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By Bat Digest
Updated October 1, 2023
Aside from durability, the Easton Ghost Advanced is the best fastpitch bat on the planet. A quick peek at the Little League World Series of softball proves that point quickly enough. In either 2022, 2021, or 2020, this bat is at the plate as many as all other bats combined. The bat is hot out of the wrapper and, weirdly, a little too hot out of the wrapper as its notoriety for cracking in a short time is legendary. It's a great bat if you are comfortable with the idea that it will break, but for those first 500 swings or so, the bat is an absolute monster and lets the littlest kid out there take a few balls to the woodshed.
We like the drop 11 and 10 for the smaller, younger fastpitch player who takes competitive play seriously. The bat is hot out of the wrapper, and we'd suggest you only use it for the game and find another similarly weighted bat for practice. If you are a bigger hitter then consider the drop 8 or 9. Even though it might be more difficult to swing, you'll get more life out of the bat because more density on your bat will keep it from cracking as fast. In either case, the bat is hot from day one and has a real chance of cracking in the first several hundred hits.
There are no worthwhile changes in the 2022 version of the Advanced compared to the 2020 or 2021 Gold versions. This bat dominates the market, and we don't expect any changes anytime soon---although fixing the durability issue would be nice since that directly contradicts how hot it is, we have a hard time wishing it were so.
The 2023 Easton Ghost Advanced in fastpitch is a two-piece composite bat built with a double-barreled design. This double barrel design allows the outer barrel to perform well at low impact speeds while the inner barrel keeps it passing the test. This trade-off between barrels is the real key to the success of the bat, and the fact it is patented means it's tough for other companies to reproduce. The Advanced also uses the rubber Power Boost knob which we like as well as a big barrel and, depending on the drop, a balanced swing.