What's the best Marucci BBCOR Bat? | Cat6/Cat7/Cat8/Cat9/Cat8 Connect/Cat9 Connect/Cat9 Composite (2023)

Introduction

If you’re anything like us, you’ve probably found yourself pondering which of the many Marucci CAT BBCORs is the greatest… and today we’re here to finally settle the age-old debate.

Today we've got every Marucci Cat BBCOR that is still available for purchase: the Marucci Cat6, Marucci Cat7, Marucci Cat8, Marucci Cat8 Connect, Marucci Cat9, Marucci Cat9 Connect, and Marucci Cat9 Composite.

You can find our full BBCOR & USSSA bat rankings along with our Bat Bros merch at baseballbatbros.com/

Here's a link to these bats if you wanna check em out:
www.justbats.com/products/baseball%20bats~bbcor/series~cat,cat%20composite,cat%20connect/vendor~marucci/?rfsn=5886982.2b1f95&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=baseballbatbros

Content

What up what up will here with the baseball bat bros, live from the kansas city, mlb urban youth academy? We have every maruchi cat, bb core bat.

That's ever been made, let's find out, which is best.

Let's get it all right folks, this video is long overdue, but it took us a long time to get every one of these bats.

So here's the complete history of marucci bb core bats.

We have the cat 5 all the way to the latest cat 9 composite uh.

However, guys we are going to keep this review to just the bats that you can still buy, there's actually still quite a few cat 6 cat 7, 8, 9 and 9 composites still available.

However, the cat 5 and the cat 7 connect.

You can no longer find those anymore.

We actually couldn't find 33's of those anyways.

This cat 5's are 34.

This cat 7 connect is a 32, so we're gonna take those out and fun fact.

Back in the day, the 33 and 34 version of the cat 5 actually got banned because they were too hot, but nowadays you can still actually purchase any one of these bats.

New and rapper, so we'll go through our seven bats.

For the day.

First off we have the cat six, I think from like 2013 here uh.

This is the red version we reviewed this before and it was eerily similar to the cat nine.

Then we have a bat.

You still see the silver one quite a bit in college baseball.

We have the marucci cat seven and then moving on the cat.

Eight.

These are all three one piece, alloys very similar barrel profile and everything, and then the cat eight connect our first two piece, hybrid here, the cat9.

That's the most recent release with the one piece, the two-piece, hybrid and then just a few months ago.

Here they released their first composite bat, the marucci cat, nine composite.

We have all alloy barrels here with the cat6 for the cat, 9 connect and then one composite with the cat9 comp here.

One thing I also did to these bats: to try to put them on a level playing field.

I actually took off the grips and replaced every single one with a new white, thin lizard skin right here.

I personally think uh the thick squishy grips on the marucci bats.

Just I'm not a huge fan man I I haven't really fallen in love with those I think they're a bit thicker than your typical metal back grip.

I just put these on because they're a lot more.

What I'm used to we're out here at the kansas city, urban youth academy, we have 330 down the lines 375 to the gaps and 400 to center out there we kind of have a crosswind going to left should be able to sneak a few balls out to left here so similar to some comparison.

Videos we've done in the past, I'm gonna hit with all seven of these.

I'm gonna rank them one through seven.

The best one's gonna get seven points.

The worst one in my opinion is gonna, get one point and then we're gonna get one more opinion from a machine.

We're gonna hop on the hit tracks and then get the exit elos of all seven of these bats, we'll total up the two scores at the end and crown a king of the cat bb core bats.

Let's get it all right folks, so, first things.

First, this video is not sponsored.

I'm gonna be completely honest with you guys.

If these bats are all the same, I'm going to tell you they're all the same.

If one is significantly better than the others, I will tell you that as well, so we're going to try to go with sort of a random order here.

Uh we'll start with the cat nine one piece here: these are all 33 30s.

We have the same baseballs for everything uh.

This is a one-piece alloy 350 bucks, uh pretty expensive for a one-piece alloy.

So we'll keep stuff like that in mind as well.

Gonna be really durable.

If you look at the reviews on this bat, everyone seems to love it, but we have it in our top 20 rankings.

Really it's all about right here.

Incredibly loud, all these bats, except for the composite, are just gonna ring.

My ears here, so I definitely love the thinner, lizard skin grip.

I think it makes this bat a little bit better, all right, a little bit off the hands.

Let's see where we're at all right.

So look like 15 feet in front, so that's about like 350 right there with the cat 9 one piece overall, slight end load, not too heavy, probably about a four on the swing weight scale good for giving sweet spot for a one piece so by default.

That is in first place all right moving on fifty dollars more expensive, but we have the composite handle two-piece, hybrid cat, nine connect, uh first thing: you notice it has a smaller knob and a thinner handle on it.

I think that feels fantastic, oh wow, all right! That was pretty well hit.

Yeah dude, that's carrying good! So, like I am surprised for being a two-piece hybrid versus a one-piece alloy.

They feel almost the same man I like they feel so similar.

Oh man, all right, so the swing weight is like it's a little bit heavier, but I feel like a lot of guys, wouldn't even notice.

It's so minut um the barrel feel the sweet spot is definitely a little better.

That composite handle gives it a little more forgiveness and just because of the handle and the knob being a little thinner makes the bat feel a little whippier, I'm putting this above the cat nine, but like barely like they're, almost the same back, all right.

Moving on to our last cat, nine and definitely the most expensive, we have the 430 dollar two-piece composite the only composite bb core marucci has ever come out with.

We have the cat 9 composite all right, so much much different, sound and uh.

You really notice it's a lower swing weight, so this is definitely easier to swing than those first, two bats still rings you on the hands a little bit, so these composite bats.

You definitely want to break them in for bbcor, I like to get at least like 200 250 swings on my bats.

This one has like close to 400.

I've tried to take a whole bunch of swings.

With this bat, I haven't really like fallen in love with it.

To be honest, it's like the sweet, spot's forgiving, but it's not really big, we'll give it a fresh shot today.

So far I'm liking the feel of both of those cat nines over this.

Oh there we go yeah.

I feel like those are just hotter than this.

If I'm going for a light swinging bat, I I think I would just want a one-piece alley like the victus vandal, the victus vandal is basically just a really low swing weight cat 9.

That ball is touched yeah, I'm just not getting it to jump uh.

The swing weight is nice easy to swing, but I think I definitely prefer the two alloy cat nines over this, so this is going to third place all right.

Now we're going back down to our older bats.

Here folks, we have the cat.

Eight connect, a bat that did really well in two-piece, hybrid, that madness uh.

If you remember that guys, this actually beat the select power.

Three two one connect.

So this is a sleeper in this competition.

A really really good bat got taken down by the goods eventually, but shout out to my boy, mack palmer for getting us this bat to test uh.

It was hard to find this one, but you can still find the white version of this uh.

I believe for like 300 bucks or so so.

This is the cat.

Nine.

You can see kind of the tall knob there and then here is the this.

Is the knob and handle of the cat uh eight connect and the cat 9 connect.

You can see a little bit thinner handle and then a shorter kind of thinner, knob right there dude the sweet spot on this is crazy.

Yeah dude I like this yeah the swing weight's like the same as the cat 9 connect same good whippy feel dude, I'm having a hard time putting this one down all right honestly guys.

This feels like the cat 9 connect with a little more sweet spot.

Even um, I'm gonna have to let the hit tracks decide which is hotter but like they feel pretty similar.

Something about this.

The way this one feels- and I think the flex is just right- there perfect I'm putting the caddy connect into one hole all right.

Now we got the cat eight here folks, so there's a bunch of different color ways of this one there's a couple white ones.

This is kind of the gold mustard looking one there's a black and gold, the black and red and then uh the silver posey, the posey 28 kind of gray barrel.

That's also a caddy uh yeah.

We have that thick knob and kind of thicker handle again here.

Yeah a little bit lighter a little bit lighter than the connects.

Oh baby, just snuck it out all right, first nuke that feels good man yeah all right dude.

I like that.

Just feels so much like the cat.

Nine, though, honestly man did you all right, one hop all right, one more swing with the cat nine.

This feels hotter.

This feels more forgiving, oh they're, so close they're, so close one of the cat 9 connect.

This is going to be impossible.

Yeah.

I still like this a little more.

I think I like to connect a little more than both uh okay, I'm going to put the cat eight in fourth, but like barely barely barely I'm telling you they're razor thin margins right now, all right.

Moving on to the cap, seven here uh, I remember swinging this once and I could hardly tell it apart from the cat eight.

So, let's see oh wall scraping baby, all right uh that felt just like the cat ate yeah.

It is just like the cat, eight they're, all the same man, that's crazy, like even the two piece bats are so similar to these man like I'm nitpicking, but I, the seven and eight are the same.

Okay, you know what I'm gonna.

Do you know what I'm gonna do they're so close like the one pieces are so close, I'm gonna factor in price here this is the cheapest of the seven eight nine.

The eight is the second cheapest.

The nine is the most expensive, so I'm gonna go seven, eight nine.

This is gonna, move up to third right behind the cat.

Nine connect because they're dude, like they're so similar, like I'm nitpicking, to find any difference, and then this is another one.

That's just gonna fall right in line folks, because uh we did a cat, six versus cat, nine video.

Okay.

What feels like this very similar, I thought they'd be a little bit different and we couldn't tell the difference man so uh.

This is also, I think, gonna be really similar to the cat nine.

We were actually getting really really good exit pillows with this bat, though so this could be our sleeper dude.

This one feels very nice hammering that so the wind is kind of coming like right this way, so it's kind of pulling the ball back in this almost feels a tiny, tiny bit lighter than all the other ones, but like as a bat reviewer as a full-time bat reviewer.

I can barely tell so like your average high schooler.

I don't even think you'd be able to tell man dude.

I, like I just swing this one really really well, and it's again almost indistinguishable from the 789 one piece, so I'm gonna stick to our rule.

I think this is the least expensive.

I'm gonna check really quick.

If you can see here, let's see the cat 9 350 cat, six, that red one 170 to 260 depending on the size you get, we have to try that soon, the f5 that might be a sleeper I'll, try that and the vandal again pretty soon here, cat, seven 220 and then a couple more cat, eights like 230 300 here.

So that means the cat six is the cheapest and they're all pretty similar, so that is gonna go in third place right behind the connect bats, all right, we'll do one more with each here, but first pass through guys.

I feel pretty good about this.

I think the the feel on field and the hitting experience, I think the cat 9 composite definitely kind of felt the worst.

It was kind of hardest to find that perfect spot on the barrel with the cat9 composite.

The feedback was weird, I feel, like the ball, wasn't really jumping every other one, I think was like an excellent super super high quality bat.

These just felt amazing, though, especially with the thinner handle and knob the connect bats were awesome.

These four bats felt I mean almost the same dude, so, okay, one more hack with each we'll go from bottom to top, so starting out with the cat 9 composite bb4, yeah dude, like usually on these composite baths.

You can hit it down towards the handle and it smokes the ball like the meta, but that hurt my hands bro, it's light and easy to swing, but I'm having a hard time finding the barrel, like the one piece cat bats.

Honestly, I feel like have a more forgiving barrel than this yeah.

Just it's not horrible, like it's not bad, but compared to all those this one's going in the cellar for me, man and I feel kind of bad dogging on the cat 9 composite, so we're going to bring out its little bro.

The cat 9 comp u-trip drop 5 just watch the difference.

Bro, it's insane.

Oh that's insane! Bro, oh just nuke city, one more! That's so fun! Oh! I missed it.

Come on gotta, clear the trees.

Oh, my goodness, bro you cleared the tree.

It's the the difference is 40 feet, bro all right back to the video uh cat 9, one piece, we'll just go all the one pieces here: good cat eight feels good cat.

Seven feels good they're.

The same dude and cat sticks.

Oh bro, this one's kind of my baby.

If I had to choose, I think I'm picking the six, but it's cheapest, anyways, so yeah, it's good.

This is gonna, stay in the three hole.

All right now, our two front runners, the nine connect and the eight connect we'll start with the nine dude partisan ball of the day.

Oh my gosh, I don't know it's kind of expensive, but it's good all right cat eight connect, oh uh short, oh they're, both amazing man.

I think I'm pretty comfortable with saying those are the two clear front runners all right.

I just checked the price on this one uh, the 33 and a half which is kind of cool they have a half size is only 240 bucks so and the 33 is 300, so it's 100 less at least than the cat 9 connect.

Oh, my goodness, no ball ah shot.

It's like 375 ish stay fair, now, paul snuck inside all right this bath's, really good price considered.

I gotta go with the cat.

Eight connected number one: it's not available in the smaller sizes, but we'll see what the hit track says.

Folks, gotta go with this guy, all right folks, exit vego time with all of our marucci bb core bats, we're in here at the just bats, hitting dungeon out here at kauffman field with the high school length fences, because we're trying to hit bombs uh we'll go through all seven of these bats again here and we have the same baseballs for every hit here, a whole bunch of rollins baseballs uh, we'll get three good barrels with each bat.

I'm going to try to get it kind of right on the meat of the barrel there and then we'll go through at the end, one more with each average them all out and assign our points with the rankings there.

So let's go hammer that ball 96.6, so, ideally, where we want to be topping out at is right around 100 miles an hour here.

Oh hammered that 94.1 93.6 for 369., we'll give it one more.

That was a little off the hands.

Oh perfect, perfect! Absolutely right.

There uh 99.5 for 379., that's going to be tough to beat folks.

This is a really popular bat in college baseball.

This thing's hot man.

One thing you don't really think about as a bat reviewer is hearing damage all right.

Now, we've got the cat 9 connect here: uh two-piece, hybrid version of the cat, nine one piece our highs are 99.5 and about 380.

94.1, hit that all pretty good 96.3 388 wow ball's gone, not perfect.

Perfect, though hammer though 96 3, oh baby 97.5, so this one felt a little better on the hands.

I don't know if it's quite as hot as the cat, nine but dude they feel so similar, we'll we'll get one more thing with each still all right.

Moving on to the only composite bat in this whole bunch, we have the cat nine composite here.

Uh used to be the most expensive bat in bbc.

Now it's only 430, that's still expensive, but at least it's 120 off from where it was uh.

So I think this will probably get the lowest exit vehicle.

That's my personal guess: uh! It's going to be the lightest bat to swing, though so we'll see where we're at now, it's off the hands a little bit 95.9 hit that one really good.

Oh hammer, that ball 95.8, now only 92.9 for 348, we'll give it one more 946, get out all right, 380., so a little bit lower, very consistent, nice, big sweet spot, especially towards the end, the hands so so uh.

The light is about to swing, though for sure all right now going back down to the older bats.

Here I'm excited for this one.

I think this might be our sleeper folks.

We have the cat eight connect uh, the black version here shout out, mackie p, 95, one, that's towards the end of the bat, a little bit uh misread.

I believe, wait for it, wait for it 96.9 for 361.

All right, oh just got under it above so gone, throw 393 for 96., we'll give it one more 98.4.

This is going to be one of the top ones all right, so the catted connect got our distance high, but still the cat9 one piece: uh has our v low high.

Let's see if these other three one pieces can catch up, we have the cat eight one piece: the mustard, yellow special edition yeah, definitely lighter than the catted connect 95 8.

On that this one has some promise too hammered that 95 6 whoa 387, oh man, 98 two get out.

Oh of all, smash 391 uh, the one pieces kind of seem to be running away with it.

Folks that makes sense from a lot of these tests.

We do one-piece alloys seem to be the hottest bb core.

You can get uh that catic connect, I think, has the most barrel, but those one pieces are hot man all right.

Moving on to the cat, seven uh, I think all the one pieces are gonna be super freaking similar, but 99.5 is still our high 390 like 393 is our distance.

I hit that good, but it was low.

96.7 97.9, oh wow, 96., 96.6 dude, virtually indistinguishable.

All the one pieces feel the same: pretty much 99 bro the cat.

Seven, I mean I kind of think they're, all just maybe the same, but all right now, moving on to the cast six.

When did this come out? What 2014 2013, I think, 2013 that was a minute ago.

Bro sounds dude.

That was off the end for 94.

96.6, something about this one man.

I really like this bat yeah 96.9, oh yeah, 98.9, all the one pieces are within like half a mile an hour of each other, all right.

One last little run through one absolute g, hack, perfect, perfect with each bat here, starting again with the cat 9.

We should be able to bust over 100 here, oh yeah lake read 99.2 all right.

That's like right, where we were to begin with, with the cat, nine all right, cat nine connect there.

It is! Oh, that's our high folks off the wall 100.6 with the cat 9 connect, dude honestly, like the cat, 9 and the cat 9 connect feel almost the same.

It's like you, have a tiny bit more barrel and a tiny bit more swing weight on the cat9 connect, but for like a one-piece alloy and a two-piece hybrid, like the goods like those two bats, the one piece and the two-piece are very different.

Those are almost the exact same all right.

The composite 90 I'd be happy with like 98 right here, but we'll really turn up.

Oh 98.2.

That was just about perfect, perfect.

We'll do one more.

Oh there.

It is perfect.

Oh wow, 97 4.

that I I promise you what hammered that one.

I will give it one more swing, but I touched that ball.

92.9 yeah, this one isn't quite as hot.

You definitely sacrifice some exit below for the for the lighter swing weight easier to get through the zone, but I mean honestly, I'm picking any of those before I swing this uh, I think marucci's alloy bats are absolutely incredible.

I don't really see the need for this one all right.

I want to see this one do well man I like this.

I freaking kill the ball with this.

The cat 8 connects.

We need at least 100 here, oh dude, like I can still kind of get to that ball.

That's not perfect, perfect! That's kind of a tough pitch, but 96 7.

like if I'm picking a gamer based on just what I have hit with the best.

It has been this bad cat.

It connect.

Oh man, I'm just killing these bro 99 one for 394, almost kind of feels like the goods as far as its sweet spot goes, but this is not quite up there with the exit below but dude.

I freaking love this one all right and then in theory here the cat 8 should be right around that 99 mark.

But let's see, if we can pop a hundred, oh 101., oh baby, dude.

I think the one pieces are just a little bit hotter.

I'm going to give the caddy connect one more swing, man, because I got that a little further out and oh my gosh 983 dude.

I think the one pieces are just freaking getting it done all right: silver, cash: seven! Oh goodbye, 99.6, 391 man! I have never swung this many bats and thought they were as similar as they are dude.

These are like very tough to pick apart all right and then my dark horse.

Folks, the cat six ah just missed, that's still just gone bro.

This might be my fave they're.

Also similar.

That's what's tough, I think, for the price.

This is the best one for the price.

The cat 6 is the best bang for your buck, but the connects I feel like are the best swinging 101.9, the cat six might win this thing, bro all right.

Folks, a little swing off between the nine connect, the nine one piece and then the cat eight in the cast six real like at this point, I'm just nitpicking man like when we average this all out.

They're all gonna, be like the same, just whatever one you think looks coolest and whatever one you can get for a good price.

All right, cat9 connect one sway towards the end, we'll take it 96, two nine one piece: one swing piece: 99., the eight one swing, 99, four, that one's kind of in the sleeper, though all right cat.

Six 99 dude something about the cat six.

This one feels ever so slightly lighter, like maybe a quarter ounce lighter dude.

I think when we average this out, this one might win, but I think more of a story here, they're all kind of the same.

I think the cat 9 composite might be like the worst.

If we're going to say, there's a worst but uh all the aluminum cat bats are almost the same man.

Even the one pieces versus the hybrids are not very different, all right folks.

So here's how our exit vehicle results turned out, uh, a pretty clean kind of bunching of our one-piece alloys and our two-piece hybrids, the hybrids here, the cadet connect the cat9connect did best in terms of feel on field preference uh, much thinner, handle up there compared to these other ones, but the exit elo definitely went to the one pieces folks.

So, combining all the points together here are our final results for our marucci cat bb core test, uh kind of just a mishmash.

There is one outlier folks, the cat six uh had, on average the best exit velo.

I mean it's right.

There with the other one pieces, but I'm telling you something about it guys.

I think it might just be a tiny, tiny bit lighter.

It's also only 200 bucks best bang for your buck.

Uh swing, good on field swing, good in the hitting cage.

The cat 6 is gonna, be today's best marucci bb core bat, just mostly guys, because it performs as good as anything else here and it's 200 bucks uh.

Next up, we have the caddy connect, uh, put up a decent exit wheel of performance, but guys like if you swing that thing on field.

That thing feels amazing.

You have so much barrel to work with thin handle up there, smooth smooth swinging that connection piece, not too flexy, not too stiff, and then the next four just kind of a log jam uh the cat, 9 connect and the cat 7 tied for fourth, but even just the cat 8 and the cat 9 guys, like those four I mean, are just about the same thing again: the only outlier, the cat, nine composite bb core kind of laden egg.

Today, folks, uh the most expensive bat here and the only one that I would blatantly say is probably not worth your money.

I think the main thing to pull out of this, though folks, is that most of these bats are just kind of the same.

I don't think they've needed to do a ton of uh adjustments over the years like again in 2011 or 2012.

Marucci came out with a really good bb core bat and the cat 5, and it just hasn't had to change much.

They have not had to do much because they've had kind of a industry-leading bb core bat here, um and especially guys if you can get one for a good price like the cast six caddy connect cat eight I mean those are really solid options.

Folks and if you guys want to see more of our bb core and youtube rankings, see how these guys stack up in the bb core top 50 head on over to baseballbatbros.com.

We have our merch over there as well.

If you guys, like the video, make sure to drop a like subscribe to the channel, we'll see you next time, peace out.