Thanks to their home run outbreak against the Milwaukee Brewers – which I prefer to frame as “lol, Brewers pitchers” – the New York Yankees have everyone in baseball talking about bats.
Specifically, the bowling-pin-shaped “torpedo” bats that some of the Yankees’ players are using this season, and that were shown cracking a number of those home runs:
Players around MLB intrigued after Yankees’ power surge with new ‘torpedo’ bats https://t.co/LvL7G1DhxB
— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) March 31, 2025
My take initially was not so much that the Yankees had found some brand new creative way around the bat rules to create a super bat – consider that several Yankees who’ve homered aren’t using the torpedo bats – but instead that it was a bit of the tail wagging the dog. It’s interesting and looks weird and MAY be helping some players out, but mostly it was the homers that turned on the attention. And random two-game variances happen every year.
That is to say, I wondered just how secret or new this stuff was. Turns out, it was neither. Most of us just didn’t notice until now, including quite a few MLB teams.
But the Cubs were not one of those teams. From The Athletic:
‘“It seems like it’s making its way around MLB,” said Los Angeles Angels infielder Nicky Lopez, who spent spring training with the Chicago Cubs, where he said they utilized the bats as well.
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The Cubs have been doing their research on this type of bat dating back to last season. One player said the front office relayed that using the bats will result in an increased exit velocity.’
Sure enough, although they aren’t QUITE as pronounced as the Yankee torpedos, at least two Cubs are already using the bats:
Are these Cubs players using Yankee Bats? pic.twitter.com/uGtZakKTtD
— The Setup Man – Chicago Cubs YT Channel (@SetupManKyle) March 30, 2025
More than that, contrary to this being some offseason revelation of the Yankees’ physics department or whatever, current Yankee Cody Bellinger tried a version of the bat LAST season with the Cubs:
Torpedo Bat Info
• 9 of the 15 home runs were hit by players using the bat (I think, hard to know for sure what bat is used in each at-bat)
• the analyst who helped design them worked with the yanks from 2018-2024. Is now with the Marlins.
• Stanton used one last year
•… pic.twitter.com/tSzhQtmuWM— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) March 31, 2025
Taking that all together, is it possible the Cubs were as much on the forefront of this barrel-shifting approach to the bat as any other club? And we just weren’t aware because there wasn’t a homer explosion coupled with a couple REALLY pronounced versions of the bat? I’m thinking the answer there might be yes.
This matters, to me anyway, because I kinda hated the idea that the Cubs might be out of the loop on a technological way to get an edge, even if it’s only like a 1 or 2% boost to productivity for a handful of players. Clearly, they weren’t out of the loop. Whether they actually deploy this tech a whole lot beyond Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson, and whether it winds up mattering over a full season, we’ll see. I’m just glad they already had their foot in the door and aren’t now trying to play catch up.
Oh, and yes, I did what everyone is thinking right now: I went through our picture repository to see if I could get a hint of any other Cubs bats this year that have a slight bulge in the middle of the barrel, rather than the typical flat or extending-out shape. I couldn’t find any other Cubs regulars using a bat that looked like Nico’s or Dansby’s.
Yet!
Much more on the state of bat shape optimization from Jeff Passan, including a note that the Cubs are seen as among the four-ish teams (Yankees, Marlins, Orioles) “that have invested the most time and money researching bat geometry and optimization”:
“Credit to any of the players who were willing to listen to me, because it’s crazy."
Everything you need to know about the bowling-pin bat, aka the torpedo bat, the source of consternation and star of MLB's opening weekend, free and unlocked at ESPN: https://t.co/tsRO8n6hAL— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 31, 2025
Even if it’s true that, all else equal, the torpedo shape is optimized for exit velocity, all else is NOT equal when it comes to highly varied human bodies, playing styles, contact quality, and on and on. That is to say, even if this bat does work for certain guys, it might actually make things worse for other guys. The roll out might be relatively slow.
