On Sunday, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt hit a lead off home run for the New York Yankees against the Milwaukee Brewers.
It was one of a record-tying 15 home runs that a Yankees player has hit in the team’s first three games of the 2025 season.
One potential cause? Torpedo bats.
A typical bat is an even cylinder along the barrel and batters can hit anywhere along that surface.
The torpedo bat is instead wider where players make the most frequent contact with the baseball. It redistributes weight from the tip of the bat to where players make contact, but it also means each bat has to be custom designed for the player’s specific swing.
To the naked eye, the bat’s appear wider but MLB confirmed on Sunday that the bats are legal under current rules.
Thomas Johnson, Annenberg Media’s managing sports editor, questions whether the new bats change the sport to rely too heavily on technology.
“Athletes want to have the best possible opportunity to do the best they possibly can, but when it becomes technology that’s doing it for them?” Johnson said. “What’s the difference between a robot hitting a home run and a human being hitting home run?”
MLB.com and ESPN have reported that other teams’ batters have been seen with torpedo bats since, and even a few instances before then. But none as frequently as the Yankees on Sunday.
The novel bats are still the talk of players, fans and analysts around the league. Johnson believes regardless of the amount of usage, the bats will indeed change the game.
“No matter what, it’s definitely going to have an effect on the game,” Johnson said. “I could see it being good, more home runs, more fans get excited about it. Could also see it on the inverse, it being bad. Fans are like, ‘Ah, another home run. Cool. What’s the game now?’ We’re just going to hit home runs. Every nine batters can hit one home run with these torpedo bats. I think it’s probably the latter.”
Another controversial tactic, meanwhile, this time in the NFL, got a reprieve this week. NFL owners voted yesterday to table a vote to ban the Tush Push.
In the Tush Push, players line up behind the quarterback to push them forward and try to gain the necessary yardage.
The move was popularized by the Philadelphia Eagles who were the winners of this year’s Super Bowl.
The Green Bay Packers proposed the ban in late February.
Despite calls in both leagues to reevaluate the practices, Johnson sees the Tush Push as different than the bats.
“The tush push is people doing something with a strategy. Torpedo bats is technology doing something because there’s a good technology,” Johnson said. “People want to see athletic performances. They want to see players doing their possible best.”
Tabling the ban means the Tush Push will be reevaluated in May.