Ready to bring the lumber? Check out Easton’s new 2013 Power Brigade

Building the perfect baseball bat is a complicated science. It’s about more than just responsive barrel walls, stiff handles and speed caps.

It’s about producing the tools that emphasize players’ strengths.

The bat doesn’t make the player, but a good bat can make a good player better. If a power hitter finds a bat with the right balance, he’ll get more pop behind his hits and improve his velocity and distance. Same with a contact hitter — find the right bat to get your stick around the ball, and you’ll have better contact, better power and better hit placement.

That’s why Easton’s 2013 Power Brigade is among the best in the game. Their engineers perfected the art of tailoring bats to hitting styles, allowing players to personalize their power.

The 2013 Power Brigade works like this

Speed Series bats are designed for batters that hit for contact.

The center of mass in the bat is balanced closer to the handle, giving each baseball bat in the series an ultra-light swing weight. That allows hitters to get the most speed possible behind their bats, translating into more power.

The XL Series is built for hitters that can already get plenty of speed behind the ball and could benefit by having a larger barrel.

The barrels in the XL Series are expanded, giving hitters a larger sweet spot and more mass behind the ball. That translates into more power and better contact with every swing.

The details

Once you know which series is best for you, it’s time to choose the bat with the right construction. There’s two-piece composites, hybrids and one-piece alloy bats. If you’re not sure which to choose, we produced an easy guide looking at the pros and cons of each construction.

Each bat is also designed with Easton’s Performance Diamond Grip.

Get one at Baseball Express.

Related: Shop our entire selection of Easton baseball gear.

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Breaking down the specs on the new Louisville Slugger 2013 Exogrid3 BBCOR Baseball Bat

Louisville Slugger has been innovating for years with its Exogrid baseball bat.

Way back in the day, the Exogrid changed the game with its ultra-stiff composite handle. It has evolved over the years, from balance tweaks to extra air bladders.

It has all led up to the 2013 Exogrid3, the Exo for the BBCOR era.

This baseball bat features the same one-piece hybrid construction, including LS2X carbon inserts in the handle and AC21 Scandium in the barrel. The Exogrid3 takes it to the next level with Flex Band Technology.

The switch to BBCOR forced many manufacturers to thicken the metal in their barrels to bring their bats in line with BBCOR.

Instead, the folks at Slugger placed a band of lightweight graphite in the barrel. That allowed them to balance most of the bat’s weight in its handle, giving you one of the lightest swing weights on the market.

The Exogrid3 retails for $299.99. Get it at Baseball Express.

Related: Shop Exogrid models from 2012.

Rip-It puts its money where its mouth is with the new 2013 Prototype BBCOR Baseball Bat

The Rip-It BBCOR Prototype Air (left) and BBCOR Prototype (right).

Buying a new baseball bat can be a pretty tricky prospect these days. For the investment you’re making, you deserve to know you’ll get a good return in performance.

That’s why Rip-It offers its “Love It or Return It” policy on its new 2013 Prototype and Prototype AIR BBCOR Baseball Bats.

How does it work?

If you get your bat and it doesn’t live up to your expectations, you can send it back to Rip-It for a refund. You shouldn’t have to put up with hamburger if you paid for filet mignon.

But as cool as Rip-It’s policy is, you likely won’t need to use it, because these bats were built to perform.

The 2013 Prototype BBCOR is a one-piece aluminum bat, featuring a finely tuned “acoustic barrel.” The design has allowed Rip-It’s engineers to stretch out the barrel and the sweet spot.

Get it for $199.99.

The 2013 Prototype BBCOR AIR has all of the above, designed specifically for power hitters. The Air Technology in the barrel makes for a more forgiving sweet spot, allowing hitters to turn mis-hits into singles and doubles.

Get it for $279.99 at Baseball Express.

Related: Shop our entire selection of BBCOR Baseball Bats.

Gear up for the season with Louisville’s 2013 Omaha BBCOR Baseball Bat

If you have played baseball at all over the last decade or so, you’re probably familiar with Louisville Slugger’s Omaha baseball bat.

It’s the one with the all-alloy construction, fine-tuned for superb performance at a great price.

All that is included in the 2013 edition of the Omaha, with a few new tweaks. The 2013 Omaha is balanced with the center of mass in the handle, giving you one of the lightest swing weights on the market.

That’ll help you get more speed on your swing and more power behind the ball.

Add to that the new Omaha flex band, which works to minimize vibrations and send all of that energy transfer into the ball — and not your hands.

Get one for $199.99 at Baseball Express.

Related: Shop our entire selection of BBCOR baseball bats.