making the jump to -3

[dolphindan1]

So my son just started 13U travel ball. He is in 7th grade and will eligible to tryout for MS team this spring. I wanna go ahead and make the jump. He has been using a -10 and swinging wood in BP...He is about 5' 4" and 105 pounds...good line drive hitter....He has decent strength not overly strong

So I am looking for a light feeling -3

I am considering the Rawlings Plasma gold...I think it is or a triton TPX....

any advice

[BoltsBaseball]

I would start him swinging a -5 for a few months first...

Nice cheap bat to start:

http://www.beapro.com/product.view.aspx?p=8483

-Good luck.

[tigerdan]

That is a great bat with tons of pop for alloy ... that's also a great price.

[Big Hitter]

My sons the same age I bought him Rawlings Rush Lite -5 its a composite bat. It has pretty good pop paint chips a little but hes only gonna use it for a year big deal.


Go with the -5 first.

[dolphindan1]

Thanks Bolts for the link ans answering me on both forums...;)

[dolphindan1]

So I bought the bat that Bolts suggested...My son loves it by the way...He struggled the first practice with it but the last 2 he really crushed the ball...He will not even put it in his bat bag...he has to carry it around...LOL...He has a tourney this wekend and I told him since he only got 3 days in with the bat that he should use his -10 prodigy till he gets more comfortable with it...He says no...I told him he can use it for slow pitching and if we are winning or losing big

anyway...

Does this bat have to be broken in?

also what bat should I start looking for in a -3...Thinking long term...School ball in the Spring and travel ball?

[BoltsBaseball]

I've never heard of an Alloy bat having to be "broken-in"...

I'd get him the same length bat the -5 is when the time comes for the -3... But, you may want to increase the -5 length first though... Probably get him something used from ebay or Play It Again Sports to start, because he'll probably be moving to a longer length very shortly...

The other thing we do NOW is have him swing a -3 Maple wood bat as much as possible when at the cages in BP... There's such a great variety available nowadays in shorter lengths do some internet searches, and get some customs and or great deals.

-Good luck.