Before the Yankees’ franchise-record nine-homer outburst on Saturday, the Dodgers’ hitting coaches had never heard of “torpedo” bats.
“I saw them like everybody else did — on social media and TV,” Aaron Bates said Monday.
Now, after a record-setting power display this weekend in New York, they’re the talk of the sport.
Dodgers hitting coaches Bates and Robert Van Scoyoc are among many throughout Major League Baseball whose interest was piqued after watching Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells combine to launch nine of the Yankees’ 15 homers on the weekend while using the new style of bat.
“Guys are always trying to get better, find new ways to improve or get an edge in that sense,” Bates said. “Obviously Major League Baseball said it’s all within the rules and everything. That’s great. I think it’s good for the game in the sense of trying to create another way for hitters to get an advantage because pitchers are so much further ahead as far as data and how hard they throw. So, you increase that margin of error, it’s good.”
The torpedo bat somewhat resembles a bowling pin, with the biggest part of the barrel closer to the handle. The idea is simple: shift more of the wood from the end of the bat toward the sweet spot where a player more often makes contact.
Even for those who have never seen or used the bats, the concept is captivating. And the logic at least appears sound.
“If you make contact more towards the handle, it makes sense to put more mass there,” Van Scoyoc said. “But we’re gonna learn about it and study it. I’m sure guys are ordering them. All the players want hits, so they’re gonna do anything they can to get a hit.”
Before the end of the day Monday at Dodger Stadium, Max Muncy and Kiké Hernández were already among the Dodgers players who had expressed interest in ordering one of the new bats, at least to see how they felt. On the other side of the field, the visiting Atlanta Braves also had not yet started using torpedo bats — but they, too, sounded intrigued.
“There’s some talk,” Braves third baseman Austin Riley told FOX Sports. “Everything’s evolving. The game of baseball is evolving. There’s so many numbers out there, and how can we get better as players? That seems like that’s a trend that’s helping and working. There’s a little rumble.”
Riley, who swings Marucci bats, first noticed players from other teams using the torpedo bats this spring. It reminded him a bit of the puck knob fad, when some players tried a counterweight at the handle of the bat in an effort to produce more bat speed. Riley went to Marucci to try one of those, but it wasn’t for him.
Now, he’s not ruling out an attempt at baseball’s latest infatuation. Some bat manufacturers, including Marucci, have already made torpedo bats available for purchase online.
“I may play with it,” Riley said. “Pitching is so good nowadays and stuff is getting better and better, a lot of swing and miss, so anything we can do to put a barrel on a ball, we’re going to try it.”
In addition to adding more mass to the area of the bat where a player makes contact, there might be another benefit to the new style. It’s a small sample, but all five of the aforementioned Yankees players using the new bat — Volpe, Chisholm, Bellinger, Goldschmidt and Wells — have experienced a noticeable year-over-year-increase in average bat speed.
Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated former physics professor who is now a field coordinator with the Marlins, was credited with bringing the concept to New York when he was the Yankees’ lead analyst. It was a multi-year project that went largely unnoticed until the start of this season, despite Giancarlo Stanton, among others, using a version of the bat last year.
“It’s credit to the players that had the conversations with me two years ago and were willing to be patient zero and demo the first versions of this, maybe as early as 2023, and then in that offseason and then in 2024,” Leanhardt told reporters Monday. “It’s definitely been surreal for the last couple days. At the end of the day, it’s about the batter — not the bats.”
For now, until there’s more information, Dodgers reliever Anthony Banda said he wouldn’t think about changing his thought process on the mound or the way he attacks a hitter if he sees his opponent using one.
But, their at-bats will dictate how that might evolve.
“If we’re getting banged around and it’s, like, pitches that we usually beat guys with, stuff like that, there’s some room to really talk about it and really kind of evaluate,” Banda said. “But until then, there’s not really much, just because it’s a different thing.”
Bates is curious to see how many hitters adopt the new style, considering that might take an admission that they don’t find the barrel as often as they would like.
“How many guys are willing to look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘I get jammed a lot?'” Bates said.
Nonetheless, the concept is picking up steam around the league.
The Mets’ Francisco Lindor, the Orioles’ Adley Rutschman, the Cubs’ Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner and the Rays’ Junior Caminero are all among the players who have tried the new torpedo bats this year.
On Monday night, Reds standout Elly De La Cruz used the bat for the first time. He mashed two homers, hit a double and knocked in a career-high seven runs.
“I think guys will try it,” Van Scoyoc said. “I mean, how do you not, right? You see those kinds of outcomes, of course.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
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