What is with all of the broken bats lately?

many players are using the new maple bats because maple is a harder wood than the ash from the traditional bats, supposedly giving batters an advantage. maple bats tend to explode into dangerous splinters rather than just crack like ash.

Because more and more people are using maple bats which is a weaker wood than ash is. Ash will crack most of the time and maple bats tend to shatter.

When the bat hits the ball using the weak part of the bat, either close to the hands or close to the other end of the bat, it causes a lot of stress on the bat and causes it to break.

I agree. It's because they are all using maple bats, or most of the players anyway. The players like them because they are lighter, but they shatter so easily. They used to use ash bats, but those are less common nowadays.

According to this professional hitting instructor's blog, it's that the already thin handles are shaved down even more...mostly to get pine tar and rosin off. It's the fastest way to get the caked material off, and get a smooth handle. They do this knowing that it will cause the handle to eventually break. MLB knows about this practice, but may pass new guidelines for this problem and new maple bat standards as well in the future.

Maple bats. Maple is harder, but more brittle than ash. It imparts more energy to the ball at impact, but will break more often than ash. The extra money spent on bats is supposed to come back several times over at contract time, thanks to the "higher" production the maple bats produce...

its because the bats are made of maple. a few years ago, MLB changed to it from ash for some strange reason.

because of all of the maple bats that the mlb just instituted they have figured out are instable and break easily which induces danger to pitchers, infielders, fans, etc.

Made in Mexico LOL