For as much as the New York Yankees’ historic beatdowns of the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday and Sunday in the Bronx left bystanders awe-struck, a few raised eyebrows were sprinkled in, as well.
During a franchise-record nine-home-run outing — which began against former Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes — in just their second game of the 2025 season, the new-look bats of Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm Jr. fell under the spotlight for their peculiar shape.
Rather than the traditional bat, which gradually widens from bottom to top, Volpe and Chisholm had bats that have barrels located closer to their hands, which creates a more rounded middle and a skinnier top.
“The Yankee front office, the analytics department, did a study on Anthony Volpe, and every single ball it seemed like he hit on the label,” Yankees play-by-play Michael Kay said during Saturday’s game on YES Network. “He didn’t hit any on the barrel. So they had bats made up where they moved a lot of the wood into the label, so the harder part of the bat is going to actually strike the ball.”
Michael Kay explains that the Yankees made new bats “where they moved a lot of the wood into the label so the harder part of the bat is going to strike the ball.”
Seems relevant today… pic.twitter.com/cpldzigdrT
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 29, 2025
Both hit home runs during the Yankees’ blowout win, with Volpe hitting one in each of the first two games of the season, which had some questioning the legality of the new hardware.
There is no issue with them, as Major League Baseball confirmed to Chris Kirschner of The Athletic that these bats are legal under the parameters that it measures “not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length.”
This new bat is being labeled as having a “torpedo” barrel, which was developed by MIT physicist Aaron Leanhardt, who took a job with the Yankees’ front office as an analyst.
Former Yankees infielder Kevin Smith shed further insight on the designs:
“MLB has rules on bats like what the weight drop can be, what the density of the wood can be, and how big the barrel can be. Most guys are using bats that aren’t even close to maxing out the barrel size. When Lenny measured my barrel compared to what’s “allowed” I was shocked.
‘You’re going up with a weapon that can be better.” Lenny would say. “Your just-misses could be clips, your clips could be flares, and your flares could be barrels.’ And it was true, it’s fractions of an inch on the barrel differentiating these outcomes.
They also feel a little lighter, there’s more weight closer to your hands so you can swing a heavier bat. It kind of feels like those old wiffle ball bats you used as a kid, the barrel feels MASSIVE the first time you pick it up. But it’s really not THAT big …
It looks really big because the cup of the bat is smaller. Taking some of the wood away from the end (where you don’t really want to hit it anyways) and putting more in the barrel (where you want to hit it more) makes it look even bigger.”
The early returns have been more than promising, to the point that this style of bat could be cropping up around the majors at a rapid pace in the coming years.
