Chandler Bats

Chandler is an American manufacturer located in Norristown, Pennsylvania that makes maple and ash wooden bats. Founded by Dave Chandler in 2010, Chandler bats are a product of RxSport. Chandler is a growing company in the baseball market, at both the professional and amateur levels.

History

In 2008, furniture maker Dave Chandler decided that he wanted to get into the bat making business. As a fan of the MLB and the game of baseball, he knew of the problem the league was facing with bat breakage. At points, there were talks surrounding the MLB of banning maple bats because of how much they were breaking. People throughout the league were concerned with preserving player safety, and shattered bat pieces posed a major threat. Dave saw this problem as a challenge not to find a better wood for bats, but to make bats better and stronger. This is what sparked the opening of Chandler in 2010. Before deciding to start creating bats, Dave worked for Marshall James Furniture, a high end furniture company based out of North Carolina. His extensive woodworking knowledge made the transition into bat making an easy one.

Dave started RxSport in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and quickly turned around to get into making Chandler bats in Norristown. In the first year that Chandler bats hit the public market, they sold 11,000 bats out of the quaint 40,000 sq. ft. warehouse. Chandler has increased production every year since their opening and plans to continue doing so. In 2013, the company received a $500,000 investment from Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, a group of partners looking to accelerate the growth of the local community’s innovators, for expansion. A large portion of these funds was put towards purchasing more raw materials, maple and ash wood, in an effort to further increase production of bats. Chandler has partnered with EvoShield, a baseball apparel and equipment company, to make a new bat, the EvoShield Swing Series. They are also looking to expand beyond strictly wood bats, and are exploring the idea of creating metal bats. 

Bat Making Process

Each Chandler bat is hand-made and goes through a 16 point inspection to ensure it is ready for the market. The bat making process starts with finding the right wood, which comes mainly from Pennsylvania. Other areas that they get their wood from are surrounding states, and a lot of the Northeastern part of the country. Chandler specializes in bats made from maple and ash woods. Once the wood is selected and cut, it is brought to the warehouse and kept in a humidor. The humidor is set at specific temperatures to control what the weight of the finished bat will be. When the wood is ready, it is hand spun in a milling machine, which can spin about 500 bats a day. From there, the bat makers get the desired dimensions from one of their 600+ in store models or from the buyer themselves. To replicate a bat as precisely as possible, Chandler uses laser technology , which can make measurements down to a tenth of a millimeter. The bats are sanded until they are smooth, and then tested for their densities. What Chandler does differently from other bat companies is spray the finish on their wood, rather than dipping the bats in a finish. This adds to the durability of each bat. By the time the bat is completely finished, the process takes about a week. Because of this, Chandler does not currently take online orders, as it is a way for them to control demand for the product so they can keep up with production. Players can test any of Chandler’s different models at the hitting tunnel in the warehouse, which is utilized to help analyze swings and determine the ideal bat type for each player.

Notable Chandler Clients

Ever since Chandler bats have been produced, they’ve been used by some big names in the baseball world. Since the company is based right near Philadelphia, they have been able to put some of their products in the hands of MediaWiki:Badtitletext players, among many others. For example, Shane Victorino has been a customer of Chandler, and his bat model, the VIC18, is one of the company’s biggest in annual sales. Victorino is only one of many MLB players who have used or are still using a Chandler product.

The most recent, probably biggest, form of publicity that Chandler received came in 2013, at the MediaWiki:Badtitletext. In the finals of this contest, both players were using their respective Chandler. Yoenis Cespedes and Bryce Harper went back and forth, showing off the power they had with Chandler bats. While these are the most notable pros for Chandler use, there are plenty of others who are also known for it. Here is a list of other MLB players associated with Chandler:

• Pedro Feliz 
• Domonic Brown
• Carlos Ruiz
• Michael Young
• Luke Scott
• Josh Hamilton
• Adam Jones
• Jarrod Saltalamacchia
• Raul Ibanez
• Manny Machado

These are just a few MLB sluggers that have openly used Chandler’s products. Not all wood bats are eligible for use in the MLB, and there are only 33 bat companies that are certified by the MLB for game use; Chandler is one of them. Chandler is competing in a bat market with companies such as MediaWiki:Badtitletext, Marucci, and Old Hickory. Some of these companies have been around far longer than Chandler has, and as a result have had more exposure to different players. However, reports have shown that roughly 20% of MLB payers have used or currently do use a Chandler bat in gameplay.

Chandler Baseball

Once the company established itself, Chandler decided it was going to start its own local youth baseball organization. Chandler Baseball is an organization that gives young baseball players in the Philadelphia area a chance to showcase their skills. The teams play in different tournaments throughout the United States.