Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred recently addressed the advent and rising popularity of the so-called “torpedo bat,” a bowling-pin shaped bat the popularity of which has coincided with a very modest spike in the league home-run rate relative to last season.
In an interview with the New York Times, Manfred said this of the new style of bat:
“They’re absolutely good for baseball. I believe that issues like the torpedo bat and the debate around it demonstrate the fact that baseball still occupies a unique place in our culture, because people get into a complete frenzy over something that’s really nothing at the end of the day. The bats comply with the rules. Players have actually been moving the sweet spot around in bats for years. But it just demonstrates that something about the game is more important than is captured by television ratings or revenue or any of those things, when you have the discussions and debates about it.”
‘I think they’ll be banned’: What’s the future of MLB’s torpedo bats? Insiders weigh in on baseball’s new fad
R.J. Anderson
The torpedo bats, which have been used at least since spring training, became a topic of widespread discussion after the New York Yankees launched nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers on March 29. Some of the Yankee hitters who homered used the torpedo bats (although not Aaron Judge), and the YES Network broadcast of the game briefly explained the use and origin of the bats, sparking a frenzy of discourse and speculation.
The torpedo bat was pioneered by Aaron Leanhardt, a former Yankees front-office staffer who’s now a coach for the Miami Marlins. He designed the bat so that the mass was concentrated in the area where hitters tend to make contact more frequently, which theoretically optimized their contact in a way that more traditional modern bats do not.
While the future of the bats may be at least theoretically uncertain, Manfred certainly doesn’t sound inclined to push for any rule changes that would ban the torpedo bat.
