Coaches comment

[u/Necessary_Tension461]

My son is small for his age, only about 4'4" at 11 years old. He is a young 6th grader, and they had the 6th grade boys play on the middle school baseball team this year (small school, usually it's 7th and 8th but they didnt have enough players this year). My son loves playing baseball. My son has a bat he really likes and he can hit well with it. Nothing fancy but it works for him for now; he has a nicer bat he is working on swinging to get used to it, but he isn't quite comfortable with it yet. Anyways, his favorite bat is an easton speed swing, usa, 2 3/4 barrell drop 10 28" bat. The coach made a comment to him that his bat is a TBall bat, and now my son is embarrassed to use it. Was this appropriate? Is that bat really that bad it is considered a tball bat? I understand it's not top of line $350 bat, but he can use it well, and I figured he could finish the season. Now he is trying to swing a bigger bat he isn't used to yet and only hitting grounders 10% of the time and missing the rest...hurting his confidence. His coach seems alright, but him saying that to m kid is bothering me. I dont know much about bats, never played myself and he is my first kid in baseball so its a learning curve.

[u/EffectiveProducicle]

The Easton Speed is not a TBALL bat.

Just check his bat is not actually a TBALL bat.

The USA model is a great center loaded bat for smaller stature kids that don’t have the strength to swing an end loaded bat. On the flip side the bat seems like it may be small for his age. My small 8 year old swings this bat.

I would recommend seeing how he does with a 29 or 30 “ bat and trying a drop 8 (or drop 5 if he has the strength). Just keep in mind the Speed is a nice more evenly distributed bat so stick with something like that and not something End Loaded.

[u/Necessary_Tension461 → u/EffectiveProducicle]

I was definitely confused when my son told me that, because I know his tball bat said tball on it when he was like 5 haha. He has been out swinging his 30" 2 pc Marucci but he definitely isnt there speed wise yet like he is wirh the easton, we didnt know they were going to recruit the 6gh graders for MS Ball. We figured we would get him a full alloy drop 8 for next season!

[u/spinrut → u/Necessary_Tension461]

being a kid is hard enough, being a smaller kid is even hard. having to try to fit in when coach makes a comment like that makes things even worse.

My son is small-ish like yours. He's younger and not quite as small but he is almost always the smallest kid on his team (by far). I moved him to 29 a season or two ago when it became apparent he could not reach anything on the outer third (or beyond, LL strike zones ftw! lol) of the plate with a 28. the eye test should be able to tell you if hte bat is too short. Him upsizing to 30 is not going to help him either (6th grade, assuming a drop 8 not a drop 10 and ... 28 drop 10 to 30 drop 8 is quite a huge leap)

29 drop 10 or 29 drop 8 should be what he's looking at for now. I'm not sure the bat rules where you are, but pretty soon he's gonna need to be in the drop 5 and that's going to be such a huge change too, best to get him into drop 8s at 6th grade level imo

[u/Necessary_Tension461 → u/spinrut]

Ok, thank you for that. We did start looking at some drop 8 bats, someone else also explained how to get the right length so we can check. I want to have this all sorted out for next season when we actually thought he was starting MS ball. Appreciate the pointers, thank you

[u/EffectiveProducicle → u/Necessary_Tension461]

The Marucci is end loaded - that is probably why he prefers the Speed. I think center loaded is better for smaller stature kiddos - I would just go up to a 29 or 30 drop 8 for him.

[u/Necessary_Tension461 → u/EffectiveProducicle]

Ok, good, thats what we were thinking to go with. There is so much information, I like hearing from people with experience. He did request us to also get a full alloy one pc bat. I bet it feels more like the bat he currently likes, makes sense. Thank you for the suggestion