If you ask any employee at Better Baseball, what has been the most talked about BBCOR drop 3 over the last few months? Without a doubt, they will all tell you it is the 2021 Meta Prime drop 3 from Louisville Slugger.
No other BBCOR has garnered the attention of so many high school and college level players quite like this bat. When the Meta Prime first arrived on the scene in 2018, players and coaches were hesitant at first considering the high price point, but like most purchases in life, you get what you pay for.
Will the Meta Prime 2021 drop 3 live up to the hype? We put the Meta Prime to the test in one of our Hittrax Demo labs and the results are in!
We had 10 players from all ends of the spectrum try the 2021 Meta drop 3, from high school freshman to division 1 college seniors. Power hitters, contact hitters, and everything in between were chosen for this product study. Each player had the opportunity to swing 10 different bats that will be released for the upcoming 2021 season across several popular brands. After they swung all 10 of these BBCOR bats we asked them to rank them 1-10. We also documented and recorded multiple variables like launch angle and exit velocity on our Hittrax simulator to determine which bat performed the best across the gambit of players who had the chance to participate in this study. Let’s take a look at some of the feedback from the players for the Meta Prime 2021.
One thing that jumped out at us in the player rankings was the fact that both power and contact hitters ranked the 2021 Meta drop 3 high on their list. It’s no surprise that a bat with a huge sweet spot that also doesn’t feel end-loaded would be a favorite among gap and singles hitters. The EKO composite barrel on the Meta was designed to generate power and performance without sacrificing swing weight or M.O.I. and the player feedback supports this claim. When it comes to BBCOR bats, the feel and feedback from a batted ball are essential and these factors are what differentiates good bats from great ones. The stiff 3FX connection system on the 2021 Meta drop 3, gave these hitters great feedback when squaring the ball up on the sweet spot, and dampened vibration significantly when they hit the ball on the end or towards the handle. It’s also worth mentioning that the Meta drop 3 was the highest ranking composite bat across the board among the 10 players surveyed.
Now that we have heard from the players, let’s take a look at the analytics. We took all of the bats tested and averaged each players exit velocity and ranked these BBCORs accordingly with the help of our state of the art Hittrax Batting Simulator. The Meta consistently ranked #1 or #2 for all players tested in swing velocity, and was the best composite barrel tested in the bunch. The highest exit velocity recorded during the demo session was also from the Meta Prime BBCOR 2021 at a whopping 103.4 mph.
We understand this is a small sample size, however we do expect the 2021 Meta to be one of the best BBCOR bats for the 2021 season. Both power and contact hitters should consider this as a viable option when picking out a new BBCOR bat for their season.
