MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

Adding yet another thing for neurodivergent fans of baseball to argue over is fun! That said, some of this must be statistical anomaly. Let’s give it at least a few hundred at-bats per player using it.

If you look at an exhibit of bats over time, you will see that size, weight, width and shape have all varied quite a bit between players even if on the same team and era, and this makes me skeptical that some new shape is really going to invalidate every baseball stadium’s length and field overnight. If it does, MLB will outlaw it. See aluminum bats for example.

I’m not saying MIT physicists can’t help hitters with going deep, I bet they can. But given the tools at their disposal - bat shape in this case - I’m skeptical that they are going to create a new era of hitting for all. I guess we’ll see soon.

> Let’s give it at least a few hundred at-bats per player using it.

Indeed, and lets also test against other ''new'' bat designs and materials i.e. graphene, carbon fibre, etc. so that we can hopefully ban them pre-emptively if they show improvements that are statistically above the latest trends in human effort and talent.

Contrary to the implication of the comment you’re replying to, MLB has always mandated bats be made of solid wood. Aluminum bats have never been allowed and have never been used. Bats made of other materials like the ones you mention would also not be allowed. This new “torpedo” bat is made of solid wood, just in a new shape.

Thanks for the clarification. https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1freiuv/recalling... this April fool’s video will give fun nostalgia. I guess the most accurate thing to say is that MLB at least thought about it for a second, long enough to get Jose Canseco to pretend it was happening.