I don’t expect it to happen, but i’d like to see Congress tell MLB that it only gets to keep the antitrust exemption if there’s a ticket price cap. otherwise, why does MLB deserve special gov’t treatment?

The reason why – the Cape Cod League is one of the few places where amateur prospects play the game with wood bats. The use of wood bats is one of the reason why the Cape Cod league is such a major stop in evaluating college prospects.

The baseball draft is notorious for being like throwing darts at a board. Prospects that seem like can’t misses miss all the time. Of a draft with over 40 rounds, many teams don’t select any players that become productive major leaguers.

There’s a lot of reasons for this. But one of the things that makes projecting amateur baseball prospects at both the college and high school level is the widespread use of aluminum bats.

Many hitters, often unconsciously, wind up tailoring their swings to take advantage of the extra pop you get with an aluminum bat. Scouts have to guess how hitters will fair when they switch to wood bats in the pros.

Similarly, wood bats have a big impact on how amateur pitchers throw. For instance, at the big league level we often lament as to how few pitchers are willing to throw on the inside part of the plate. Part of the reason why that is is because these kids growing up always face aluminum bats. Aluminum bats help you protect the inside of the plate and allow you to swing later while hitting the ball farther.

This issue of bats is one of the bigger differences between high school/ college ball and pro ball.

It would be like allowing high school/ college basketball players to use a smaller size ball and needing to project how their jump shot would be in the pros with a larger ball.

This problem gets bigger as the players get older. Many hitters in college are physically mature – this makes it easier for them to leverage the extra pop from aluminum and makes it harder for pitchers to pitch aggressively.

A case in point for this is a guy the yankees just drafted. Brad Suttle was a guy the yankees drafted this year – was considered by many to be one of the better pure hitters in college. The yankees’ gave him a $1.4 million dollar bonus. One concern people had with him that led him to drop in the draft was his poor performance in the cape cod league. There could be a lot of reasons why Suttle didn’t do well but some people thought it was because his swing was tailored to an aluminum bat. In Winter ball Suttle was awful – he hit .100. One of the big things suttle has to prove this year is that he can hit with a wood bat.

So why don’t amateur leagues/ colleges use wood bats. It’s just money. Wood bats crack. Aluminum doesn’t, making them cheaper over time.

I’d guess that a good part of that money MLB gives to the cape cod league goes to buying wood bats.

If they stop funding the cape cod league it would be a shame for many reasons. But if the league has to switch to aluminum bats (don’t know if they would) then MLB will lose one of its best opportunities to evaluate college prospects in the setting closes to the way the pro game is played.

These days its the college prospects that tend to go higher in the draft and get the larger signing bonuses.

MLB will be shooting itself in the foot if this happens.

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/200.....-news-212/

I figured I’d hit the Lohud Blog for the full scoop … and not a word?

MK