The torpedo bats used by the New York Yankees in a record-tying home run binge to start the season have created an explosion of curiosity across Major League Baseball.
Several Yankees players have been employing the torpedo-shaped bats to start the season, and their immediate success has other players around the league intrigued about the newly designed lumber.
New York Yankees catcher Austin Wells hit two home runs in the team’s first three games using a torpedo-shaped bat that has MLB hitters intrigued. Mike Stobe / Getty Images
The Yankees crushed 15 home runs in their first three games, including a franchise-record nine in one game, as they swept the Milwaukee Brewers. That tied a MLB record for the most home runs by a team in the first three games of the season, according to MLB.com.
Nine of the 15 home runs came from Yankees players who use the torpedo bats.
Here’s what to know about the bats that have the big leagues buzzing.
What are torpedo bats?
YES Network play-by-play announcer Michael Kay explained the new bats during the broadcast of the Yankees’ 20-9 demolition of the Brewers on March 29 at Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers bashed nine home runs in the game, which is one short of the major league record of 10 set by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1987.
Describing an at-bat by Yankees infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr., Kay spotlighted the bats, which resemble a bowling pin near the top and appear to have a thicker barrel over a longer area than normal bats. He referred to Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe, who is also using a torpedo bat.
“The Yankee front office, the analytics department, did a study on Anthony Volpe, and every single ball it seemed like he hit on the label (of the bat),” Kay said on the broadcast. “He didn’t hit any on the barrel. So they had bats made up where they moved a lot of the wood into the label so the harder part of the bat is going to actually strike the ball.”
The new bats redistribute the weight from the top to the area where players make the most contact with the ball in order to allow them to hit the ball harder. The bats can be tailored to each player to put more mass in the area of the bat where they frequently make contact.
Who created the torpedo bats?
One of the masterminds behind the bat design is Miami Marlins field coordinator Aaron Leanhardt, a former physics professor from the University of Michigan with a Ph.D. in physics from MIT, according to The Athletic and ESPN.
Leanhardt, 48, worked for the Yankees as their lead analyst last season and previously was on their minor league hitting staff.
“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.
He drew inspiration for the bat design from players saying they wanted to hit the ball more often on the densest area of the bat, commonly known as the “sweet spot.”
Essentially, the torpedo design is redistributing the weight to a different part of the bat closer to the hands and creating a longer sweet spot.
Hitters have been trying to find an edge in a sport where high-velocity pitchers have been dominating. The league, which had 31,356 total strikeouts in 2000, had 41,199 strikeouts last season. Meanwhile, the league batting average dropped to .243 last year, tied for the fifth-lowest in MLB history.
“It’s just through those conversations where you think to yourself, why don’t we exchange how much wood we’re putting on the tip versus how much we’re putting in the sweet spot?” Leanhardt said. “That’s the original concept right there.”
Former Yankees infielder Kevin Smith also singled out Leanhardt for the bat design in a thread on X.
“It brings more wood — and mass — to where you most often make contact as a hitter,” Smith wrote. “The idea is to increase the number of ‘barrels’ and decrease misses.
“‘You’re going up with a weapon that can be better,’ Lenny would say,” Smith wrote in reference to Leanhardt. “‘Your just misses could be clips, your clips could be flares, and your flares could barrels.’ And it was true, it’s fractions of an inch on the barrel differentiating these outcomes.”
Smith compared them to Wiffle ball bats used by kids and wrote that they also feel lighter, which allows players to swing faster and harder.
This is not the first season that a major league player has used a torpedo bat. Yankees star Giancarlo Stanton employed one last season when he slugged seven home runs in 14 playoff games, according to ESPN.
Are the torpedo bats legal to use by MLB rules?
Yes, they conform to Major League Baseball rules, which state that bats “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. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.”
The league also does not allow “experimental” bats that haven’t previously been approved by MLB.
MLB confirmed on March 30 that the bats do not violate its rules or bat supplier regulations, according to MLB.com.
Who is using the torpedo bats?
During the Yankees’ home run barrage to open the season, Volpe, Chisholm, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, outfielder Cody Bellinger and catcher Austin Wells all used the torpedo bats.
They combined for nine of the team’s 15 home runs in three games, with Chisholm belting three of them. Chisholm hit 24 home runs all of last season while playing for the Marlins and Yankees. Wells, who has two home runs so far, hit 13 in 115 games for New York last season.
“The concept makes so much sense. I know I’m bought in,” Volpe said, according to The Associated Press. “The bigger you can have the barrel where you hit the ball, it makes sense to me.”
“I love my bat,” Chisholm said, according to the AP. “I think you can tell. It doesn’t feel like a different bat. It just helps you in a real way I guess.”
Chisholm posted a more direct take on the torpedo bat on X on March 31, writing, “Okay explanation the barrel is bigger and within mlb regulation! … Nobody is trying to get jammed you just move the wood from the parts you don’t use to the parts you do!”
What are other MLB players saying about the torpedo bats?
Brewers relief pitcher Trevor Megill isn’t exactly a fan of the new design.
“I think it’s terrible,” he told the New York Post. “We’ll see what the data says. I’ve never seen anything like it before. 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.
“It took a minute for the shock to go away, since from the bullpen, they looked like bowling pins,” he continued. “We weren’t able to process it. But that’s the game. It’s a big data race, with science and technology playing a huge role in baseball now. You can’t hate them for trying something new.”
San Diego Padres star third baseman Manny Machado was asked about the bats during the Sunday night broadcast of the Padres-Atlanta Braves game on ESPN.
“I have no idea what they are,” Machado said. “They should send a few over here if they’re going to be hitting homers like that. Whoever is making them can send a few over here to Petco with this big ballpark.”
“It looks like it works,” Cleveland Guardians outfielder Lane Thomas told Cleveland.com. “I’ll need to see it for a couple of more weeks before I go and get one.”
“When you think of a traditional bat, you don’t think of it being fatter in the middle and thinner at the end. If anything, it would kind of taper up to the end of the bat,” Baltimore Orioles outfielder Tyler O’Neill told The Baltimore Banner. “But it’s definitely something new. We’re starting to see it this year. I’m not too sure what to think about it, honestly. Maybe I’ll give it a try.”
What bat does Yankees superstar slugger Aaron Judge use?
Judge is one of the most feared sluggers in baseball and led MLB with 58 home runs last season. The 6-foot-7, 280-pound outfielder has the American League record with 62 home runs in one season.
Yankees star Aaron Judge is not using a torpedo bat and already leads MLB with four home runs in the team’s first three games. Mike Stobe / Getty Images
He is not using a torpedo bat. Judge has stuck with the same bat he has always used, and it’s working just fine. The 2024 American League MVP smacked four home runs in three games to start the season to tie him for first in MLB in the early going.
“What I did the past couple of seasons speaks for itself,” he said, according to The Athletic. “Why try to change something if you have something that’s working?”
