In their opening three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers, the New York Yankees — coming off a World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers last season — did okay at the plate. And by okay, I mean Babe Ruth possessing the whole team and taking every at-bat okay.
The Yankees swept the Brewers, outscoring them 36 to 14, with a batting average of .333 and an on-base plus slugging (OPS) of 1.231, while launching 15 home runs into the sold-out Yankee Stadium crowd.
Fifteen home runs. Tied for the most by a team ever in an opening series.
After their series-sweeping Game 3 win on March 30, the Yankees were on pace to hit 810 home runs this season, absolutely dwarfing the current single-season team record of 307.
The Yankee lineup hit so well in this opening series, I was curious to see what they would look like meshed together. If you scale up the Yankees’ numbers from this series to simulate a full 162 game season for a single player (700 plate appearances), the hypothetical Bronx Bomber would hit 85 home runs, while knocking in 198 runs.
Absolute insanity.
Now what prompted this massive high note to start the Yankees’ season?
Did Manager Aaron Boone instruct the team nutritionist to sneak a concoction of steroids into their supplements? No. Are the Brewers just that bad? Maybe. Did Yankee Stadium’s high school outfield dimensions play a factor? Also maybe. Did the entire lineup eat a well-balanced breakfast before each game? Very likely.
The main culprit for the Yankees’ hot start is none other than their choice of lumber: the Torpedo Bat. Nine of the Yankees’ 15 opening series homers came off the bowling-pin-shaped barrel of the Torpedo, designed by a MIT graduate and physics professor.
The Torpedo Bat shifts more of the bat’s mass toward the barrel, where contact with the ball usually happens. It’s simple physics: more mass at the point of impact means more energy transferred to the ball. That translates to higher exit velocity and harder-hit balls, even on swings that aren’t perfectly squared up.
These bats generate more force at impact without technically breaking any MLB rules. They’re made from a single piece of wood, maintain a smooth, round barrel and fall within the standard size limits — no longer than 42 inches, no wider than 2.61 inches at the thickest point.
The bats certainly give hitters an edge. Now in a scenario where you might get jammed inside fighting off a 0-2 sinker, that pitch catches the barrel. Pitchers now have to be conscious of that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m the opposite of a baseball conservative. In fact, I love robo-umps and think Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. But when the MLB has sped up pitchers with the pitch clock, taken away their ability to get any grip on the baseball, juiced the balls they throw, made it harder to hold runners on base and regulated where their defense can stand — do hitters really need another advantage?
Maybe it’s not as big an advantage as we think. Maybe the Brewers just pitched horribly. The day after the Yankees series ended, Milwaukee lost 11–1 to the Kansas City Royals, who hit two homers in the game. How many with Torpedo bats? None.
Also worth noting: the bats didn’t come out of nowhere. They were used in spring training and approved by MLB following safety evaluations. Commissioner Rob Manfred even said, “They’re absolutely good for baseball.” The league believes they can inject more offense and excitement without crossing any red lines.
As long as the bats aren’t violating the rules, and every team has the choice to use them, I’m for them.
Part of the reason fans had a negative reaction to these bats was because, after all, it was the Yankees, and this is coming from a die-hard Yankee hater. If the Pirates hit 15 home runs in a series with them, we’d be calling it smart baseball. But because it was the Yankees, the conversation immediately shifted to cheating and integrity of the game.
The Torpedo Bat is just the latest tool in that arms race. And unlike some past trends, this one’s legal.
If the bat’s performance flattens out across the season, which it’s likely to do, the early panic will look like another overreaction. But if it continues to turn warning track outs into moonshots, every team will eventually follow suit. Because in a league constantly rebalancing the scales between pitchers and hitters, the Torpedo Bat might just be the next logical swing.
