'Torpedo Bats' Are Taking Over Baseball

Baseball isn't exactly known as eager to embrace change, but Major League Baseball is also a copycat league. So when the New York Yankees shot out of the gate this season by setting a new single-game team record with nine home runs in a 20-9 drubbing of the Milwaukee Brewers, it didn't take long for the sports world to embrace the "torpedo bats" they used in the process. A look:

• What are torpedo bats? They're made with more wood moved to a batter's "sweet spot," instead of having an even circumference down the grain like traditional bats. CNN reports, "The result, in theory, is a piece of wood with more mass distributed in the specific location where contact is made."
• Where did they originate? MIT physicist Aaron Leanhardt developed the bat when he was a minor hitting coordinator for the Yankees from 2022 to 2023. He told the Athletic, "It's just about making the bat as heavy and fat as possible in the area where you're trying to do damage on the baseball."
• Are they legal? Absolutely. According to the MLB rulebook (via MLB.com): "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 in length." Torpedo bats move the thickest part to where each player is most likely to make solid contact. As USA Today reports, "MLB has stated that they do conform to all rules."

• What do players think? Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe tells Yahoo Sports that "I know I'm bought in. The bigger you can have the barrel where you hit the ball, it makes sense to me." But teammate Aaron Judge, who has hit a league-leading 161 homers since 2022, isn't sold yet, saying, "Why try to change something if you have something that's working?"
• What does everyone else think? The Guardian sees a positive: "Dialed-down torpedo bats could actually serve as the long-term answer for suffering hitters. This could be vital for a sport [that] needs more dynamic offense." But an anonymous MLB front-office source told CBS Sports, "I think they'll be banned. I think MLB will be compelled to establish a rule to prevent them from getting out of hand."
• Can everyone use them? Yes, and they definitely are. Just days after the Yankees' offensive outburst, Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz used a torpedo bat to hit two home runs and drive in a career-high seven RBI. Fox Sports reports that when De La Cruz was asked if he'd consider using a torpedo bat again, he "just laughed."

(More Major League Baseball stories.)