As the new MLB season got underway, the torpedo bats, their usage, and now questions over their legality within the game have become one of its immediate, and in turn, controversial talking points.
It started with the New York Yankees and their home-opening series against the Milwaukee Brewers in the Bronx. Cody Bellinger, Jazz Chisholm, Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Volpe, and Austin Wells stepped up to the plate at Yankee Stadium with curiously shaped bats that had the barrels of them spotted further down, which Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay called attention to during the team's TV broadcast.
New York proceeded to hit a major league-leading 15 home runs through the weekend; Chisholm, not previously known for being a power hitter, took three into the seats; and baseball at large seemed to take notice quick, including the Phillies.
Alec Bohm had a torpedo bat for the Phillies' home opener at Citizens Bank Park on Monday, and singled with it to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning – though the third baseman did go 1-for-4 with a strikeout in the club's 6-1 win over the Colorado Rockies.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson said pregame that the bats were brought to his attention, that the team is looking more into them, and that he would be interested in letting players test it out, as Bohm did later that day.
Bryson Stott, in the clubhouse with a media scrum surrounding him, got more into the specifics.
The second baseman said that while fans might be seeing them now, they aren't exactly a new thing. He added that they have their pros and cons depending on what kind of hitter a player is, too, and that while they take a different shape from a typical bat, they're "totally legal."
Said Stott in full, via 94WIP's Devan Kaney:
"They've been around. It's not a new thing. It's been around, and it's not a thing you could just go and order. [Bat manufacturers Marucci and Victus] have a hit lab, they call it, and connect all these wires to you, you swing a thousand bats, and they kind of tell you where you're hitting the ball mostly and things like that. So if you're a guy who uses the whole bat, if you get jammed and hit it on the end and hit the barrel, it's not for you. You've taken wood off the end of the bat and shrinking that part…It's a lot of stuff that goes into it…
"So I think with the torpedo, you get jammed more hitting off the end than it helps. Obviously, you're moving the barrel down a little bit, and yeah, but it's not one of those things you could just call and say 'I want this torpedo,' because it might not work for you. If you hit it off the end with that torpedo bat, you're in trouble. It's mostly where you hit it and where all their computers and things are telling you where you're hitting it and things like that." [94WIP]
I asked Bryson Stott about the torpedo bats and if they are something the Phillies have discussed using in-game.
He said he has already texted his guy at Victus about it: pic.twitter.com/uxK71wBmwY— Devan Kaney (@Devan_Kaney) March 31, 2025
Stott said he has been in those hit labs before and that he has texted Jared Smith, the CEO of the King of Prussia-based Victus, about the torpedo bats and how they work.
He was also pretty clear about where he thinks they stand: They're fair game.
"It's a bat," Stott said (again via Kaney). "You can move the barrel on a normal-looking bat, you can move it down, you can move it up. It's just all where – there's certain qualifications that it has to be within x amount of inches of the barrel, they call it, and, yeah, it's totally legal.
"I think people are starting to see the torpedo now that there were 100 homers hit in three games for the Yankees, but no, it's a legal bat. If you get jammed a lot, why not use it?"
There might be a few Phillies who could be in the mix to.
"I just heard about it midweek, watching it on social media," Thomson said. "I wasn't even sure it was a thing, but I guess it is. We're looking into it, [hitting coach Kevin Long] has made a couple of calls and we'll see what it's all about…It's interesting for sure."
*Evan Macy contributed to this story.
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