Tidbit on the Adidas bats...

[maroonmania]

From the Hail State blog we get this:

"Interesting. Cohen was asked about the adidas bats, said that the players used them (and other bats) in some testing and they chose the adidas bats. Players like them."

So it was a player choice to go with the Adidas bats? I had never heard that. Still not convinced they are up to par with Easton or Demarini.

[Todd4State]

Engie can correct me if I'm wrong- but allegedly the Adidas prototypes were a lot more live than the actual product.

[Smitty]

Since he whines about DNF so much why don't we move the fences in when we build the new park. 320-355-380-355-305 and have a couple powerful lefties to AJ Reed that shit

[bulldawg989]

From the Hail State blog we get this:

"Interesting. Cohen was asked about the adidas bats, said that the players used them (and other bats) in some testing and they chose the adidas bats. Players like them."

So it was a player choice to go with the Adidas bats? I had never heard that. Still not convinced they are up to par with Easton or Demarini.

i doubt the results would have been much different, it has more to do with player swinging the stick than the stick itself.

[maroonmania]

i doubt the results would have been much different, it has more to do with player swinging the stick than the stick itself.

True overall, but I just don't like seeing us continue to use a product that apparently no other P5 baseball program deems worth using.

[ShotgunDawg]

Engie can correct me if I'm wrong- but allegedly the Adidas prototypes were a lot more live than the actual product.

You can't be serious Todd.

[Ralph]

Either the bats tested were more lively or his comment is total BS. If players are choosing Adidas bats then why aren't more teams using them?

[engie]

You can't be serious Todd.

Why wouldn't he be? It's really common sense. Build prototypes on the ragged edge of BBCOR standards. If they get hotter as they get older, as many of the BBCOR-era bats are doing, so what? Just a couple hundred in existence that can be easily and quietly replaced after failing the tests. When you go past prototyping into production -- and there are thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of them out there -- failed BBCOR tests would be a big deal that could easily bankrupt an individual arm of a company. Adidas cut the nuts off the bats between prototype and production stage

Yes, we "chose" the Adidas bats on the front end. They were not forced on us. The prototypes were hot enough for us to break a 25 year relationship with Easton. The production units, not so much. Cohen needs to have a retest this year. There was sour grapes in the beginning about us using them around the SEC. Todd and others here can confirm that I actually got this info about the prototype bats from opposition inside the SEC. We talked about it behind the scenes at the time. And that opposing coach even theorized at the time that there was no way those bats in that configuration would make it to the production line because of what I highlighted in the first paragraph.

[ShotgunDawg]

Why wouldn't he be? It's really common sense. Build prototypes on the ragged edge of BBCOR standards. If they get hotter as they get older, as many of the BBCOR-era bats are doing, so what? Just a couple hundred in existence that can be easily and quietly replaced after failing the tests. When you go past prototyping into production -- and there are thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of them out there -- failed BBCOR tests would be a big deal that could easily bankrupt an individual arm of a company. Adidas cut the nuts off the bats between prototype and production stage

Yes, we "chose" the Adidas bats on the front end. They were not forced on us. The prototypes were hot enough for us to break a 25 year relationship with Easton. The production units, not so much. Cohen needs to have a retest this year. There was sour grapes in the beginning about us using them around the SEC. Todd and others here can confirm that I actually got this info about the prototype bats from opposition inside the SEC. We talked about it behind the scenes at the time. And that opposing coach even theorized at the time that there was no way those bats in that configuration would make it to the production line because of what I highlighted in the first paragraph.

So let me get this straight, you think Adidas has attempted to trick MSU?

[Really Clark?]

So let me get this straight, you think Adidas has attempted to trick MSU?

That's not just an Addias thing. Hot prototypes have been around for a long long time. Easton was notorious for this way back in the day of Alum bats. It was just easier to build production models back then closer to prototype specs because of the lack of governing. But I have seen prototypes on the edge of standards before they are even broke in.

[engie]

So let me get this straight, you think Adidas has attempted to trick MSU?

They didn't attempt to "trick" anyone. Prototypes are never the same as production units. Do I think they were forthcoming about the changes they were making between the two? I do not. Do I think we asked the right questions and forced them to answer that question? I don't know either way. They wanted the defending national runner ups who had just shown the greatest in-person fan support Omaha has ever seen to use their product, and they were probably going to do whatever it took at the time to make that happen. I can't fault them for handling it how they did -- nor do I fault us for doing what we did. Wish we had kept using prototypes, but fully understand the black eye on all their bats that would have happened had our bats failed a cert test. Nevermind the stink that would have come about had people seen that our versions were different from what was publicly available(is that even legal in the NCAA?).

That said, we're enough of a power program with a clean enough slate given our offensive struggles to start with a clean slate on equipment and go from there. I'm thinking and hoping that we will do just that. If the bats were very good, more people would be using them by now. Didn't take very long for DeMarini to carve their niche.

[Martianlander]

Sounds like Tom Brady was involved to me.

[17thebears]

Sounds like you bug the shit out of Head for information.

[ScottH]

Also depends what they were tested against.

Is it a ncaa requirement all players on team use same brand or a function of individual bat contract with school?

[messageboardsuperhero]

Why wouldn't he be? It's really common sense. Build prototypes on the ragged edge of BBCOR standards. If they get hotter as they get older, as many of the BBCOR-era bats are doing, so what? Just a couple hundred in existence that can be easily and quietly replaced after failing the tests. When you go past prototyping into production -- and there are thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of them out there -- failed BBCOR tests would be a big deal that could easily bankrupt an individual arm of a company. Adidas cut the nuts off the bats between prototype and production stage

Yes, we "chose" the Adidas bats on the front end. They were not forced on us. The prototypes were hot enough for us to break a 25 year relationship with Easton. The production units, not so much. Cohen needs to have a retest this year. There was sour grapes in the beginning about us using them around the SEC. Todd and others here can confirm that I actually got this info about the prototype bats from opposition inside the SEC. We talked about it behind the scenes at the time. And that opposing coach even theorized at the time that there was no way those bats in that configuration would make it to the production line because of what I highlighted in the first paragraph.

I do remember hearing rumblings at the time about how other coaches weren't happy about us using the new Adidas bats because they were supposed to be hotter than the other bats. At the time, I was almost concerned they'd take the bats away from us and make us use another brand.

Obviously something changed with the bats between the time our players raved about the prototypes and now complain about the finished product.

ETA: I'd like to see us use DeMarini if possible.

[Dawg61]

Sounds like Tom Brady was involved to me.

Lol!! Can we start calling them Adidas Shats instead of Adidas Bats please