Bryce Harper’s BIG Bat

Did you catch the latest Bryce Harper highlight?  If not, here’s the video clip that turned some heads:

In case you missed it, Harper started his round with a 36 inch, 47 ounce bat. FYI: While players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson used bats that weighed between 39 – and 42 ounces, the heaviest bat out there in the show today is 37 ounces… used by a slap hitting infielder. Most professional hitters today swing a bat weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 31 – 34 ounces.

Now this bat isn’t Harper’s actual game bat. This is supposed to be a training bat. The objective: swing this heavier bat to build raw strength which will hopefully lead to hitting power and bat speed… similar to using a donut, or wielding those lead pipes you see guys like David Ortiz swing when he’s in the on-deck circle.. except this is a real bat to hit baseballs with.

The problem: aside from a few YouTube hits, this type of training doesn’t accomplish much.

Sure, Harper will get generally stronger swinging Bam-Bam’s club. Sure it will initially make his game bat feel lighter than it really is. (Key word: initially.) But at the end of the day, this type of training violates one of the basic underload/overload (U/O) training principles.

U/O training involves performing a sport-specific move (swinging a bat) with an implement no lighter nor heavier than 20% of what you want to perform the movement when it counts (your at bat), with the implement you would normally use in competition (your game bat).

As far as hitting goes, anything heavier or lighter than +/- 20%, will have a negative effect on the “mechanics” of the swing. (A bat that’s too light will make it very easy to “cheat,” while a bat that’s way too heavy will require you to cheat and not take your preferred swing.)

Bryce Harper’s training bat is 47oz. If he was following the overload part of O/U protocol, it would mean that he swings a 39oz. bat in competition.

This kid is an amazing talent, but I’m pretty sure he’s not swinging a 39oz. bat in “real life.”

I’m not sure, but I thought I heard someone on the video mentioning swinging a 34oz. bat. I don’t know if the 34 oz. bat is Harper’s game bat, but I think it was the bat he picked up after he swung the tree trunk. (I do know that I heard someone whisper “watch this,” when he picked up the 34.)

Did you notice that each swing he took with the “lighter” bat resulted in ground balls hit to the pull side of the field? I might have been hearing things, but I thought I heard Harper saying he “rolled” on one of those pitches. (That’s baseball-speak for getting out in front and rolling his hands too early, which can be caused by being too long with your swing.)

Did it look like he swung the 34 faster than the 47?

Do you think the bat felt lighter to Harper in those first few swings ?

Of course!!! He just dropped nearly a pound in bat weight!

But did it improve his swing?

Do you think that new found bat speed will stick around for more than a few swings?

Hmm…

I’m sure if he took a few more swings with the 34, he would be right back on track, simply because his body will make the adjustment of swinging that bat opposed to the giant one. But why swing a bat that’s nearly 40% heavier than his “gamer,” when it requires a few swings to make an adjustment instead of developing an enhancement?

Remember: swinging a bat requires way more than just raw power… and even bat speed. Without something called timing, those other two qualities – while great to have – don’t help much if you can’t get the barrel to the ball at the right time.

Bottom Line: When you swing a bat that’s either way too light or way too heavy, you will negatively affect you timing.

I’m a fan of Bryce Harper. I wish him the very best. While I was impressed to see him swing that massive 47oz. bat, I’d rather see the people around him stop trying to enhance the legend of Bryce Harper, and just focus on training correctly.

Coach Bones