“Bat Lab” targets the science of the ballpark

A ball hurtles toward home plate and the batter swings. Contact.

These are rituals of the ballpark. But to Professor Lloyd Smith and the researchers at Washington State University’s Sports Science Laboratory, that crack of a bat against a ball is the sound of science.

Where others watch for curveballs, Smith and his fellow researchers are more interested in a ball’s coefficient of restitution. They measure a bat’s mass moment of inertia and balance point. They look for the smallest changes in a ball’s seam height to gauge the effect on drag.

Smith is such a recognized authority in the science of bats and balls that Major League Baseball enlisted his help to discover why there had been more home runs than usual, a trend that raised dark rumors of “juiced” balls. 

Smith is no baseball superfan. “It was really all coincidence,” he says.

With a doctorate in mechanical engineering, experience at WSU’s renowned Composite Materials & Engineering Center, and an interest in experimental design, he came up with a way to test baseball bats. Pretty soon the federations that regulate softball and baseball were interested. Then the equipment manufacturers wanted to work with him.

Now faculty, researchers, staff, and students in WSU’s Sports Science Laboratory test bats for the NCAA, and for USA Baseball and USA Softball. They certify bats for sports equipment manufacturers. Major League Baseball contracts with the lab to test for ball drag. And lab personnel visit every major league ballpark annually to evaluate the accuracy of the systems that show the strike zone over home plate.

All of these tests are unique to the lab and use methods like ball cannons, speed sensors, cameras, and computer modeling. “We have non-contact lasers to measure the seam height profile of a baseball with over a million data points,” Smith says.