TORPEDO BATS: THE NEW CRAZE

• Posted on 16 May 2025
• By Carl Lemelin
• 0

There’s a new bat in town! Torpedo bats have been the talk of baseball since the Yankees’ early season power surge was linked to some of their power-challenged players switching to the odd-shaped sticks.

By now, you’ve probably heard of them or seen them used in MLB games. Torpedo bats have created quite a buzz since the start of the 2025 season, stemming mainly from the Yankees’ early power surge from unsuspected sources, such as torpedo users Austin Wells, Jazz Chisolm Jr, and Anthony Volpe.

To be clear, “torpedo” isn’t a brand name. Rather, it describes the unconventional shape of these odd-looking sticks. Since nobody has bothered to patent the unconventional barrel design, any bat manufacturer can make torpedo bats.

But how did this all come about, and why are more and more MLB players buying what the torpedo bat has to offer?

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BASEBALL BAT

The torpedo shaped barrel isn’t the first innovation to revolutionize the baseball bat. When it first appeared, some wondered if the torpedo bat was even legal. The answer is yes.

The MLB rulebook specifies that “bats must be made of one piece of solid wood, no longer than 42 inches, smooth and round, and have a barrel no wider than 2.61 inches in diameter.” Nowhere in there does it say WHERE the barrel must be at its widest. And, by the way, a 42-inch bat? Really?

The baseball bat has seen many innovations since the turn of the 20^th century, but perhaps the strangest ever design came around 1890, when the banana bat made its first appearance. It featured a curved barrel (banana shaped) that was intended to impart more spin to the ball on contact to make it more difficult to field. Obviously, the evolution of fielding gloves, combined with better athletes and fielding technique, would later make this awkward shape obsolete.

The next invention was the mushroom bat, which had a mushroom-shaped knob on its handle. This was meant to better distribute the weight of the bat throughout its entire length, thus improving barrel control.

Then came the Wright & Ditson Lajoie bat, displaying a sharp taper into the barrel, but also a double-knob handle, designed for hitters like Ty Cobb, who had a separated hands grip. The knob in the middle of the handle also allowed a better grip for hitters who liked to choke the bat. This model had contact efficiency and a huge sweet spot as its intended benefits.

More recently – the mid 2000’s – Axe Bat introduced the Axe Handle to the market. Dustin Pedroia was the first MLB player to use the modified knob in games. The more ergonomic handle was proven to be so effective that Pedroia would later get many of his Red Sox teammates to also make the switch. Today, many pros wield Axe bats, which use an axe handle-shaped knob to create a freer, more controlled move to the ball.

The key feature of the Axe Handle is its oval shape – as opposed to the round shape of a standard knob – which eliminates the negative space (or empty space) from the bottom (or strong) hand grip. The Axe Handle also allows for a more natural release on the follow-through compared to a conventional knob, which can dig into the meaty outer part of the bottom hand.

WHY A TORPEDO BAT?

Like most recent innovations in the world of elite baseball, the idea behind the unconventional shape of torpedo bats was derived from advanced analytics.

It all started in 2022 with a man called Aaron Leanhardt – nicknamed “El Torpedo” – who is the current Marlins’ field coordinator. Back then, he was working for the Yankees as a liaison coach. Leanhardt would work with the players and report back to the Yanks’ analytics department with the feedback he would get.

It is in that capacity, doing video analysis with hitters that he started noticing most of them were hitting the ball where the barrel started to taper toward the handle, instead of on the fattest part – near the end of the barrel.

Eventually the thought came to mind: “What if we flip the barrel shape, so the fat part of the barrel is where most balls are hit?”

More mass equals more momentum and higher exit velocities. Additionally, putting more mass closer to the hands creates a lighter swing weight, which results in higher bat speeds. It just made too much sense to Leanhardt not to give it the old college try. So, they did.

The manufacturers the players worked with got to work, tweaking the design several times using the pros’ feedback with every incremental adjustment, until the current shape we see in MLB games became the consensus.

Analytics-driven players like J.D. Martinez and Josh Donalson had been using similarly “torpedo” shaped bats in training, but it is only during the 2024 season that the actual torpedo bats made their first appearance – although largely unnoticed – in games.

Only early in this 2025 campaign did the torpedo bats become a cultural phenomenon when many Yankees players started using them on a regular basis. In fact, torpedo user Austin Wells launched the Bronx Bombers’ season in style with a leadoff blast in a 4-2 win over the Brewers.

The surge continued with a historic 3-back-to-back-to-back homer and 4-homer first inning in Game 2. Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger, and Aaron Judge got the fireworks going, before Wells hit another dinger with 2 outs, his second in as many games.

Add to that Chisholm Jr’s 3 bombs in 3 games, Volpe’s 4 in 5, and you know there was going to be significant noise surrounding the use of torpedo bats in MLB.

IS THE TORPEDO GOOD FOR EVERYONE?

The torpedo bat concept is all based on where most hitters make contact more often.

The same reasoning goes into metal/composite bat designs, where the sweet spot is in the middle of the barrel. Designers must keep wood bats as close to the drop 3 (weight-to-length ratio) standard as possible, which explains why traditional wood bats have a smaller sweet spot that is closer to the end because of the shorter barrels.

That also explains why BBCOR (-3) metal/composite bats are more forgiving than traditional wood bats, even though they were designed to replicate the same exit velocities – the sweet spot is not only bigger but also positioned where most contacts are known to happen.

So, are torpedo bats likely to help anyone’s game? Of course!

With the Axe Handle, the science told us the same thing. The new knob could free up all hitters’ swings. The issue with the innovative handle is that it completely changes the conventional feel of the bat grip, which makes it too awkward for some.

Conversely, torpedo bats feel just like a traditional balanced wood bat, and you can incorporate any knob or handle type to the model design. That makes it a less awkward adjustment for hitters who are more change adverse.

WE’VE GOT THEM (OF COURSE WE DO!)

You already know that Baseball Town’s mission is to always have the pulse of the baseball industry and to offer our customers the very best and most innovative products.

That’s why we were right on this torpedo bat craze from the start. We quickly found a partner in B45 that could produce MLB quality torpedo bats for us. These Pro Select yellow birch beauties currently come in 3 models, but that selection will eventually expand.

Our original booking of torpedoes arrived May 7^th and 35 were sold just within a week!

Only a few remain in stock, so the buzz is real, and you know it will just keep growing. If a bat can help improve your game, why not give it a try?

Click here to start shopping or visit one of our three Baseball Town locations and give your hitting the boost you’ve been searching for today!

Stay tuned for more shipments of torpedo bats to come…