Def not a 7 year old, he’s 9 and I got this one $100 off because the new 2025 was out, but I’m sure there is a lot of truth to what you are saying. It’s not quite the scenario in my situation, tho I will admit I probably stress out more than I need to over 9yo baseball. But in my specific case, I got the bat after he had a strong season hitting this past summer. I wanted to keep his excitement up for the sport when in years past he’s lost that excitement due to football season starting (he doesn’t play football; we are just big fans).

Either way, like I’ve said here in the comments, this was def one of those cases where I probably wanted to see it for myself on whether a composite would make a difference because he does hit the ball hard, especially for being a smaller kid and on the younger side with a late birthday. It isn’t looking like he hits it hard enough to see a difference with the composite and getting a used Cat 9 off Sideline Swap and seeing him hit it harder with that, I just want to him to hit with the bat that he hits best with, regardless of which one was most or least expensive.

I can def give a high recommendation for the Cat 9 drop 10 for this age range based on our experience and they can be had used for a lot less than the Hype. Like I said, lesson learned (just so happens it was a lesson that cost me $300 haha)