How to Care for your Wood Bat

Because we take so much care when we make your Rock Maple or Yellow Birch wood bat, we want to show you how to care for your bat and make it last:

Never ever throw your wooden bat. MaxBats were not meant to be thrown, nor is any other piece of equipment except the baseball.
Thin handled wood bats are not always your best option. The thinner the handle, the less mass it has. The majority of our wood bats feature a handle diameter of 15/16″ for feel, and strength, and it’s what most professionals want. For most players a medium handle wood bat is the way to go!
Practice with soft toss and tee work when you first use your new wood bat. This will help train your eye to ensure proper contact with the ball when facing live pitching.
Always position the bat in your hands so the MaxBat logo is facing you (up), or that the logo is on the opposite side facing away from you (down). We take great care to place our MaxBat logo on top of the wood grain to ensure that when a pitched ball is struck, you will make contact with the wood bats strongest surface. The positioning of the label will help you find the “sweet spot” on your bat. Hitting the baseball squarely on the sweet spot will help you reach the fences and beyond!
Don’t leave your wooden bat in the trunk on a hot day. Your car can become an oven. High heat can bake the moisture out of your bat causing it to become brittle. Long periods of exposure to heat is not good for any bat. This is why you want to avoid purchasing a bat from a sporting goods store window. Bats are like people, we want to be comfortable, not hot or cold.
Don’t hesitate to send us an e-mail at info@maxbats.com with any of your questions. We love hearing from you.

The better you can take care of your wood bats, the longer they will last.

MaxBat Wood Bats Protected in a bat case

Categories: Baseball Bats, Baseball Training, Birch Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats

Tags: baseball bat, Birch Bats, custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, maple wood bats, wood baseball bat, wood bat company, wood bat manufacturer, wooden bat

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Engineered Innovation

At MaxBat we produce each and every wood bat in-house at our state of the art facility in Central Minnesota. We take great price in all steps of our manufacturing process. Below we’ll highlight some of the things that make our wood bat so popular.

*Power Game

The barrel is the business end of the wood bat. When building your custom model, you can choose from 3 different barrel sizes. Ranging from medium barrels (utilizes harder / strong wood which leads to a more balanced bat), to XL barrels (lower density piece of wood to achieve your desired target weight). The barrel size is completely up to you, but know that you get the highest quality piece of wood when choosing a bat model with a medium barrel.

All MaxBat wood bat barrels are bone hardened. We use a patented bone hardening process as one of our finishing touches! Our custom engineered barrel compression machine increases and maximizes the hardness of the wood. Harder wood = greater results.

*Get a Grip

The MaxBat handles vary in diameter, from thin, medium, or thick bat handles. Thin bat handles will shift weight to the barrel end and also help the player generate a bit more “whip”. The most common handle diameter is a medium handle with a diameter of 15/16 of an inch. The thick handles, 1 inch or more, give the bat more of an “old school” as this was the norm back in the day.

The style of the knob varies slightly; this will impact the bat’s balance. It will also change how the wood bat feels in the players bottom hand. We also offer non traditional knobs that each have there own advantages. The flared design of the X-Knob helps protect the hamate bone from bruising, and greatly increases the bat’s balance. Because of the shape, and where it comes in contact with your lower hand, the X-Knob can ultimately increase overall bat speed too. Pair any wood bat model with ProXR grip technology to deliver an exclusive level of hitting performance! True innovation creates a knob that works with a batter’s hands to create a smoother swing, resulting in increased bat speed and exit velocity. This unique design causes less pressure in the batter’s wrist and hand, thus being a benefit to the health and comfort of the player. This knob ads the elusive edge every hitter looks for in their bat. U.S. MaxBat ProXR is the definition of Engineered Innovation! Pat. 7,744,497

*Precision Crafted

We use years of experience and expertise to pinpoint the desired weight for your custom wood bat. When choosing your weight, we recommend a -2 weight drop with a cupped barrel end. We can certainly make your wood bat a -2.5 or -3 but keep in mind the lighter the weight the less dense the piece of wood. A -2 weight will give your wood bat a bit more pop and durability, but a -3 weight will give your bat a bit more balance and quicker swing speed.

MaxBat offers more length options that anyone in the wood bat market. All adult bats are made in 1/4 inch length increments starting at 32″ and going up to 35.5″. Several of our medium barrel adult bats are made as short as 30″.

MLB mandates all Maple and Birch bats, destined for a pro player, need to pass an ink-spot test. We put this ink-test on all of our wood bats regardless of level of play. When the ink-test in placed on the bat handle it bleeds into the non-visible tangential grains. The straighter the grain, the stronger the wood! Every bat MaxBat produces features our Engineered Innovation.

Engineered Innovation in MaxBat Manufacturing

MaxBat Manufacturing at it’s finest.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, ProXR, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood bat manufacturer

Tags: baseball bat, Birch Bats, Maple Bats, wood bat, wood bat barrel, wood bat company, Wood Bats

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MaxBat ProXR vs. other Non Traditional Knobs

MaxBat ProXR vs. axe Style Handles.

Why is the ProXR angled knob the best in baseball, let us explain. The swing of an actual axe (chopping wood), which the competitors’ product is based on, has a linear swing path. Meaning it drives the hands to the point of contact. This is probably the most important point…the swing of an axe always ends at contact. This is critical. The oval shape and general configuration of an axe handle evolved over thousands of years specifically to drive the axe head to the point of contact. This also applies to swords, hammers and other linear-path swing implements. The oval shape locks the hands into alignment with the swing path. This PREVENTS the hands from deviating from that swing path.

Round Knob is Key

In sharp contrast, the MaxBat ProXR knob is round and you know a baseball swing is rotational. Meaning the bat must rotate around the batters’ body and the hands MUST roll over the central axis of the bat to compete the swing. This gives hitters the ability to both, make adjustments during the swing and complete the rotational swing path. Putting an oval axe handle on a baseball bat is in direct conflict with the requirements of a rotational baseball swing. Imagine trying to adjust your swing on a breaking ball or change-up when the shape of the handle is resisting those adjustments.

ProXR was designed from the ground-up specifically for a rotational baseball bat swing. It reduces compression in the hands and gives batters improved performance. Additionally, we tested our designs before we went to market and continue to do ongoing research and testing. As a side note, ProXR is the only angled knob technology that uses a round knob shape to help create a smoother swing.

In terms of game performance, ProXR performs very well. Every professional player who swung ProXR in 2018-19 had career hardest hits as measured by StatCast. We have not yet assessed the 2020 data.

You can add the ProXR knob to any custom MaxBat wood bat. Check it out under the “knob” section of the custom bat builder… https://www.maxbats.com/shop/bats/custom/141/5

The ProXR round knob versus axe style handles oval knob.

The round ProXR knob allows the bat to follow the natural swing path of a baseball bat. The oval knob shape fights the natural swing path.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Bat Swing Speed, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, ProXR, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood Bats

Tags: baseball bat, custom baseball bat, maple bat, swing mechanics, swing speed, wood baseball bat

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What are the advantages of a cupped wood bat?

Often times we get asked about cupped vs. not-cupped, and many of those questions come from Major Leaguers. So, we’re here to give you some information as to the reasons why a wood bat is cupped and what are the benefits.

Back in the day, wood bats did not have cupped ends. It wasn’t an option, and nobody had given any thought to the practice. So when did it start?

Well during Spring Training of 2005, HOF catcher Johnny Bench came over to our display at Reds camp in Sarasota, FL. He asked lots of questions about MaxBat, and picked up practically every model that we had with us to show to players. It was then that he said, “You know, I was the first player to swing a cupped bat in the Majors back in the ‘70s”. It was a very interesting comment, as you can imagine. Here stands a Hall Of Famer, and we’re going to hear how cupping wood bats started.

Johnny described how he wanted his wood bat to feel a little more balanced, and after some thinking, he came up with the idea to hollow out the very end of the barrel to remove a little bit of the bat’s end weight.

So there you have it……Johnny Bench. The cupped wood bat innovator.

Nowadays, players can get a cupped wood bat no matter who they are. However, many of them still do not know the advantages a cupped bat gives them as a hitter.

The first advantage is that (like Johnny Bench said) a cupped bat will make the bat a tad more balanced. This can be a great benefit if you’re facing a pitcher who is throwing gas, and you’re in the dog-days of Summer and you just don’t feel you’ve got the swing speed to catch up to the pitch. Most players understand this, and it’s for that reason that most players will request a cupped end.

However the most beneficial reason to order your wood bat cupped, is that as a wood bat company and wood bat manufacturer, we can use a higher density piece of wood to make your bat if we know ahead of time that we are going to cup the end during one of the final stages of production.

Follow me here…..the #1 thing a ballplayer wants from a wood bat is to get the hardest piece of wood they can. Harder wood equals stronger wood. Stronger wood equals more pop and more durability. When we cup a bat, we know that we can remove up to 7/10ths of an ounce off the overall weight of a bat. So if we know that we are going to remove that weight at the end of the process, one of our production members can first select a wood bat billet that is on the heavy side (heavier wood equals higher density wood). If we’re attempting to make the same exact wood bat model, but without a cup, our production team has to use a wood bat billet that is a shade lighter in weight (light wood equals lower density wood) due to the fact that we are not removing any weight by cupping. Make sense?

Some players think that the act of cupping a wood bat somehow makes it weaker….or that the bat will break easier if it’s cupped. Well, a cupped wood bat is made from higher density wood, so it should be stronger and more durable, thus making it last longer.

One concern that players do have in regards to cupped ends is the chance of hitting a baseball off the very end of the bat and the wood chipping away. MaxBat solved this problem years ago when we were first getting the business off the ground. If you’ll notice, our cup design features a thicker “wall” on the end, which gives it more strength to withstand those dreaded end-shots you might encounter when chasing an off-speed pitch.

So in summary, a cupped end adds balance to your wood bat AND allows us to use a higher density (stronger/harder) wood bat billet to create your custom baseball bat.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood bat company, Wood bat manufacturer, Wood Bats

Tags: cupped bat, custom baseball bat, wood bat

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Why you should train with a batting tee, especially with wood bats.

If you are training with a wood bat, the batting tee is perhaps the single best training aid a baseball player can use, and here are few reasons why:

1. Repetition is a key to greatness in baseball
The best hitters repeat a good baseball swing thousands of times until the correct fundamentals happen without thinking about them. Using a batting tee is one of the best ways to achieve this career-long process. This is why so many Major League baseball players still use the batting tee before games and during off-season – it’s not just for young players. The batting tee is a tool players should use from the youth leagues to the Major Leagues.

2. It cuts down on obstacles and distractions
This is the most important reason to use a tee. Using a batting tee allows you to isolate the aspect of your swing that you want to work on. A tee allows you to swing at 20% or 100%. You are in total control of your swing, which is important for working on weaknesses that make hitting off a live pitcher difficult. You can work on hitting a pitch in a specific location. You can also take a large number of swings in a relatively short amount of time.

It’s also going to help you find the sweet spot of your wood bat, especially if it’s a brand new custom model that you’ve just received. Swinging a brand new wood bat is going to feel different with each previous wood bat that you’ve used. They’re all going to be balanced slightly different, and the weight will vary. Tee work is essential to get used to that brand new wood bat, before taking soft toss or facing pitches from a coach or machine.

3. It allows you to practice on your own time, without a partner or coach
Being a team game, baseball can be difficult to practice without other people around. Of course, it’s great for a coach to watch and critique as you hit off the tee, or to have someone reload the tee for you as you swing, but then you can also go to a cage and practice on your own. It’s a beautiful thing. Since baseball is a game of repetition, using a batting tee will help you achieve your perfect swing through hard work and quality repetition. It also enables you to groove your swing without needing someone throwing you batting practice.

4. A batting tee is portable
Most batting tees will fit in your equipment bag or the trunk of your car. Since it’s easy to bring with you to the baseball field, batting cage, or backyard net, you will have more opportunities to practice and perfect your game.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Baseball Training, Custom baseball bat, Wood Bat, Wood Bats

Tags: Baseball Training, practice, wood bat

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How to Care for your Wood Bat