Once baseball players join the professional ranks, their days of playing games with metal bats are effectively over. It’s all wood bats, and there’s a very good reason for that:
It’s legitimately dangerous for MLB players to use a metal bat. Just look at what happens when Toronto Blue Jays slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got to use one in a home run derby.
When a HR Derby champ gets a metal bat … pic.twitter.com/zQDLgs7QuH
— MLB (@MLB) December 11, 2023
MLB’s Twitter/X account shared a video from the weekend’s charity home run derby in Puerto Rico where Guerrero put on an absolute show with a metal bat. If you think he hits baseballs hard with a wood bat, that video put into perspective just how big a difference a metal bat makes.
Any person within 600 feet of that stadium was in danger. We won’t see MLB take a similar approach with its home run derby unless the league wants to clear out the stands and kids in the outfield.
But still, that video was incredible and MLB fans’ jaws collectively dropped watching it. Those were some serious moonshots.