MILWAUKEE — One after another, baseballs left Yankee Stadium Saturday afternoon during New York’s 20-9 drubbing of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers had the inauspicious honor of becoming the first team in MLB history to surrender three home runs on the first three pitches of a game.
While baseball fans and media in Milwaukee were reacting to a disappointing effort on the field, nationally the conversation was focused not on the home runs themselves, but the apparatus used to send them over the outfield wall at such a blistering pace.
What’s become known as the “torpedo bat” owes its existence to the work of Aaron Leanhardt, a former University of Michigan physics professor who transitioned to baseball in 2018 as a minor league hitting coach for the Yankees organization before working his way up to a member of their analytics department.
According to MLB Rule 3.02, bats cannot be more than 2.61 inches in diameter and 42 inches in length. Additionally, there may be a cupped indentation up to 1 1/4 inches in depth, 2 inches wide and with at least a 1-inch diameter on the bat. Major League Baseball confirmed over the weekend that the bats do not violate league rules.
But the question remains whether the bats will become the new normal at the professional level, or will merely be a passing fad akin to such interesting tidbits as when bats were allowed to have one flat side like in cricket from 1885 to 1893, or when walks counted as hits for one year back in 1887 (fun fact: nine players hit .400 that season).
“The sample size is too small,” says Aaron Lenz, president of A.J. Lenz & Son, a father-son duo designing wood bats in Newberg, Wisconsin since 2021. He says the thought process behind the torpedo bat is to to tailor the piece of sporting goods equipment to a particular player and their playing style, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
“The sweet spot is where the sensation in the hands is least and the batter ball speed is highest. So what they’re doing is they’re moving the mass of the barrel down the bat toward the handle, and placing it where that player is striking the ball.” Lenz tells WTMJ.
Lenz says after years of pitchers adjusting their delivery and pitch style to drop the league’s batting average to its fifth-lowest total in history last year (tied with 1884 and 2022), the torpedo bat could be a potential response to try and turn the tables.
“[Leanhardt] applied his knowledge of acoustics of wood to a wood baseball bat and made some adjustments that are within the parameters embraced by the Major League Baseball rules and regulations,” says Lenz.
As for the players and members of the Brewers front office, the jury’s still out on whether the torpedo bat will become the new norm in the Milwaukee clubhouse.
“I don’t think it’s as big a deal as it’s being made out to be, but if it can give you a little bit of an advantage then for sure it’s worth trying,” Brewers second baseman Oliver Dunn told WTMJ’s Wisconsin’s Morning News on Monday.
“People are making a lot of noise about that, but last time I checked Aaron Judge was using just his regular old bat and he didn’t have trouble hitting the ball really, really far,” added Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger. “It’s not the bats. When you’ve got talented players like the Yankees and our pitcher’s not hitting their spots, things are going to happen well for them and poor for us. Turn the page.”
Lenz added it’s very possible the Yankees just had a beat on Nestor Cortes Saturday; the 30-year-old southpaw has spent five of his eight MLB seasons in the Bronx, including his stint from 2021 to 2024 before his acquisition by the Brewers in December.
“I know a few guys that did it last year. I don’t think it matters to me. I get the science and technology behind it. I don’t know. It really doesn’t bother me,” Cortes said during media availability Sunday.
The Yankees aren’t the only MLB squad to utilize the torpedo bats: members of Chicago Cubs, Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays have all confirmed at least some of their players use them as well, while the Boston Red Sox experimented with the bats during spring training.
As for Milwaukee, it remains to be seen whether or not the torpedo bat will have a home in the third base dugout at American Family Field, with Lenz adding it ultimately comes down to what works best for each batter.
“If the physics makes sense, but it doesn’t make sense to the player, it won’t work.”
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