By ALLI SCHIEBER
Editor-in-Chief
Major League Baseball officially started their season on March 27 and with the start of the season there was also some controversy.
The controversy starts with the New York Yankees using a new type of bat which is called the torpedo bat and then hitting nine home runs in the second game of the season.
People began to wonder if it was because of the torpedo bats they were using.
This means the Yankees are tied with the Cincinnati Reds for the second most home runs in a game with the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays still holding the record of 10 in a single game.
While the torpedo bat is designed to be heavier and fatter to where you are trying to hit the ball at. Players who have used the new bats say it feels like a regular bat and they just swing the same according to CNN.
The bat was invented by Aaron Leanhardt who is an MIT physicist and was an analyst for the Yankees at the time he designed the torpedo bat and he is now the field coordinator for the Miami Marlins.
However, not just Yankees or Marlin players use the bat which I think is one of the most crucial thing people are leaving out when talking about the new design.
Several players from other teams have also switched to the torpedo bats including players from the Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles as well as several other teams in the league.
ESPN’s Buster Olney also reported on “Sunday Night Baseball” that the Atlanta Braves order some of the torpedo bats after seeing the Yankees historic nine homeruns on March 29.
Another crucial thing to note is that not every Yankee player uses the new bats and Aaron Judge who hit three of the nine or 1/3 of the homeruns in the second game was using a normal bat and does not plan to switch to the torpedo bats.
These bat designs did not just happen over night though they have been in the process of designing them since 2023.
The bat has also passed every league test and is legal to use as the manufacturer had to have the design approved by the MLB before players are able to use them.
The rules also state that “The bat shall be a smooth round stick not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length.
The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.” So as long as the design meets those requirements, I see them remaining in the league and more and more players switching to them.
It did not just take the work of getting the bat approved by the league though it also took a lot of work to come up with the perfect design.
“It was a feedback loop,” Leanhardt said in an article with the MLB. “There’s many different makes and models that have gone through theism process, some of which never saw the field of play, and some of which are, obviously, hitting a lot of home runs right now.”
While creating this bat Leanhardt had players that would provide their opinion and feedback on the design.
Leanhardt calls these players “Patient Zeros.”
While I understand why some players in the league are skeptical of the new bats, I do think that they are not going to go away any time soon as they are not breaking any rules.
I believe the league will gain a lot of backlash whether they leave them in or ban them.