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August 25, 2020 | by Brian Duryea | @BatDigest
We used HitTrax to compare the 2020 DeMarini The Goods vs 2020 DeMarini Voodoo
Comparing the 2020 The Goods and the 2020 Voodoo DeMarini is straight forward. With the exact same barrel, the only differences between these two bats are the stiffness in the connection and their swing weight. Performance should be, assuming every X14 barrel is exactly the same, exactly the same. The bats feel a bit different—the Voodoo feels less stiff on impact and swings a bit lighter. Those looking to decide between the two should consider only if they like a light or more end-loaded bat and if they care too much about connection stiffness.
After 30 hits with each bat, alternating every five to ten hits, the player’s average exit velocity for each bat was almost identical. A 0.4 mph difference on 30 hits is all but nothing. Considering HitTrax’s margin of error is plus or minus one mile per hour, there is no discernable difference between The Goods and the Voodoo Balanced.
The player we used for this comparison is a 17-year-old player, 5-foot 9-inches that weighs 142. Not a chubby kid by any means, but only muscle. With a mid to high 80mph exit velo, they have legit power for a high school player.
NOTE: We’ve measured thousands of bats over the years. We’ve found, in large measure, bat results are very hitter dependent. Most comparisons we do are very, very close. The 1 or 2 mile per hour difference is hard to attribute only to the barrels performance. We think the hitter determines upwards of 70% of the exit speeds. The other 30% is the bat.
After 30 hits, the maximum exit velocity attained by this player was 87.3 and 88.0 for The Goods and Voodoo Balanced respectively. Again, like average exit velo on 30 hits, the bats were all but identical. Not surprising, considering their barrels (X14) are the same. Same barrels, same bat performance.
HitTrax keeps several stats. One fun one to consider is batting average. We are not sure how useful it is in terms of bat performance, but some might consider it the most useful. For us, we like to look at average exit velocities. But, to each his own and BA is as good a stat as any to base your bat buying decision upon.
The Goods and the Voodoo were once again close in this regard. On 30 hits, HitTrax gave the Voodoo 15 base hits while The Goods got 14.
Directly after hitting, we asked the player to rate the bats out of 100 in terms of overall impressions. They gave The Goods a 96/100 and the Voodoo Balanced a 95/100. Both, they said, were fantastic and highly recommendable. The 1 point advantage to The Goods was because they thought the bat looked better.