The Yankees routed the Brewers 20-9 on Saturday afternoon, and in the process set a new franchise record for home runs in a single game with nine. Aaron Judge was of course at the forefront of this beatdown, as the two-time AL MVP went 4-for-6 with three homers (including a grand slam) and eight RBI.
The story of the day, however, was not what the Yankees did in the box score, but rather the newly designed ‘Torpedo’ bats that several of the players used during the game. Per play-by-play broadcaster Michael Kay, the Yankees’ analytics team did a study of shortstop Anthony Volpe and noticed that most of the time when he makes contact he does so on the label portion of the bat and not the barrel.
To remedy this, the Yankees hired a physicist to design a new style of bat where both “more wood and mass” were placed where the hitter most often makes contact. It was created essentially to increase the amount of hard contact the batter makes, because as we know, the more you barrel up a ball, the better chance you have of getting an extra-base hit.
The big question that will come from this of course will be whether or not what the Yankees are doing is legal. Well, per Chris Kirschner of The Athletic, MLB has already come out and said yes it is legal, citing “the shape of the bat does not violate any rules.” The MLB rulebook states that bats must be no longer than 42 inches long or have a diameter of more than 2.61 inches. As long as both those criteria are met, it does not matter where the barrel is ultimately placed.
As the saying goes, it’s a copycat league, meaning it’s only a matter of time before more MLB teams are implementing the Yankees’ new approach to their own hitters. Think of it in the same way that Stephen Curry’s three-point shooting prowess changed how NBA teams play offense.
If Saturday’s nine-homer, 20-run output by New York tells us anything, it’s that this new bat design could absolutely be a fixture in the big leagues for years to come.
