans and the scoreboard.

So, where are the young superstars that light up the scoreboard, fan interest and drive their teams toward the top of the standings? Here's my top 5.

Austin Jackson - Detroit Tigers.


This guy is only 23, barely... and his presence is just what the Tigers need at the top of their lineup. They have all the power they could possibly want behind him. That's not his game. It's speed baby, speed. Get on, get over and get in. That's the Austin Jackson game. He's batting .318 with 17 doubles and has scored 36 times already. When he cuts down on the K ratio he'll be even more impressive.

Martin Prado - Atlanta Braves


I know.. he's not super young.. but, he's super good. At only 26 Prado is the catalyst for the Braves. He took over the job late in '08 and hasn't missed a beat since. This is another guy that is not about power and production, it's about table setting and average. Every team needs one (at least) and the better they are at doing their seemingly insignificant job, the higher the team rises in the standings. Prado is that guy. He leads the NL in average at .325 and is 2nd in runs scored with 44. There is more than enough fire power behind Martin, funny how that works huh? Just like Jackson in Detroit, Prado sets em up in Atlanta. Watch this team, they're exciting and fun to watch.

David Freese - St. Louis Cardinals


After getting a cup of coffee last year and showing he could handle the hot corner, the Cards bet on David as the cornerstone of the infield. They won, big time. This kid is real good. He's nothing flashy, all business... both at the plate and in the field. His .311 average is among the leaders and he's scored 35 times this year while knocking in 32. That's saying something when you have run producers like Ludwick, Pujols and Holliday in the lineup. Give him time and you could see something special here.

Jason Heyward - Atlanta Braves

No wonder the Braves lead the NL East. They have a supreme mix of youth and experience. The key is their youth is just other worldly. Jason came on with a bang and he has yet to flatten out. You can see that he's not perfect, with a horrendous 0 for 5 in LA with 5 K's! Yikes. Yet, despite that, he's among the leaders in RBIs with 40 and has 10 HRs already. And who can blame him for the 5K performance when he was facing a nasty young lefty (Kershaw) and a blazing bull (Broxton) in LA. There's been more than one good hitter go down to that pitching staff. He's only 20 and there's magic in this kid's bat. Just give it time to show off.

Andre Ethier - LA Dodgers


Stud. That about covers it. Had he not broken his pinky earlier in the year, this could have been (and may still be) an absolutely remarkable statistical year for Andre. The A's gave up on this kid after he was named Minor League player of the year. How do you do that? LA was glad to offer him a home. Man, has he taken advantage of it. THE clutch hitter in baseball, Andre is the Walk Off wizard. He's got a .360 average and 40 RBIs. I'm pretty sure we're just beginning to see the talent that Andre possesses. Watch his at bats, you'll definitely learn something.

Offenses on Fire in first week.

It was a good first week of MLB for the men at the dish. Balls were flying all over (and out of) every host stadium. That's always a good sign for Hitting fans like us.


Who's really hot? Well, as mentioned in the previous blog, the Jays have a solid hitting lineup. The hottest Jay is not Adam Lind or even Vernon Wells. It's the shortstop with the short quick bat - Alex Gonzalez. He stayed red hot on Sunday with a solid 2 for 4 performance that netted 2 more Home Runs to give him 4 on the season. He also picked up a couple more Ribs at the plate. In the past week he's ripped at an 8 for 22 clip. No wonder the Jays are on top of the AL East.

In St. Louis it's more than just the King Albert show. Although, Albert is
certainly off to a super start at .375 with 4 Big flies and 10 Ribs.. all putting him among the leaders in the NL. It's his counterpart Matt Holliday who is on fire as a Cardinal. Matt is stroking a .423 average with 3 Bombs and is providing a lot of protection to Pujols. Last night was no exception as the Cards were down by 3 going into the 9th in Milwaukee. Low and Behold, Albert belted a 2 run shot to get them close. Then, Matt crushed a shot to deep center field to tie it. Pretty incredible encore from Matt. Watch these back to back gems Here! No Surprise, they're on top in the Central Division.

Because of San Francisco's uncharacteristic hot start, the D'Backs are not atop the NL West despite the offensive flash from Chris Young. He's on fire in the desert. How hot? How about 7 for his last 20 with 11 RBIs to lead the league in the Ribby department. Chris has also belted out 3 Bombs to sit among the leaders in the power display.


So, there ya have it. Some of the hottest bats in baseball as we roll into week number 2. Enjoy the barrage of hits. I know we do here at BABH.com

Click here it you'd like to learn to mash like these guys! And.. to see who Yesterday's Hitter was.

Renteria Raging Hot in SF

What a start to the season for hitters. Although that's generally the case most every April, it seems especially apparent this year. If you look around the league, you'll see some softball like averages out there. It's a bit crazy.



Speaking of which, it's wild in San Fran right now. They're 4-0 and atop the NL West behind the strength of their bats (okay, they have some decent arms too). But this blog is about hitting and there's no shortage of that in the City by the Bay. Two games in a row the combo of Renteria and Rowand has been over the top. Edgar's game tying 2 run shot in the bottom of the 9th on Friday set the stage for his partner in crime to slip a game winner past the infield in the 13th. Renteria has a sizzling average of .688 out of the gates in 2010.



There's alot of High Fives going on across the Bay in Oakland where things aren't that much different. The hitters are saving the day. The A's had back to back walk off wins in Oakland on Wednesday and Thursday before thumping the Halos 10-4 last night. Mark Ellis is sporting a .400 average and seems to be in the mix of every rally the A's muster. NorCal never looked so good.

It's a little topsy turvy in the East as well, ok.. in the AL anyway. Who's on top? Tampa...on bottom? Boston. The Yanks are nestled in 3rd behind Toronto. Toronto? Yea man, this team is packed with hitters. Adam Lind can rake and Vernon Wells is Mr. Deep Wells so far in 2010. He's got 4 HRs already this year and his .500 average is packed with power numbers. Tampa Bay is stacked from top to bottom as well and it shouldn't surprise anybody to see them sitting in the cat bird seat.


The best hitter yesterday though was Rick Ankiel. He just couldn't do anything wrong. That's a great thing for Kansas City and exactly what they hoped for when they got Rick from St Lou. He delivered in spades yesterday going 4 for 4 and helping KC push the Red Sox into the cellar in the East. It's too bad KC's relief pitching (yuck, we hate that word) sucked so bad in the first two games.. heck, they could be 4-0. Now that would be a story!

Which Wood Bat Would That Be

I don't quite understand MLB's weird approach to the growing broken bat problem in baseball. I imagine that the only thing that will prompt anything more than a cursory "investigation" will be serious injury or worse to a player, an umpire or possibly a fan.

I don't have the statistics as to the average number of bats broken in each MLB game this year, but just from watching I can say... It's alot. Sure, they have commissioned studies on several thousand bats that have broken. These studies were expensive and involved a Harvard Statistician, a Massachusetts-Lowell mechanical engineering professor and a wood-certification company. They studied the broken bats and tried to figure out why.

Guess what? There are bat companies out there and wood types out there that don't break. Did they study those? Nope. Big Frank Thomas used a bat that broke maybe once a year. Twice at the most. Did they study that wood type or manufacturer to see what they were doing right? Nope. Seems kinda silly to look at one side of the box. Even sillier to look at that side of the box from inside the box.

Get your thinking caps on guys. MLB has got it's share of problems right now for sure. The last thing it needs is to have a pitcher irreparably harmed by a flying missile because the powers that be don't have the sense to conduct a study properly.

What's worse is this problem is not that hard to fix. Let me come back to this.

Major League Baseball rule 1.10(a) describes the specifications of a bat:

"The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2 3/4" in diameter at the thickest part, and not more than 42 inches in length. Bats shall be one piece of solid wood."

The last sentence is your problem. "Bats shall be one piece of solid wood." Why?

There are a couple of companies out there right now that have MLB approval for their bats to be used in the Minor Leagues. Brett Bros. is one of these companies. The company is owned by Hall of Famer George Brett. What makes a Brett bat different? Simple Simon, he uses several "planks" of wood (the type of wood can vary from bamboo to maple to ash) that are layered to form a billet. The woods are melded together with a special glue process. When sufficiently bonded, the billet is lathed into a particular model bat. This process makes the wood bat incredibly strong and resistant to breakage.

More importantly, it does NOT change the game. It's still a wood bat. The ball doesn't come off the barrel any different than it does with a normal "one piece" wood bat. One professional team broke nearly 50 bats a season before switching to Brett Bros. bats. Guess what, in the next two seasons the entire team broke a total of 4 bats!

Come On. Who is making the decisions that allow these bats in Minor Leagues and not the Major Leagues. Why wouldn't you? You think George Brett is going to tarnish the tradition of baseball? No. He has made it better because he is thinking outside of that damn box.

Another company has recently decided to venture into this new concept of "assembling" a bat. This company uses a very unique approach that makes all the sense in the world. They have taken the Brett Bat concept one step further. This company is called Radial Bats. I've swung these bats and am very impressed. Time will tell if these are more durable than those made by Brett, but the concept is impressive.

Each Radial bat consists of twelve wedges that are flawlessly milled with patent pending methods. Then each wedge is perfectly aligned to provide great strength in every orientation.



The bottom line is this... MLB needs to figure out that these types of wood bats will not change the game. They don't look any different, they don't sound any different, they don't perform any different EXCEPT when it comes to breakage. They DON'T break nearly as often as what they are allowing in the Major Leagues at this time.

MLB has struck out on this one.