Before a bat ever reaches the cage, the field, or a big league clubhouse…it starts as a billet.
Simple word. A lot behind it.
A billet is the raw piece of wood that eventually becomes a baseball bat. For professional use, billets are often cut oversized before they ever touch a lathe. At Anchor, the billets we primarily source from our mills typically arrive around 37” in length and 2.75” in diameter. It is the foundation of everything. Balance. Density. Durability. Feel. Performance. All of it starts there.
Most people see a finished bat. What they don’t see is the process, the science, and the standards behind the wood itself.
Woods currently approved for MLB use include sugar maple, yellow birch, white ash, red oak, tamo, aodamo, true hickory, and European beech. While several species are approved, maple has become the standard throughout professional baseball and generally accounts for roughly 80-88% of MLB bats depending on the year.
At Anchor, we primarily use maple.
There are several reasons for that, but consistency is one of the biggest. Maple offers density, durability, and a feel that many hitters at the highest levels prefer. Not every maple billet is equal, though. Far from it.
Every billet has its own personality.
The straightness of grain matters. Density matters. Moisture content matters. Relative humidity matters. Even where the wood is harvested matters. Most professional-grade maple billets originate from the northeastern United States and Canada where colder climates help produce dense, slow-growth hardwoods that are ideal for baseball bats.
Once harvested, the wood begins a long drying process. Professional billets are typically dried down to around 6-8% moisture content before production. That number is critical. Too much moisture and the bat can feel dead or become too heavy. Too little and durability can become an issue. Relative humidity during storage and production also plays a major role in maintaining consistency throughout the process.
Then comes density.
Billets generally arrive to us anywhere between roughly 80oz and 94oz before turning. For professional use, we can use billets that are 88oz or denser depending on the model, profile, and desired finished weight. That’s where things become extremely technical very quickly.
Two billets can look nearly identical and perform completely differently once turned into a bat.
Professional players can use as few as a dozen bats over the course of a season, although that is fairly rare. Others may go through three to four dozen depending on preference, usage, weather, mishits, and simple wear over time. With that said, don’t anticipate one bat lasting an entire season. Wood bats are performance tools. They are built to compete at the highest levels of the game, but no wood bat is indestructible.
That is why there is so much science surrounding professional models, barrel sizes, handle dimensions, cupping, balance points, and the allowable finished weights used throughout professional baseball. Small changes in density or geometry can dramatically impact how a bat swings and performs. It is one of the reasons why big league players can become so specific about what they use.
And before anyone asks…yes, there are rules surrounding all of it.
MLB regulations govern approved wood species, grain quality, slope of grain, ink dot testing, and overall bat construction standards. There are only a limited number of mills capable of consistently producing professional-quality billets at scale, and an even smaller number capable of consistently doing it at the level required for MLB use.
That process matters to us.
Because long before we engrave into the barrel, before pine tar, batting gloves, or home runs…there was simply a billet. A raw piece of hardwood with potential.
And in many ways, that is still our favorite part of the process.
