Baseball and softball governing bodies have imposed various bat performance limits over the years with the goal of regulating batted ball speeds. Each association generally independently develops various standards and methods to achieve a desired level of play. Bat designers typically comply with these performance standards by adjusting the performance, or bat-ball coefficient of restitution (“BBCOR”), of their bat barrels. Typical methods of controlling BBCOR include thickening the barrel wall of a hollow metal bat, or increasing the radial stiffness of a composite bat via the selection of specific materials and fiber angles. A composite bat's radial stiffness and fiber orientations are limited, however, by a given material thickness. The barrel walls in composite bats, therefore, are also often thickened to provide additional stiffness, which in turn limits BBCOR and barrel performance.
Thickening a barrel wall generally increases the bat's weight and, more importantly, it's “swing weight” or moment of inertia (“MOI”). MOI is the product of: (a) a mass, and (b) the square of the distance between the center of the mass and the point from which the mass is pivoted. Mathematically, this is expressed as follows:MOI=ΣMass×(Distance)2 
Accordingly, the MOI dictates that it becomes increasingly difficult to swing a bat as the bat's mass increases or as the center of the bat's mass moves farther from the pivot point of the swing (i.e., farther from the batter's hands). Because thickening the barrel wall increases the bat's weight at a region relatively distal from the batter's hands, doing so also increases the bat's MOI. Thus, while thickening a barrel wall effectively stiffens the barrel and reduces its performance, the consequent increase in MOI is generally undesirable for batters.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds