Connect with us

Published

on

MIAMI — Don Mattingly wants what’s best for the Miami Marlins, what’s best for him and what’s best for his family.

And he decided that means it’s time to move on.

Mattingly will not be back as manager of the Marlins next season, announcing Sunday that he and team officials have decided a new voice is needed to lead the club going forward.

Mattingly’s contract expires when the season ends. He said he met with Marlins principal owner Bruce Sherman and general manager Kim Ng to talk about the future, and “all parties agreed” it’s time for a change.

“I think always, you try to follow your heart,” Mattingly said Sunday. “And that’s what I do. Honestly, you know what’s inside of you and you try to be deliberate and let things work through, and you just follow your heart and you know when it’s the right thing.”

His short-term plan, after the season ends: Spending time with family at his home in Evansville, Indiana. After that, whatever happens, happens.

“I am proud and honored to have served as manager of the Marlins for the past seven years and have enjoyed my experiences and relationships I’ve developed within the organization,” Mattingly said.

Mattingly, the club’s all-time leader in managerial wins by a wide margin, is finishing his seventh season with the Marlins. He’s 437-584 in Miami, with one winning season in those seven years — a 31-29 mark in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, when the team made its first playoff appearance since 2003.

“In general, the clubs I’ve had have always played hard,” Mattingly said. “I’ve always felt proud of that.”

His decision means a season that started with a big shakeup for Miami now ends with another. In February, Hall of Famer Derek Jeter — who had been Miami’s CEO, the first Black person in baseball history to hold that role with a franchise — announced a surprise departure after 4½ mostly unsuccessful years that didn’t come remotely close to matching his success as a player for the New York Yankees.

Now comes the Mattingly move, which means someone else will be in charge when the team gathers for spring training.

“Donnie is one of my favorites,” Washington manager Dave Martinez said Sunday. “We go way back, played against him. He’s just a really good baseball man. I love him to death. I learned a lot from him, watching and competing against him for many years.”

The 61-year-old Mattingly has managed for 12 seasons, the first five with the Los Angeles Dodgers. All five of those Dodgers clubs had winning records, three of them making the playoffs.

The Marlins were hoping for similar success, but it didn’t happen as planned. Mattingly was the NL Manager of the Year in 2020 after getting Miami to the playoffs, but other than that, the franchise has been in a mode of constant rebuilding.

“We are fortunate to have had Don Mattingly leading our team on the field over the last seven years,” Sherman said. “He has represented the Marlins, our players, our fans, and the South Florida community with unmatched dignity and pride.”

Sunday’s news came on the sixth anniversary of the darkest day in team history, when Marlins ace Jose Fernandez and two other people died when their 32-foot boat slammed into a jetty off Miami Beach on Sept. 25, 2016.

The charismatic, exuberant Fernandez, who was beloved in Miami’s Latin community and touted as the future of the franchise, went 38-17 in his four seasons with the club, winning the NL Rookie of the Year award in 2013 and being named a two-time All-Star.

Fernandez’s death, which came at the end of Mattingly’s first season, set the Marlins back. But Mattingly guided them through, ending what was a 17-year playoff drought in 2020.

“Donnie’s just the consummate professional and a tremendous person,” Ng said during Sunday’s game. “He’s led the organization through some pretty tough times, particularly early in his tenure, then in the last couple of years with the pandemic and the lockout.”

Ng said the decision came after a series of conversations between Mattingly and the front office, with the soon-to-be-former skipper deciding not to pursue a new contract and the team deciding it wouldn’t be offering one.

“This year was very disappointing,” Ng said. “We had a lot of bad luck in terms of injuries. The record is not indicative of the talent that we have. We have to do a lot of introspection in terms of our processes and operations on how we fix that. I’m still optimistic about what we’ve got here.”

The Marlins haven’t spent a day in first place since Aug. 16, 2020. Outside of a few random April days, they haven’t seen first place in a regular 162-game season since June 2014. And this season will mark the 12th time in the past 13 years that they’ll finish with a losing record.

“I don’t know what his plans are moving forward, but he will be missed,” Martinez said. “I wish him all the best.”

This much is clear: Mattingly’s revelation on Sunday wasn’t a retirement announcement.

“I feel great,” Mattingly said. “My mind still works. Some of you guys might argue differently at times, but I feel like my mind works good. My body feels great, still feel good. So, I don’t want to go sit on the couch, that’s for sure.”

Continue Reading

Sports

What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB’s hottest trend

Published

on

By

What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB's hottest trend

The opening weekend of the 2025 MLB season was taken over by a surprise star — torpedo bats.

The bowling pin-shaped bats became the talk of the sport after the Yankees’ home run onslaught on the first Saturday of the season put it in the spotlight and the buzz hasn’t slowed since.

What exactly is a torpedo bat? How does it help hitters? And how is it legal? Let’s dig in.

Read: An MIT-educated professor, the Yankees and the bat that could be changing baseball


What is a torpedo bat and why is it different from a traditional MLB bat?

The idea of the torpedo bat is to take a size format — say, 34 inches and 32 ounces — and distribute the wood in a different geometric shape than the traditional form to ensure the fattest part of the bat is located where the player makes the most contact. Standard bats taper toward an end cap that is as thick diametrically as the sweet spot of the barrel. The torpedo bat moves some of the mass on the end of the bat about 6 to 7 inches lower, giving it a bowling-pin shape, with a much thinner end.


How does it help hitters?

The benefits for those who like swinging with it — and not everyone who has swung it likes it — are two-fold. Both are rooted in logic and physics. The first is that distributing more mass to the area of most frequent contact aligns with players’ swing patterns and provides greater impact when bat strikes ball. Players are perpetually seeking ways to barrel more balls, and while swings that connect on the end of the bat and toward the handle probably will have worse performance than with a traditional bat, that’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make for the additional slug. And as hitters know, slug is what pays.

The second benefit, in theory, is increased bat speed. Imagine a sledgehammer and a broomstick that both weigh 32 ounces. The sledgehammer’s weight is almost all at the end, whereas the broomstick’s is distributed evenly. Which is easier to swing fast? The broomstick, of course, because shape of the sledgehammer takes more strength and effort to move. By shedding some of the weight off the end of the torpedo bat and moving it toward the middle, hitters have found it swings very similarly to a traditional model but with slightly faster bat velocity.


Why did it become such a big story so early in the 2025 MLB season?

Because the New York Yankees hit nine home runs in a game Saturday and Michael Kay, their play-by-play announcer, pointed out that some of them came from hitters using a new bat shape. The fascination was immediate. While baseball, as an industry, has implemented forward-thinking rules in recent seasons, the modification to something so fundamental and known as the shape of a bat registered as bizarre. The initial response from many who saw it: How is this legal?


OK. How is this legal?

Major League Baseball’s bat regulations are relatively permissive. Currently, the rules allow for a maximum barrel diameter of 2.61 inches, a maximum length of 42 inches and a smooth and round shape. The lack of restrictions allows MLB’s authorized bat manufacturers to toy with bat geometry and for the results to still fall within the regulations.


Who came up with the idea of using them?

The notion of a bowling-pin-style bat has kicked around baseball for years. Some bat manufacturers made smaller versions as training tools. But the version that’s now infiltrating baseball goes back two years when a then-Yankees coach named Aaron Leanhardt started asking hitters how they should counteract the giant leaps in recent years made by pitchers.

When Yankees players responded that bigger barrels would help, Leanhardt — an MIT-educated former Michigan physics professor who left academia to work in the sports industry — recognized that as long as bats stayed within MLB parameters, he could change their geometry to make them a reality. Leanhardt, who left the Yankees to serve as major league field coordinator for the Miami Marlins over the winter, worked with bat manufacturers throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons to make that a reality.


When did it first appear in MLB games?

It’s unclear specifically when. But Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton used a torpedo bat last year and went on a home run-hitting rampage in October that helped send the Yankees to the World Series. New York Mets star Francisco Lindor also used a torpedo-style bat last year and went on to finish second in National League MVP voting.


Who are some of the other notable early users of torpedo bats?

In addition to Stanton and Lindor, Yankees hitters Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt have used torpedoes to great success. Others who have used them in games include Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers and Toronto’s Davis Schneider. And that’s just the beginning. Hundreds more players are expected to test out torpedoes — and perhaps use them in games — in the coming weeks.


How is this different from a corked bat?

Corking bats involves drilling a hole at the end of the bat, filling it in and capping it. The use of altered bats allows players to swing faster because the material with which they replace the wood — whether it’s cork, superballs or another material — is lighter. Any sort of bat adulteration is illegal and, if found, results in suspension.


Could a rule be changed to ban them?

Could it happen? Sure. Leagues and governing bodies have put restrictions on equipment they believe fundamentally altered fairness. Stick curvature is limited in hockey. Full-body swimsuits made of polyurethane and neoprene are banned by World Aquatics. But officials at MLB have acknowledged that the game’s pendulum has swung significantly toward pitching in recent years, and if an offensive revolution comes about because of torpedo bats — and that is far from a guarantee — it could bring about more balance to the game. If that pendulum swings too far, MLB could alter its bat regulations, something it has done multiple times already this century.


So the torpedo bat is here to stay?

Absolutely. Bat manufacturers are cranking them out and shipping them to interested players with great urgency. Just how widely the torpedo bat is adopted is the question that will play out over the rest of the season. But it has piqued the curiosity of nearly every hitter in the big leagues, and just as pitchers toy with new pitches to see if they can marginally improve themselves, hitters will do the same with bats.

Comfort is paramount with a bat, so hitters will test them during batting practice and in cage sessions before unleashing them during the game. As time goes on, players will find specific shapes that are most comfortable to them and best suit their swing during bat-fitting sessions — similar to how golfers seek custom clubs. But make no mistake: This is an almost-overnight alteration of the game, and “traditional or torpedo” is a question every big leaguer going forward will ask himself.

Continue Reading

Sports

St. Pete to spend $22.5M to fix Tropicana Field

Published

on

By

St. Pete to spend .5M to fix Tropicana Field

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The once and possibly future home of the Tampa Bay Rays will get a new roof to replace the one shredded by Hurricane Milton with the goal of having the ballpark ready for the 2026 season, city officials decided in a vote Thursday.

The St. Petersburg City Council voted 7-1 to approve $22.5 million to begin the repairs at Tropicana Field, which will start with a membrane roof that must be in place before other work can continue. Although the Rays pulled out of a planned $1.3 billion new stadium deal, the city is still contractually obligated to fix the Trop.

“We are legally bound by an agreement. The agreement requires us to fix the stadium,” said council member Lissett Hanewicz, who is an attorney. “We need to go forward with the roof repair so we can do the other repairs.”

The hurricane damage forced the Rays to play home games this season at Steinbrenner Field across the bay in Tampa, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. The Rays went 4-2 on their first homestand ever at an open-air ballpark, which seats around 11,000 fans.

Under the current agreement with the city, the Rays owe three more seasons at the Trop once it’s ready again for baseball, through 2028. It’s unclear if the Rays will maintain a long-term commitment to the city or look to Tampa or someplace else for a new stadium. Major League Baseball has said keeping the team in the Tampa Bay region is a priority. The Rays have played at the Trop since their inception in 1998.

The team said it would have a statement on the vote later Thursday.

The overall cost of Tropicana Field repairs is estimated at $56 million, said city architect Raul Quintana. After the roof, the work includes fixing the playing surface, ensuring audio and visual electronics are working, installing flooring and drywall, getting concession stands running and other issues.

“This is a very complex project. We feel like we’re in a good place,” Quintana said at the council meeting Thursday.

Under the proposed timeline, the roof installation will take about 10 months. The unique membrane system is fabricated in Germany and assembled in China, Quintana said, adding that officials are examining how President Donald Trump’s new tariffs might affect the cost.

The new roof, he added, will be able to withstand hurricane winds as high as 165 mph. Hurricane Milton, one of the strongest hurricanes ever in the Atlantic basin at one point, blasted ashore Oct. 9 south of Tampa Bay with Category 3 winds of about 125 mph.

Citing mounting costs, the Rays last month pulled out of a deal with the city and Pinellas County for a new $1.3 billion ballpark to be built near the Trop site. That was part of a broader $6.5 billion project known as the Historic Gas Plant district to bring housing, retail and restaurants, arts and a Black history museum to a once-thriving Black neighborhood razed for the original stadium.

The city council plans to vote on additional Trop repair costs over the next few months.

“This is our contractual obligation. I don’t like it more than anybody else. I’d much rather be spending that money on hurricane recovery and helping residents in the most affected neighborhoods,” council member Brandi Gabbard said. “These are the cards that we’re dealt.”

Continue Reading

Sports

Tulane suspends Finley after transfer QB’s arrest

Published

on

By

Tulane suspends Finley after transfer QB's arrest

Tulane quarterback TJ Finley has been suspended following his arrest Wednesday in New Orleans on a charge of illegal possession of stolen things worth more than $25,000.

Finley, 23, whose name is Tyler Jamal, was booked and released. Tulane said in a statement that the length of the suspension will depend on the outcome of his case. The school cited privacy laws in declining to comment further.

University police responded Wednesday to an address where a truck was blocking a driveway. After looking up the license plate, police saw it registered to a vehicle stolen in Atlanta. Finley arrived to move the car and informed the officer that he had bought the truck recently. He’s scheduled to appear in court June 1.

Finley transferred to Tulane in December after spending the 2024 season with Western Kentucky. He had been competing for the team’s starting quarterback job in spring practice alongside fellow transfers Kadin Semonza and Donovan Leary.

Finley, a native of Ponchatoula, Louisiana, started his college career at LSU before transferring to Auburn for two seasons and then Texas State in 2023. He started five games for both LSU and Auburn but had his most success with Texas State, passing for 3,439 yards and 24 touchdowns.

Continue Reading

Trending