After the primary weekend of MLB’s 2025 season, the factor everyone seems to be speaking about is bats. The New York Yankees‘ bats, particularly, because of their use of a current innovation in baseball {hardware}. The “torpedo” bat is a more recent design, and was in use earlier than 2025. However after a weekend wherein the Yankees’ offense dominated, it is getting extra consideration now than ever earlier than.
Whereas the Yankees’ use of the bats has been criticized by some, Colin Cowherd would not assume they need to face scrutiny. In actual fact, he is in favor of the torpedo bats, declaring that the actual downside folks have is with which group this sudden curiosity arose from.
“Everyone’s freaking out, and I feel they’re actually freaking out as a result of it is the Yankees. If this was the Rays, or the Diamondbacks, it would not be almost the story,” Cowherd stated on Monday’s “The Herd.” “[Anthony] Volpe was struggling to hit, and they also did one thing completely authorized, and it has been an enormous house run.”
That legality has been the purpose of competition for followers simply listening to concerning the torpedoes. However as Cowherd stated, these torpedo bats are authorized: They don’t go in opposition to MLB’s guidelines for bat dimensions, as they merely shifted the burden of the bat to a spot the place it might, in concept, be higher utilized by the participant swinging it.
As FOX Sports activities’ Deesha Thosar put it, the bat “resembles a bowling pin as a result of the barrel was moved a bit of additional down and nearer to the label. The bat form is uniquely designed for every hitter’s candy spot, or the realm on the bat the place he most frequently makes contact with the ball. If a hitter is used to hitting the ball on the label, the torpedo bats are designed so that there’s extra wooden — and extra mass — in that candy spot.”
Thosar additionally reported that, per a league supply, the bats don’t “violate the Official Baseball Guidelines or the Bat Provider Rules.” Yankees’ second baseman Jazz Chisolm Jr. echoed that fact on social media on Monday morning.
“Okay rationalization the barrel is greater and inside mlb regulation! For the idiots that say it is moved to the label you are an fool! No person is making an attempt to get jammed you simply transfer the wooden from the elements you do not use to the elements you do! You are welcome no extra stress for y’all !” Chisholm wrote.
Because the Yankees are enjoying inside the guidelines, Cowherd made a cross-sport comparability, believing they’re pulling a web page out of a legendary soccer coach’s playbook.
“You realize what that is? It is peak Invoice Belichick,” Cowherd stated. “He is aware of the rule ebook higher than you do … all of the Yankees did [was shift] weight from the barrel. They did not make the diameter unlawful, they did not shift the size of it. They only barely shifted it.”
Whereas this may result in a revolution in bat design, Cowherd factors out that “not each batter wants it,” a bunch that features the Yankees’ foremost slugger, Aaron Judge. That would change with time, nevertheless.
“We have seen this with golf and tennis, seen improvements. And my tackle sports activities has at all times been push the envelope,” Cowherd stated.
That seems to be what the Yankees — and another membership that is been using the torpedo-style bats — are doing. In the event that they proceed to hit like they’ve to start out the season — as Cowherd notes, they’re first in virtually each offensive class after a robust opening weekend — then possibly increasingly more of the remainder of the league shall be utilizing these bowling pins to hit baseballs, too.
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