Photo: Mike Stobe/Getty Images
For all the Shohei Ohtani worship or Paul Skenes hype, nothing in baseball breaks through to the broader public like the possibility of a cheating scandal. Think steroids, Pete Rose betting on his own team, or the Astros’ “banging scheme.” Baseball is more amenable to cheating than some other sports, since it doesn’t require — or at least rely upon — superior athleticism, thus making it easy to gain any sort of edge you can around the margins. And the sport feels uniquely vulnerable to the damage cheating can wreak, since fans still hold on to a romantic notion that baseball should be “pure,” despite the fact that it has never been free of rule-bending or outright deception.
So the minute I saw reports that the Yankees were using a “new” kind of bat, and that they’d used that bat to smash 12 homers and score 36 runs in a season-opening sweep over the Brewers, I knew we were in for it. When a sport is as steeped in lore as baseball is, innovation — whether it’s medical, technological, or just analytical — will always initially be treated as scandalous. Even if it’s not. If you’ve glanced at the news, saw a headline or two, and thought, Those damn Yankees are cheating again, well, here’s a quick FAQ to let you know what’s going on.
So what are these bats, exactly?
They’re not made of Vibranium or anything. They’re regular wooden bats, made out of the same kind of trees as every other bat. The difference is their shape. The barrel, or “sweet spot” — a.k.a. the place where hitters try to hit the ball — is simply larger. You know those plastic wiffle-ball bats you owned as a kid, the beginner’s version of which had a comically large section in the middle that made it hard for any 3-year-old to swing and miss? These things? The Yankees’ bats are a very scientific version of those, but adjusted for the Major Leagues.
Yes, the Yankees have a literal genius MIT Physicist, Lenny (who is the man), on payroll. He invented the “Torpedo” barrel. It brings more wood – and mass – to where you most often make contact as a hitter. The idea is to increase the number of “barrels” and decrease misses. pic.twitter.com/CsC1wkAM9G
— Kevin Smith (@KJS_4) March 29, 2025
The bats are essentially the invention of an MIT physicist named Aaron Leanhardt, who worked for the Yankees before becoming the Marlins’ field coordinator during the offseason (Note: I am not personally sure what being a “field coordinator” involves.) Leanhardt, in an interview with The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty on Sunday, explained that “it’s just about making the bat as heavy and as fat as possible in the area where you’re trying to do damage on the baseball.”
Are they legal?
One hundred percent. MLB rules simply say that “bats cannot be more than 2.61 inches in diameter and 42 inches in length.” There is no rule dictating that one part of the bat cannot be thicker than any other part.
Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
It’s unclear. Leanhardt wondered the same, saying in the Athletic interview it’s “the nature of our business” that it took so long to innovate. That’s a very nice way of saying, “Baseball people don’t think a lot about bat design.” It’s also possible no one thought it was legal.
Is there a cute nickname for the bats?
Of course. They’re known as “torpedo” bats. This does make one think they will be particularly effective against submarine pitchers.
Are they unfair? Are the Yankees cheating?
First off, this weekend wasn’t the first time the Yankees have used torpedo bats. They were in constant rotation throughout spring training, and shortstop Anthony Volpe even used one late in the 2024 regular season. Nobody noticed or cared. So why the uproar now? Because the Yankees went absolute apeshit over the opening weekend, bashing Brewers pitchers all over (and out of) Yankee Stadium, including poor former Yankee Nestor Cortes, who gave up homers on the first three pitchers he threw. Two of those homers came from new Yankees Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger, both of whom used the torpedo bats. Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Austin Wells also partook and also homered. (Aaron Judge is not a torpedo-bat user, which, it should be said, did not stop him from hitting four homers over the weekend.)
The Yankees are the only team with access to torpedo bats right now, but it’s not like they’re proprietary or anything. The notion of maximizing the impact of hitting the ball with the barrel of the bat has been a part of bat design since there were bats. “If you were around the clubhouse, all 30 teams, you would see a guy or two that’s adopting a bat that’s kind of fashioned more specifically to their swing,” Orioles batting coach Cody Asche said over the weekend. With the success the Yankees have had so far this season, you can be sure that more and more torpedo bats will start showing up throughout baseball. There is nothing untoward about it, except maybe the team wealth disparity on display: A nice thing about being one of the richest organizations in sports is that you can afford to put an MIT physicist on staff and see if he can big-brain you up something fancy.
Are the bats really making much difference?
It’s too early to tell. It should be said that Yankees hitters were already good before they used the bats (and of course their best hitter, Judge, isn’t using them). Kevin Smith, a former ballplayer and now an equipment designer, pointed out that “obviously, it’s not going to make you an elite hitter if you aren’t already (I tried). But for the best in the world, any slight advantage could be the difference.” The Yankees hit those homers because they are good baseball players. But Leanhardt, who believes all of baseball will be using the bats in the next five years (which is the sort of thing the guy who invented them would probably say), posits that the bats themselves are all upside: “Ultimately, you’re getting a fatter barrel, a heavier barrel at the sweet spot. So in some sense, you can have your cake and eat it here too. You can get some gains without actually making sacrifices.”
Is there any downside?
You might want to ask Giancarlo Stanton, who blamed “some bat adjustments” to the torn ligaments in his wrists that landed him on the injured list. Then again, Giancarlo Stanton is always on the injured list.
Is this going to become a whole thing with the Yankees? Are people going to try to credit any success they have to the “juiced” bats?
Probably, but that won’t make those people right. First off, everyone will be using the bats soon (except Judge, apparently), so it won’t just be a Yankees thing. More to the point: There will be a stretch when the Yankees barely hit any homers for, like, a week, and everybody will forget all about this. The baseball season is very long, after all. But for a good juicy topic to kick things off — to get everybody dialed up for a pretend scandal — you couldn’t ask for a better one. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
