NEW YORK — It’s not the wand. It’s the wizard. Or, well, maybe it’s both.
One thing is certain: The New York Yankees are not cheating. They are not breaking — or even bending — the rules. Their so-called “torpedo bats” that have gone viral in recent days are completely legal. In fact, a handful of other players around the league used the oddly shaped bats over MLB’s opening weekend. That number will almost certainly rise in the coming days. But unfortunately for conspiracy theorists and tin-foil-hat wearers, there is no secret Yankees bat laboratory hidden beneath the 4 train.
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These new-age sticks made news over the weekend amid a historic offensive barrage by the Yankees’ offense. On Saturday, New York hitters blasted nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers, the highest single-game tally in the franchise’s 122-year history. A day later, the Bombers went deep four more times in a series-sweeping 12-3 drubbing.
Yet it was not the sluggers but their equipment that made headlines.
The bats do look extraordinarily bizarre — abnormal, misshapen. Instead of a barrel that maintains an even circumference down the grain, as has been the norm for decades in professional baseball, the torpedo bats feature a thicker sweet spot before thinning off again toward the end. The result, in theory, is a piece of wood with more mass distributed in the specific location where contact is made. And if you remember anything from high school physics: Force equals mass times acceleration.
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“The concept makes so much sense,” Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe told reporters before Sunday’s game. The 24-year-old is off to a hot start in 2025, with home runs in the first two games of the season. “I know I’m bought in. The bigger you can have the barrel where you hit the ball, it makes sense to me.”
Volpe was one of four Yankees to go yard with the unusual lumber over the weekend, along with Austin Wells, Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger. Meanwhile, reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge, who has already cranked four homers this season, was less convinced. That’s understandable, considering the titanic outfielder has launched a league-leading 161 long balls since 2022.
“What I did the past couple of seasons speaks for itself,” the Yankees captain explained. “Why try to change something if you have something that’s working?”
Judge’s is a rational line of thinking, but for the mere mortals across MLB, the new tech has real appeal. Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero and Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers were two other big leaguers seen using the bats on Sunday. And while the advent of these bats has been credited to former Yankees hitting analyst and current Miami Marlins field coordinator Aaron Leanhardt, various MLB sources told Yahoo Sports that multiple other teams have been working on similar technology for some time.
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A number of bat companies already manufacture torpedo bats, including Victus Sports, which teased its version on Instagram on Sunday. Players typically have deals with specific bat makers, who then coordinate with the player to find a model that works best for them. High-profile players, such as Volpe, will occasionally dig deeper, crafting a custom bat specialized in categories such as weighting, balance, thickness and density. The process, to its advocates, is similar to club fitting in golf, in which equipment is specifically tailored to its user.
