2017 Rawlings Quatro Review

Built with Rawlings' proprietary composite materials, the Quatro featured vibration dampening technology and a balanced swing weight. Available in standard fastpitch drops for various age groups.

The Fastpitch Quatro may be the bat with the most technological advancements in the space. It is officially a four piece bat and the first of its kind. We cover the four pieces in depth within our Rawlings Quatro baseball bat review. Here, we give a good overview.

Piece #1: The Handle

The Quatro's handle is a composite material made with a decent amount of flex. This flex, mind you, does not happen during the swing, but instead, at contact. As such, hits feel smooth, even when they are not. This tends to dampen sting on mishits. It also removes some power in the heavier drops---which is likely why this bat is not released in a drop 8 at all.

Piece #2: The Barrel

The Quatro's barrel is a composite material made with maximum size (2 1/4), and is as long of a barrel as anyone else's on the market.

Piece #3: The Quatro Collar

Around the connection point of the barrel and handle sits a composite collar. This collar helps dampen sting and keep the vibration of the barrel out of the handle. Such technology, which a few bats like the XENO put on the inside of the bat, gives an ultra smooth feeling hit and keeps enough stiffness in the transition to deliver big hits.

Piece #4: The Inner End Barrel

Most unique to the Quatro design is the extended inner barrel on the end of the barrel. This addition keeps the integrity and durability of the bat while creating a hot out of the wrapper experience of the outer shell. A few fastpitch bats have used a dual wall system in the past, but none have focused it solely towards the end cap. Surprisingly, this addition does not effect the overall swing weight of the bat too noticeably.

The drop 9 and drop 10 also come in different sizes, so beware of which one you are purchasing.

As we mention above, the two piece composite balanced swinging fastpitch space is remarkably packed. In the drop 9 and drop 10 niche, the LXT and XENO from Slugger, as well as the MAKO from Easton and the CF9 from DeMarini, are top notch crafts. If you are in the market and have a budget for a performance two piece fastpitch with a balanced swing, then any of those should be on the short list. If we were forced to choose an unrelated twin to the fastpitch Quatro, it would likely be the LXT Hyper from Slugger. Both focus on a lot of flex in the handle at the transition for an ultra smooth feel.