Bat Rolling Information Page from BigDawg Bat Rolling.

Anyone who has used composite bats knows that they are not as "hot" new as they are with a few hundred hits on them. Some companies claim that bats are "hot right out of the wrapper", this is not the case. All composite and metal alloy bats have increased pop after they have been hit a few hundred times to some degree. For this reason bat rolling is a popular option among softball, fastpitch softball, and baseball players as a way to lessen the break in period. Bat rolling is a process that stretches out the composite fibers along the bat's barrel. The 400 PCCR machine that we use rolls your bat 2 ways; parallel and perpendicular. First we roll your bat perpendicularly. The bat is rolled through the bat roller at 8 different points around the bat. This will actually roll the top and bottom with one pass through so that means your bat would be rolled at 16 different sides while being bat rolled with over 300 passes through the bat roller. After the perpendicular roll we roll your bat parallel with a slight decrease in pressure, which breaks in your bat to its fullest along the full sweetspot. The parallel bat rolling will break in any spots that were missed by perpendicular bat rolling. This bat rolling process allows for a consistent break in along the entire barrel of your bat, which equates to more pop, distance, and no dead spots. Also, to get an even more consistent break in, we bat roll with gradual increments of pressure until we achieve maximum break in.

The ASA changed their bat certification policy. When the ASA certifies a bat as passing its 98-mph batted ball speed criteria, that bat is expected to pass the standard for the life of the bat, even after being broken-in, bat rolling or normal use. As of October, 2007 all composite bats are now being artificially broken-in using a bat rolling technique before they are shipped to the Sports Science Laboratory at Washington State University to be performance tested for certification. This will lower the batted ball speed standards of ASA bats when they are manufactured. What does that mean to you? Your bat will not perform to 98 mph batted ball speed until the bat is either hit 500 times or bat rolling is performed (that is where we can help with the immediate break in process).

Bats will break in with normal use and hit farther over time. Here at BigDawg Bat Rolling we offer the service to cut that break in time to zero and give a consistent break in across the entire barrel of your bat.

Bat Rolling becoming a Necessity with new MPH Rules

Again, anyone who has played with an all-composite bat realizes that composite bats are often not as hot "out of the wrapper" as they are after about 500 to 700 hundred hits have been put on to the bat. This is the main reason that "artificial break-in" techniques are applied to a bat, players want to cut down the time required to get their new bat to its top hitting performance. The amount of improvement in performance varies from bat to bat, but all composite bats tend to improve the more they are hit. This is true despite marketing claims that a particular composite bat is "hot right out of the wrapper". This fact creates a problem for softball associations who are trying to reduce the on going problem of illegally altered bats because it can sometimes be hard to determine whether the increase in performance is due to the bat having been doctored or just due to its natural break-in process. Some of the associations are placing considerable pressure on manufacturers to manufacture bats that do not increase in performance over time. This is almost an impossibility when it comes to composite type bats. And while some of the processes being made for detecting bats which perform higher than the set mph performance standard may not be able to differentiate between an altered bat and a naturally broken-in bat, the associations' belief is that if a bat bears a certification stamp then it must perform at or below the performance limit represented by that stamp throughout the bat's entire life. The ASA did allow a plus or minus variance on the bats but that went away with the 2004 ASA standards and so did those bats (Freak, Synergy 2 etc.,). But now it doesn't matter how the bat increased in mph performance; any increase in mph performance after the manufacturing of the bat it is not allowed.

An example of how serious associations are taking this issue, the ASA recently changed their bat certification policy. When the ASA certifies a bat as passing its 98-mph Batted-Ball Speed standard, that bat is expected to pass the standard for the life of the bat, even after being broken-in. As of October, 2007 all composite bats are now being artificially broken-in using a bat rolling method before they are sent to the Sports Science Laboratory at Washington State University to be mph performance tested for certification. I'm not exactly sure what it means for the future of ASA softball, or for the future of composite bats, but at the end of January, 2008, only one composite bat (including all 2007-2008 composite bat models that had previously been certified "out of the wrapper") has passed the 98-mph ASA certification test after being broken in by bat rolling. The ASA is rumored to be changing its “out of the wrapper” batted ball speed to 93mph, this is shaking up the bat industry and some are debating whether to make ASA bats at all. I would expect to see some changes in the design of composite bats in 2010 in accordance with the ASA policy change. All bats will probably be made at the 93 mph limit to start because after bat rolling the bat will be right around 98mph.