There’s a unique nostalgia that surrounds baseball, a charm that seems to resonate more than football or basketball. For many of us, our love for the game was kindled during our childhood, amidst our fascination with dinosaurs, spaceships, dolls, or WWE action figures.
For me, it was my Dad. He loved the game and shared that love with me at the tender age of six. My fondest and earliest memories of my Dad are of us playing catch together and going to watch the Royals from our nosebleed seats (baseball gloves and binoculars required).
The love of the game still lives on, just not on a national level like it once did. Baseball has become a regional sport in the last 5-10 years. It’s not “America’s Pastime” like it was when our fathers were kids. Just as we had to grow and adapt to the world around us, so did the game of baseball.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has done some terrific things and taken strides to make the game better and more appealing to the younger generation. The pitch clock was implemented at the beginning of 2023 and instantly saw game times shortened to 2 hours and 36 minutes. They’ve made the bases bigger to increase action on the basepaths. They even created an extra-inning rule where you start with a runner at second starting in the 10th inning (not all of his ideas have been good).
There’s a new phenomenon taking the league by storm this year, but it wasn’t mandated by the league. It started in the front office of the New York Yankees by Aaron Leanhardt (now he’s a part of the Miami Marlins organization.
The “torpedo” bat- named due to its shape resembling a torpedo- is a fully customizable bat that tailors the barrel for each hitter to meet their specific needs. The classic swell at the top portion of the bat is moved down lower on the bat, closer to the hitter’s hands.
The idea is all about finding the hitter’s sweet spot on the bat using analytics and moving more wood to that area of the bat.
The Yankees analytics department took this data and ran with it. They looked at all of their players’ hitting data and modified their bats so the widest part of the bat- or the barrel- is where they most often make contact.
These bats became prominent after the Yankees used them on Opening Day and throughout their three-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers last week. The Yankees tied an MLN record as they hit 15 home runs in that series- including a franchise-record nine in their 20-9 Opening Day rout.
“It doesn’t feel like a different bat. It just helps you in a little way,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said after his multi-homer game on Sunday.
Leanhardt- an MIT physicist- said the players drove the idea as they voiced concerns about wanting to make more and better contact.
The difference in Anthony Volpe’s bats from 2024 to 2025. Photo Credit: Noah K. Murray|Corey Sipkin
“It’s just about making the bat as heavy and as fat as possible in the area where you’re trying to do damage on the baseball,” Leanhardt told The Athletic. Just try to take all that excess weight and try to put it where you’re trying to hit the ball, and then, in exchange, try to take the thinner diameter that used to be at the sweet spot and put that on the tip.”
Several players around the league use this specialized bat, but no one drives a narrative like the New York Yankees. Let the villains of baseball hit 15 home runs in three games, and you better expect there to be chatter and outrage around it.
“They should send a few (torpedo bats) over here if they’re gonna be hitting homers like that,” said San Diego Padres Third Basemen Manny Machado during an ESPN broadcast last weekend.
“I think it’s terrible,” said Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Trevor Megill. I feel like it’s something used in slow-pitch softball. It’s genius: Put the mass all in one spot. It might be bush (league). It might not be. But it’s the Yankees, so they’ll let it slide.”
Megill sounds like he has sour grapes because I don’t buy into the bat being an unfair advantage. Our Kansas City Royals spit in the face of this new torpedo bat technology. The Royals played those same Brewers as the Yankees did–without torpedo wood–and proceeded to put a beat down on them to the tune of 11-1 on Monday night.
While pitchers may not be fully on board with this latest technology, Major League teams and players are noticing. Some might point fingers at the Yankees and accuse them of manipulating the bat and cheating the game, but the MLB’s bat regulations are quite permissive. As long as they follow MLB rule 3.02, which states that the bat shall be a smooth, round stick, not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches long, they are within the rules. It also states that experimental bats cannot be used until the manufacturer has secured approval from the MLB. The torpedo bat, with its potential to optimize a hitter’s performance based on their hitting metrics, could revolutionize the game’s dynamics, making it more exciting and competitive.
It seems as if these bats aren’t going anywhere. Time will tell if they stick around or fizzle out, but if I’m Rob Manfred, I’m urging all teams to put in an order to Amazon, or wherever you can get these bats, for torpedo bats pronto. These bats could be the missing ingredient to bring baseball back to its proper glory. With pitching becoming better and guys throwing harder than ever, the torpedo bat could give hitters the best chance of success based on their hitting metrics. This could lead to more exciting games, higher scores, and a renewed interest in the sport, particularly among younger fans drawn to the game’s fast-paced action and high-scoring games.
This concept is all about the evolution of the game. It’s not our father’s game anymore. It’s evolving and growing with the times. Think about the equipment used in other sports. Do you think players in the NFL are using the same gloves as they used in the 90s? What about the NBA? How do we believe sneakers have evolved? This is the natural order of life. As we get older, the world around us adapts and gets smarter. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to make the game easier on the hitter. There’s still insufficient data to determine this torpedo bat’s long-term, lasting effects. If I were a pitcher, I would hate pitching against someone with one of these bats. The pitcher’s goal is to miss the barrel, so if the barrel is moved down further, where contact is more often made, inside pitches that hitters normally foul off their hands or get jammed on might start falling for more base hits. I doubt this will be a bat that will become the official standard bat of the MLB, as Spalding is for the NBA. Let the players experiment with it if it’s not breaking any rules. Baseball is trying to attract young fans, and what better way to do that than by increasing runs and home runs? If the torpedo bat can help with that in any capacity, then MLB should embrace it.
Bank On It! 
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