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This is an old but interesting debate with many YouTube animations to explore it. However, I'm definitely #TeamKnife, especially since it's a wooden bat which tends to be thinner and with a smaller sweet spot.
There's many more paths to victory for the knife-wielder, and many more things that can go wrong for the bat-wielder. For fighting moving targets ready to counter-attack, I'd say it takes much less skill to cause grievous harm in the first few hits with a knife than a baseball bat. This isn’t a turn-based game where the bat-wielder gets a courtesy first crack at teeing off cleanly.
The power in a baseball swing comes from hip rotation. A feet-planted swing from the bat-wielder's dominant side, landing with the sweet spot, would be needed to do any stun or structural damage to the knife-wielder in an arm, leg, or the torso. The head is easy to miss (or have the swing get glanced off the shoulder) and would likely be protected by the knife wielder's arm. Short-armed rabbit swings aren't going to cut it when your opponent has a knife (or no knife). An off-balance swing isn't going to cut it, nor a swing that lands on the edge of the bat (where opposite side foul balls often occur) nor a swing that lands in the first 2/3 or so of the bat's length starting from the base of the handle. Two hands are needed as well. One can whip it around one-handedly, but it'd be a weak swing needing a lot of wind-up, leading yourself open to counterattack. One errant (attempted) swing, one that misses, or one that causes insufficient damage, and it could be curtains for bat-wielder.
Plus, an inexperienced man's baseball swing looks more like a little girl's than it does Josh Donaldson's. And a bat is much more easily grabbed than a knife by a counterparty. The knife-wielder will likely have a hand free more often than the bat-wielder.
The knife-wielder can just put an arm-up on the bat-wielder's dominant side*, and feign bum-rushes until going for the final bum-rush. The knife-wielder can hang around close but outside the range of the bat before charging, leading little time for the bat-wielder to take a solid swing. Any sort of close-quarters combat, clinch, or grappling, goes in the favor of the knife-wielder. Pretty much any stab that lands on the bat-wielder could potentially be fatal; not so for any swing that lands on the knife-wielder. Even if the bat-wielder is able to Babe Ruth-maxx and club the knife-wielder to death, any stab wound incurred along the way could just mean dying on the way or inside the hospital.
I wonder if it's the greater legibility of a baseball bat that leads to more support for the bat than there would be otherwise. Many have swung a baseball bat—or at least watched someone they know swing a baseball bat—or have watched baseball swings on TV. Not so many have tried to stab someone, or have watched someone trying to stab someone, or have watched nonfictional stabbings occur in person or virtually.
* Since most people are right-handed, this would likely mean the right-handed knife-wielder putting up a left arm to defend against the right-handed bat-wielder's swings, and stabbing with the right hand. Even the arm-dominance situation works to the favor of the knife-wielder.
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