The Next Step in Baseball: The Torpedo Bat
- Allan Tompkins
- Apr 7
- 4 min read
By Allan Tompkins
One of the most anticipated days in the world of sports is baseball’s Opening Day, which starts a long season that promises exciting moments to experience through the spring and summer. While the traditional aspect of the baseball season has led to controversial opinions toward the level of entertainment that baseball provides compared to other, more fast-paced sports, a recent revolutionary change has been made that can alter how baseball is watched forever.
Something that the MLB has been struggling with is a lack of viewership rates, which is due to the slow advancement of a baseball game. In a market competing against sports such as basketball, soccer and hockey, which are currently in season, baseball has begun lagging behind more exciting and energetic atmospheres. This hasn’t been completely ignored, though, as the MLB has already started making subtle changes to the game, such as the recent addition of a pitch clock to speed up the game as well as the inclusion of larger bases to promote stealing.
"Baseball is fun for a couple of innings but a whole game isn't the most entertaining way to spend an afternoon," said sophomore, Daniel Hernandez.
These rules, though not drastic, still raised complaints among traditional baseball fans who enjoy the pace at which the game is played. This audience conflicts with the emerging, younger one that is in favor of policies that can make the game more enticing such as the suggestion of the “Golden Bat” rule which provides each team one opportunity per game to send a rostered hitter to an at bat no matter their position in the lineup with the hopes of them getting an essential hit a losing team might need.
While most proposed changes deal with the rules of the game, an innovation in equipment that the New York Yankees have begun using widely has the potential to shatter the slow connotation that baseball has achieved. More specifically, they have begun using a new type of bat referred to as “torpedo bats,” which have been adopted by five players who combined for nine home runs in their opening series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
While the bat was first used by Giancarlo Stanton who earned seven home runs in the Yankees’ 2024 postseason games which brought them to the World Series, the craziest part about the homers hit on Saturday was that they were hit by players such as Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe who are known for commonly getting jammed by hitting the ball slightly under the barrel of the bat.
To fix this, essentially, all that was done was the shifting of the barrel of the bat to where the label is, allowing for hitters who normally get jammed to make strong contact. “It basically increases the ‘sweet spot’ of the bat,” said sophomore Caden Artola. This simple design change was developed by 48-year-old Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT graduate who’s the field coordinator for the Miami Marlins, not the Yankees. Despite the presumption that the bat’s design was easy to develop, it took many trials and errors over the past three years to gather the right amount of feedback necessary for the right bat.
This extensive change is the beginning of a new era of baseball that can drastically boost its viewership. For starters, when someone thinks of going to a baseball game, many factors are driving that desire, such as the atmosphere, the teams playing or the people going; however, the most dominant is the desire to see hits and, more excitingly, home runs. With the initial implementation of the torpedo bat, hits and home runs can be seen way more consistently, as now, players can personalize their bats to fit the barrel to where they are most commonly seen hitting the ball, arousing hopes for a total revival of the game.
Columbus JV pitcher and sophomore, Nicholas de la Paz said, "I think they'll bring popularity to the sport but also pose a new threat to pitchers who have to adapt to different ball placements."
The destruction that took place on Saturday, March 29, where the Yankees defeated the Brewers 20-9 might lead some to believe that constant hits might make the game boring yet, in a game where the Brewers received the same bats, a different outcome would have likely played out, leading to closer games that can average in the double digits. As of right now, Louisville Slugger, the manufacturer of the bats, has claimed four teams have requested torpedo-style bats over the past 18 months, and this number is likely to increase as the bat gains momentum throughout the MLB.
The only question left unanswered is whether the bats are legal. The MLB handbook requires a bat to exceed no more than 2.61 inches in diameter, which means that as long as the thickest part of the bat isn’t wider than that, the location for which the barrel is placed isn’t obligated to one area. Due to their compliance with regulations, it’s only a matter of time before the torpedo bats take the sport by storm. Many fans, as they know it, are witnessing history in the making through the alteration of a design that has been primarily used for over a century, leading many to believe that the game is taking a major turn in the right direction.
Do you think the torpedo bats will make baseball better?
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