Called it!

In an effort to fully document every time that I have been correct in some argument, I present this story as evidence. A few years ago, during the Sammy Sosa corked bat fiasco, I engaged in a lengthy and surprising angry discussion with a lets-keep-him-nameless friend about the actual merits of a corked bat (which is to say there are very few). I then proceeded to suggest that Bonds' (and others') armor actually are more of a cheat than a corked bat, citing both the "skater"/inside pitch argument and the plane of the elbow/pop-fly argument that this guy does. Granted, this is more in depth and a little bit more scientufuc than my arguments, but pretty neat all the same. Regardless, thank you Mr. Pierce for my high-school physics class senior year that spent an entire month on the physics of baseball.

Just a quick rehash of the corked bat thing: the decrease in weight (and thus the ability to transfer kinetic energy from bat to ball) almost perfectly negates the added angular moment gained by a faster swing. To whit, the increased bat speed does not improve the power because the bat is less dense and lighter. So a corked bat doesn't really help the hitter's power numbers. However, since it swings through the zone faster, it might create better contact numbers for the hitter (assuming he can maintain his natural timing).