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The Miami Marlins have a secret weapon on their coaching staff: the man behind the torpedo bat, the early sensation of the 2025 Major League Baseball season.
It's not often a field coordinator is the biggest star on the team, but there's been a ton of attention on Aaron Leanhardt over the past week as the innovative bats he's credited with creating have taken baseball by storm. He's a former physicist with a degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (yes, that would be MIT), and he's behind what could be a hitting revolution.
It all started with his previous team, the New York Yankees, smashing the bejeezus out of the ball in their season-opening series March 27-30. Austin Wells led off their season with a home run. Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge homered on the first three pitches of their second game as part of a team-record nine-dinger day against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Yankees mashed 15 taters in the three-game series, with nine coming from players using a different style of bat (not Judge, though: He said he didn't need it, and who are we to ... well ...).
Thus began the torpedo bat era in earnest, though the style has been seen in MLB before. Suddenly teams were putting in mass orders for the new bats, and reporters were rushing to Leanhardt for an inside look at what this could mean for the sport.
“At the end of the day it’s about the batter not the bat,” Leanhardt said Monday. “It’s about the hitter and their hitting coaches. I’m happy to always help those guys get a little bit better, but ultimately it’s up to them to put good swings and grind it out every day. So credit to those guys.”
Torpedo bats are simply bats that distribute the weight in the barrel differently than traditional bats. Typical bats are slim in the handle, then expand about halfway up and keep that width to the end of the barrel.
But torpedo bats slim down again closer to the end, centering the bat's weight to what's considered the sweet spot of the barrel, where hitters get the most power on their swings. It makes the bats look more like bowling pins, and it's similar to how torpedoes are designed to zip through water, hence the name. A popular theory bouncing around baseball is the torpedo bats also help increase bat speed, but the data is still inconclusive on that front.
Making these bats not as simple as just shifting more of the wood down a couple inches. Philadelphia Phillies infielder Bryson Stott explained the process of getting the bats tailored for each player, saying "it's not just a thing you can just go and order." He also explained why the bats might not be for everyone, depending on where they tend to make contact.
He doesn't like to claim all the credit, but everyone who worked with him credits the torpedo bats to Aaron Leanhardt, currently the Marlins field coordinator under first-year manager Clayton McCullough. The 48-year-old went to the University of Michigan and earned a doctorate in physics at MIT, then went back to teach at Michigan from 2007 to 2014.
Leanhardt made the switch to baseball in 2017 as an assistant coach at community colleges in New Jersey and Montana. The New York Yankees hired him in 2018, and he would work in various roles across their minor league teams until becoming an analyst for the big-league club in 2024.
It is important to note these bats didn't just materialize this year. Giancarlo Stanton used one last year as part of his postseason tear that helped the Yankees reach the World Series. And the Mets' Francisco Lindor used one on his way to finishing second in the NL MVP race. There are also reports of the Diamondbacks' Ketel Marte using a similarly designed bat as far back as 2019, so while Leanhardt deserves credit for the current style of torpedo bat, he's not the only one who thought it up.
The idea for the torpedo bats came about when Leanhardt was the Yankees' minor-league hitting coordinator in 2023 and 2024. According to Yankees announcer Michael Kay, the analytics department realized shortstop Anthony Volpe was routinely making contact on the label of the bat, closer to the thinner part of the bat. So with Leanhardt leading the way, they developed a bat that put more wood at that point to allow him to get more power on this swings.
"I think the eureka moment, really, was when players pointed to where they were trying to hit the ball, and they noticed themselves that that was not the fattest part of the bat," Leanhardt said in an MLB.com interview. “They noticed themselves that the tip was the fattest part of the bat, and then everyone just looked at each other like, 'Well, let's flip it around. It's going to look silly, but are we willing to go with it?'"
The torpedo bats are legal according to Major League Baseball's current rulebook. The rule says bats must be made of one solid piece of wood that's no longer than 42 inches, that's smooth and round, and that has a barrel no wider than 2.61 inches in diameter. The torpedo bats fit all those requirements.
It's important to note the impact of the torpedo bats might not be as extreme as the Yankees' home run outburst against Milwaukee. Their offense was among the best in the majors entering Saturday's games, first in homers with 23 (the Dodgers were second with 19) and slugging percentage at .621 (the Cardinals were far behind at .502). But they won't play every game at hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium, so we'll see how things play out over the long season.
The number seemingly grows every day, with players rushing to order the bats. Some have gotten them but stopped using them. The Phillies' Alec Bohm was seen using a torpedo bat during the team's series earlier this week against the Colorado Rockies, but at the end of Thursday's finale was seen using a classic bat (he got hits with both, in case you were wondering).
Here's an incomplete list of players who have been seen with the torpedo bats:
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Torpedo bats in baseball designed by Miami Marlins' Aaron Leanhardt
Continue reading...
It's not often a field coordinator is the biggest star on the team, but there's been a ton of attention on Aaron Leanhardt over the past week as the innovative bats he's credited with creating have taken baseball by storm. He's a former physicist with a degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (yes, that would be MIT), and he's behind what could be a hitting revolution.
It all started with his previous team, the New York Yankees, smashing the bejeezus out of the ball in their season-opening series March 27-30. Austin Wells led off their season with a home run. Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge homered on the first three pitches of their second game as part of a team-record nine-dinger day against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Yankees mashed 15 taters in the three-game series, with nine coming from players using a different style of bat (not Judge, though: He said he didn't need it, and who are we to ... well ...).
Thus began the torpedo bat era in earnest, though the style has been seen in MLB before. Suddenly teams were putting in mass orders for the new bats, and reporters were rushing to Leanhardt for an inside look at what this could mean for the sport.
“At the end of the day it’s about the batter not the bat,” Leanhardt said Monday. “It’s about the hitter and their hitting coaches. I’m happy to always help those guys get a little bit better, but ultimately it’s up to them to put good swings and grind it out every day. So credit to those guys.”
What are the torpedo bats?
Torpedo bats are simply bats that distribute the weight in the barrel differently than traditional bats. Typical bats are slim in the handle, then expand about halfway up and keep that width to the end of the barrel.
But torpedo bats slim down again closer to the end, centering the bat's weight to what's considered the sweet spot of the barrel, where hitters get the most power on their swings. It makes the bats look more like bowling pins, and it's similar to how torpedoes are designed to zip through water, hence the name. A popular theory bouncing around baseball is the torpedo bats also help increase bat speed, but the data is still inconclusive on that front.
Making these bats not as simple as just shifting more of the wood down a couple inches. Philadelphia Phillies infielder Bryson Stott explained the process of getting the bats tailored for each player, saying "it's not just a thing you can just go and order." He also explained why the bats might not be for everyone, depending on where they tend to make contact.
Who invented torpedo bats?
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He doesn't like to claim all the credit, but everyone who worked with him credits the torpedo bats to Aaron Leanhardt, currently the Marlins field coordinator under first-year manager Clayton McCullough. The 48-year-old went to the University of Michigan and earned a doctorate in physics at MIT, then went back to teach at Michigan from 2007 to 2014.
Leanhardt made the switch to baseball in 2017 as an assistant coach at community colleges in New Jersey and Montana. The New York Yankees hired him in 2018, and he would work in various roles across their minor league teams until becoming an analyst for the big-league club in 2024.
It is important to note these bats didn't just materialize this year. Giancarlo Stanton used one last year as part of his postseason tear that helped the Yankees reach the World Series. And the Mets' Francisco Lindor used one on his way to finishing second in the NL MVP race. There are also reports of the Diamondbacks' Ketel Marte using a similarly designed bat as far back as 2019, so while Leanhardt deserves credit for the current style of torpedo bat, he's not the only one who thought it up.
How did Aaron Leanhardt invent torpedo bats?
The idea for the torpedo bats came about when Leanhardt was the Yankees' minor-league hitting coordinator in 2023 and 2024. According to Yankees announcer Michael Kay, the analytics department realized shortstop Anthony Volpe was routinely making contact on the label of the bat, closer to the thinner part of the bat. So with Leanhardt leading the way, they developed a bat that put more wood at that point to allow him to get more power on this swings.
"I think the eureka moment, really, was when players pointed to where they were trying to hit the ball, and they noticed themselves that that was not the fattest part of the bat," Leanhardt said in an MLB.com interview. “They noticed themselves that the tip was the fattest part of the bat, and then everyone just looked at each other like, 'Well, let's flip it around. It's going to look silly, but are we willing to go with it?'"
Is MLB banning torpedo bats?
The torpedo bats are legal according to Major League Baseball's current rulebook. The rule says bats must be made of one solid piece of wood that's no longer than 42 inches, that's smooth and round, and that has a barrel no wider than 2.61 inches in diameter. The torpedo bats fit all those requirements.
It's important to note the impact of the torpedo bats might not be as extreme as the Yankees' home run outburst against Milwaukee. Their offense was among the best in the majors entering Saturday's games, first in homers with 23 (the Dodgers were second with 19) and slugging percentage at .621 (the Cardinals were far behind at .502). But they won't play every game at hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium, so we'll see how things play out over the long season.
What MLB players use the torpedo bat?
The number seemingly grows every day, with players rushing to order the bats. Some have gotten them but stopped using them. The Phillies' Alec Bohm was seen using a torpedo bat during the team's series earlier this week against the Colorado Rockies, but at the end of Thursday's finale was seen using a classic bat (he got hits with both, in case you were wondering).
Here's an incomplete list of players who have been seen with the torpedo bats:
- Cody Bellinger (Yankees)
- Jazz Chisholm (Yankees)
- Paul Goldschmidt (Yankees)
- Anthony Volpe (Yankees)
- Elly De La Cruz (Reds)
- Oneil Cruz (Pirates)
- Francisco Lindor (Mets)
- Adley Rutschman (Orioles)
- Alec Bohm (Phillies)
- Junior Caminero (Rays)
- Dansby Swanson (Cubs)
- Nico Hoerner (Cubs)
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Torpedo bats in baseball designed by Miami Marlins' Aaron Leanhardt
Continue reading...
