
Through triumph and tragedy, Michigan’s Olu Oluwatimi became the nation’s top lineman
More Videos
Published
2 years agoon
By
adminWHEN IT CAME time for center Olu Oluwatimi to take the stage at the Michigan talent show last August, he grabbed the microphone with a clear plan in mind.
It was time to let his new teammates really see him, the way his former Virginia teammates saw him for the bulk of his college career.
“I already know what song it was,” his old Virginia roommate, Richard Burney, says with a laugh.
Burney said Oluwatimi, who started 35 games at Virginia before transferring to Michigan, would sing the song in the shower, or alone in his room, or anywhere, really.
I never know when you might walk by
So I gotta be right on time
When I see you
When I see you
There is something unexpected but particularly endearing about watching a 6-foot-3, 307-pound man belt out “When I See U,” a slow jam by former American Idol winner Fantasia. His Michigan teammates started clapping and singing along.
Sherrone Moore, Michigan’s offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator, remembers watching the reaction of the players in the room. “It was a really cool moment, and just to see him open up like that was super awesome,” Moore said.
Shortly after the talent show, his teammates voted Oluwatimi an alternate captain — seven months after his arrival to campus. Offensive linemen rarely take the spotlight, but that is not the case this season with Oluwatimi, the best player on the best offensive line in college football. “When I See U” might as well be the unofficial theme to his season.
Michigan plays TCU in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, ESPN), and it’s Oluwatimi who drives one of the best rushing teams in the nation. He’s also a veteran presence for first-year starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy as the Wolverines try to win their first national championship since 1997.
His affable personality, smarts, work ethic and leadership have made him a locker room favorite. None of this is surprising to anyone at Virginia, who watched Oluwatimi grow from walk-on to Rimington Award finalist over four years with the Cavaliers. When he decided to transfer to Michigan for 2022, those who know him best understood.
Indeed, former teammates and coaches might as well run the Olu Oluwatimi fan club, as they soak in everything he has earned.
They saw this — saw him — long ago.
“When preparation meets opportunity, there’s no luck involved in that,” former Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “Anyone on the previous staff at Virginia, just smiles, like of course. What else would you expect?'”
But the journey itself has been unexpected and filled with challenges, as Oluwatimi went from largely overlooked high school recruit to walk-on to the best center in the country. Then last month, amid the best season of his life, Oluwatimi had to confront the most gutting challenge he had ever faced when tragedy hit Charlottesville, his former home.
THIS SEASON HAS provided Oluwatimi with clarity, both to anyone who might have doubted whether he could perform on a bigger national stage and to himself. He always believed he was an elite center, always knew he could be the key cog in a power run game. He thrives on being physical. Scratch that. He has a passion for being physical.
It was not hard to see, and easy to understand why Oluwatimi racked up multiple awards earlier this month — the Rimington as the best center in the country, and the Outland Trophy, given annually to the best interior lineman on offense or defense. The individual honors are nice, but Oluwatimi will tell you the one that means the most is the Joe Moore Award, presented to the best offensive line in the country.
Needless to say, Oluwatimi is a big reason Michigan won that award for the second straight year.
“The way he attacks his preparation, the way he attacks the game, he’s an extraordinary player,” Sherrone Moore said. “He’s got elite ability, he’s got strength, he’s got power, he’s got physicality. And he uses all that very well in every situation, and his leadership traits have really pushed the guys because they see how he works, how he is, and they just want to emulate that.”
Oluwatimi has always taken great pride in being a great teammate, now at Michigan and previously at Virginia. After he left the Cavaliers, he stayed in touch with his former teammates and was part of several group texts — including one with offensive linemen who transferred at the same time he did.
The Monday before Michigan’s Nov. 19 game against Illinois, Oluwatimi learned that Virginia football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry were shot and killed after returning home from a class trip. Oluwatimi played with Davis for two years, with Perry for three. Chandler had arrived after Oluwatimi left.
Oluwatimi played against Perry, a defensive lineman, both on the scout team and in practice. The text exchanges between friends and brothers continued that day and throughout the week as he tried to find a way to grapple with the loss while feeling disconnected from those suffering back in Charlottesville.
“It was a rough week,” Oluwatimi said. “To see them gone so soon, it was definitely rough, and I wasn’t around with the team when all that happened, so that was hard not being there with my guys. The team ended up going to three funerals within two weeks, so all the mourning and tears and the family members that have to deal with the loss, it hits home. It’s tough. But they’re in heaven. They’re proud of their teammates. They’re proud of me. We’ve got some angels up in heaven.”
There were phone calls, too, including to teammates who had also left UVA.
“It is a hard thing being detached from the situation, but also being so close to it,” said former Virginia teammate Ryan Swoboda, now at UCF. “We’re in contact with a lot of the guys still on the team, so just being able to talk to them and share stories was the most helpful.”
On the day of the memorial in Virginia, Oluwatimi suited up to take on Illinois. Earlier that week, his father was going in for surgery to remove a brain tumor. Oluwatimi had a lot to deal with, but being on the football field provided him a measure of solace.
“When we’re on that football field, it’s a beacon of togetherness, a beacon of hope, and it’s my happy space,” Oluwatimi said. “When I’m with my guys here, it was definitely a break from the grieving process. So playing football, it was easy for me, and it was actually needed for me.”
Said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh following the Illinois game: “He has the strength of 10 men. The week he had this week, not only the physical strength of 10 men, but the mental strength of 10 men. The victims at Virginia, that tragedy was personal for him. Those were some of his teammates. And his dad had successful surgery to remove a tumor in his brain. All that was going on for Olu this week. I think back to being that age and there’s no way I could’ve handled that.”
With a heavy heart, Oluwatimi pushed forward to finish the season strong with a Big Ten championship and a spot in the CFP. His dad has since recovered from the surgery, a ray of hope heading into the final stretch of the year.
There is no doubt the biggest on-field tests remain, but if Oluwatimi knows one thing, it is how to handle challenges and doubters.
IT MIGHT FEEL expected now, but out of football hotbed DeMatha Catholic high school in Maryland, nobody saw Oluwatimi for what he could become. With zero Power 5 offers, Oluwatimi opted to go to Air Force as a freshman in 2017, but after a year he realized, “This is not for me.”
He decided to transfer to Virginia, in part because a former high school teammate told him he thought it would be a good fit. Plus, it was much closer to home. As the youngest of six children to Nigerian immigrants, family has always been a bedrock for him.
Oluwatimi arrived as a walk-on in 2018 with familiarity among the coaching staff. Virginia recruited him out of high school but did not offer a scholarship because, in large part, the projections about whether he could add enough weight and mature enough physically were unclear.
“A lot of times, there’s a risk aversion by a program when they don’t know for sure,” Mendenhall said. “After one year of seeing his growth and progress at Air Force, we wish we would have done something earlier. So when we had the second chance to act, it was a much easier decision.”
Playing on his second college team in as many years presents challenges, especially when it comes to getting to know a new set of teammates. But Oluwatimi took a simple approach.
“Every coach and every teammate loves somebody that’s going to lay it on the line and work hard for the squad and be selfless,” Oluwatimi said. “You can’t be fake. So if you’re yourself and you have those qualities of being humble and a hard worker, everybody’s going to love you, and that’s how I’ve been able to mesh with the teams that I’ve been on.”
Indeed, Oluwatimi got to work, putting in long hours both with the team and on his own. In the weight room, he had to work on gaining better flexibility in his hips and functional movement with his entire body. He ran stiff at times, so gaining better fluidity with his lower body was at the top of his list.
All that extra work, whether that meant waking up early, watching extra game tape or staying late to help a teammate, stood out immediately. Swoboda describes Oluwatimi’s preparation as “surgical” because “he takes everything into consideration and works to perfect his craft.”
“He’s in the top 1% of people in strength, speed, agility,” Swoboda said. “He’s in the top 1% of people in terms of his mental understanding of scheme and techniques, and he’s in the top 1% of people who finish plays and are tenacious on the field. So when you’re in the top 1% of those three categories, as an O-lineman, it’s probably a nightmare for defensive lineman.”
Oluwatimi had to sit out 2018 because of the transfer rules that existed back then, but he and then-graduate assistant Jackson Matteo got into a routine. Matteo told Oluwatimi about the Rimington Award. Every drill they did together, Matteo would repeat: Rimington, Rimington, Rimington. “All those words can just mean nothing,” Matteo said. “Or you can literally watch a young man take full responsibility for his destiny and turn it into reality.”
By the time 2019 rolled around, Oluwatimi had earned a scholarship and the starting center job, essentially becoming the assistant to then-offensive line coach Garett Tujague. The two spent countless hours together watching tape. Oluwatimi was responsible for setting the front and calling all protections, and his preparation provided a calming presence on the field, even when things would go wrong.
Former teammate Jack Keenan called it “ironclad emotional control.”
“It is almost impossible to ruffle his feathers,” Tujague said. “I never saw him lose control of the situation he was in. I would come over to the sideline to talk to the linemen and Olu would tell me, ‘Coach, we got it.’ He and I had invested so much in preparing for Saturdays that it made it that much easier.”
Perhaps more indicative of what was to come, Mendenhall had his players go through assessments to determine the best way they learned and communicated. Oluwatimi’s scoring was tilted heavily toward factual, analytical, logical and sequential learning and decision making.
“That is magical for the position he plays,” Mendenhall said. “His ability to identify defensive fronts, in a sequential, thorough way, and then have us in the appropriate run play, check or protection, the number of times that he misses that is almost zero.”
Mendenhall said he noticed Oluwatimi work even harder ahead of the 2021 season. Strength coaches would text him constantly, “Olu is here again.”
“If you put a camera outside of our outdoor and indoor facility at UVA, he probably walked in and out of that building more than anybody,” Swoboda said.
Oluwatimi would hold film sessions to help freshmen and sophomores, and stay after practice to help anyone who needed it. If anyone had a question about technique, formations or alignments, they would text Oluwatimi and he quickly responded.
“Coach Mendenhall had the mantra ‘earned not given,’ and Olu embodies that probably more than anybody else that came to that program,” Keenan said.
When the 2021 season ended, Oluwatimi had earned second-team All-ACC honors and was a finalist for the Rimington Trophy — a first in Virginia history. But when Mendenhall stepped down in December of 2021, Oluwatimi had to make a decision.
“I honestly wanted to go to the NFL, but the draft grades and scouts were telling me to come back to school,” Oluwatimi said. “So I decided to look for a different opportunity to try to elevate my draft grade, because I felt that I did all I could do at the University of Virginia. I wanted to go to a place where I felt that we could compete for a national title and win a conference championship.”
OLUWATIMI WAS TRANSFERRING for the second time in his career. Only this time, Michigan saw exactly who he was.
The Michigan recruiting staff alerted Sherrone Moore as soon as they saw Oluwatimi’s name enter the portal. Michigan was losing center Andrew Vastardis, the anchor of the Joe Moore-award winning offensive line, so this was a position that needed a veteran presence — especially with three starters on the offensive line returning.
“I knew right away who he was, and I went back to watch the film and was like, ‘This guy’s really good,” Moore said. “When he came on his visit, we knew right away he would be awesome, just from a personality standpoint, how he acted, very humble. It was love at first sight for everybody.”
Whether Moore knew it at the time or not, Michigan had always been a dream school for Oluwatimi. The opportunity to showcase his ability as a power run blocker — something that Virginia did not do as an Air Raid offense — only added to the appeal.
“It was a perfect fit,” said Burney, his Virginia roommate. “I remember telling him, ‘If you can put it all together, the sky’s the limit,’ and now we’re here. It’s crazy.”
The same characteristics his Virginia teammates and coaches raved about were on display as soon as he arrived in Ann Arbor last January. He simply worked, and essentially had the playbook down by the time spring practice started.
“He was asking me in the first days of spring ball, ‘Hey, Coach when are we going to put this play in?'” Moore said. “And I was like, ‘It’s not going in until like install seven. He’s like, ‘Oh because I was just looking at them last night and just want to make sure I had it down.'”
His play this season might have been a revelation to those unfamiliar with Virginia and ACC football, but those who have watched Oluwatimi over the past three seasons can’t help but smile.
Former Virginia teammate Martin Weisz decided to visit Oluwatimi in Ann Arbor for the Wolverines’ game against UConn in Week 3. Though the game was a 59-0 blowout win, Weisz recalls watching Oluwatimi interact with his coaches and teammates on the sideline, and again after the game.
“I could just tell even though he was in that offensive line room at Michigan for less than a year, he had already emerged as somebody who everyone could lean on,” Weisz said. “After the game, they always have a tailgate for players and their families, and one of the younger centers was going over film with Olu, asking him all these different questions about football, life, how he manages it all. I know how much they value Olu’s experience, and they truly take his words very, very seriously, just because he’s been through it all.”
Without question, Oluwatimi has elevated the offensive line in Ann Arbor. Michigan ranks No. 6 in the nation in rushing offense, and Moore said his presence was “huge” for McCarthy because “you’ve got somebody in the middle that can help you and get you out of things if you’re unsure.”
Now the biggest test remains. Michigan lost in the CFP semifinals to Georgia last year, in large part because it could not handle the Bulldogs’ defensive front.
This is all new to Oluwatimi but do not expect him to lose focus. That is simply not in his nature. He knows what is at stake, and how much his teammates are depending on him in what is now the biggest game of the season against TCU.
“Through the first 13 games of the year, I’m happy with how I performed and what I’ve done,” Oluwatimi said. “We’ve got two more, and I’ve got to show some more. I’m excited.”
Oluwatimi is now rated the No. 2 center headed into the 2023 NFL draft by both Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay, a far cry from being told to return to school a year ago. NFL scouts are recognizing Oluwatimi, too. But any NFL draft talk has been shoved to the side.
Instead, there has been time for reflection. The night before the regular-season finale against Ohio State, Michigan held a team meeting. As Harbaugh talked, Oluwatimi looked around, taking everything in, appreciating every moment over the last six years as if he was seeing it all for the first time.
“I could have never imagined my college journey bringing me here, being able to compete for a national title,” Oluwatimi said. “As I look back and reflect on the journey, I’m just speechless.”
You may like

-
Jeff LegwoldApr 4, 2025, 12:41 PM ET
Close- Jeff Legwold covers the Denver Broncos at ESPN. He has covered the Broncos for more than 20 years and also assists with NFL draft coverage, joining ESPN in 2013. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999, too. Jeff previously covered the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans at previous stops prior to ESPN.
BOULDER, Colo. — A horde of NFL talent evaluators headed for the mountains Friday for the Colorado Showcase, where Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter was one of the big draws.
However, it was going to be a limited look at best as Hunter was not seen when players’ heights and weights were taken or for the jumps and 40-yard dash.
Hunter, who is expected to be a top-five selection in this year’s draft and is the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, was initially not expected to participate in any on-field work, but Friday morning some scouts in attendance said they expected the two-way star to run routes as a receiver for quarterback Shedeur Sanders‘ throwing session.
Hunter did not work out at the scouting combine or Big 12 pro day but did meet with teams in Indianapolis. Sanders, one of the top quarterbacks on the board and Kiper’s No. 5 player overall, also did not work out at the combine.
Sanders’ brother, Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds, but he did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.
The highly attended event — by scouts, coaches and personnel executives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Colorado coach Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” completed with a large lighted “showcase” sign next to the drills.
Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards, in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he would primarily be a wide receiver or cornerback in the NFL “depended on the team that picks me.”
He had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and four interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.
Hunter played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.
With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard, who was not invited to the combine. Sheppard, who measured in at 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran his 40s in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 in the broad jump.
Sports
‘It’s taken on a life of its own’: Inside the 48 hours torpedo bats launched into baseball lore
Published
3 hours agoon
April 4, 2025By
admin
-
Buster OlneyApr 4, 2025, 12:00 PM ET
Close- Senior writer ESPN Magazine/ESPN.com
- Analyst/reporter ESPN television
- Author of “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty”
At 1:54 ET on Saturday afternoon, New York Yankees play-by-play man Michael Kay lit the fuse on what will be remembered as either one of the most metamorphic conversations in baseball history or one of its strangest.
During spring training, someone in the organization had mentioned to Kay that the team’s analytics department had counseled players on where pitches tended to strike their bats, and with subsequent buy-in from some of the players, bats had been designed around that information. In the hours before the Yankees’ home game against the Brewers that day, Kay told the YES Network production staff about this, alerting them so they could look for an opportunity to highlight the equipment.
After the Yankees clubbed four homers in the first inning, a camera zoomed in on Jazz Chisholm Jr.‘s bat in the second inning. “You see the shape of Chisholm’s bat…” Kay said on air. “It’s got a big barrel on it,” Paul O’Neill responded, before Kay went on to describe the analysis behind the bat shaped like a torpedo.
Chisholm singled to left field, and after Anthony Volpe worked the count against former teammate Nestor Cortes to a full count, Volpe belted a home run to right field using the same kind of bat. A reporter watching the game texted Kay: Didn’t he hit the meat part of the bat you were talking about — just inside where the label normally is?
Yep, Kay responded. Within an hour of Kay’s commentary, the video of Chisholm’s bat and Kay’s exchange with O’Neill was posted on multiple platforms of social media, amplified over and over. What happened over the next 48 hours was what you get when you mix the power of social media and the desperation of a generation of beleaguered hitters. Batting averages are at a historic low, strikeout rates at a historic high, and on a sunny spring day in the Bronx, here were the Yankees blasting baseballs into the seats with what seemed to be a strangely shaped magic bat.
An oasis of offense had formed on the horizon, and hitters — from big leaguers to Little Leaguers, including at least one member of Congress — paddled toward it furiously. Acres of trees will be felled and shaped to feed the thirst for this new style of bats. Last weekend, one bat salesman asked his boss, “What the heck have we done?”
Jared Smith, CEO of bat-maker Victus, said, “I’ve been making bats for 15, 16 years. … This is the most talked-about thing in the industry since I started. And I hope we can make better-performing bats that work for players.”
According to Bobby Hillerich, the vice president of production at Hillerich & Bradsby, his company — which is based in Louisville, Kentucky, and makes Louisville Slugger bats — had produced 20 versions of the torpedo bat as of this past Saturday, and in less than a week, that number has tripled as players and teams continually call in their orders.
Said Yankees manager Aaron Boone: “It’s taken on a life of its own.”
0:36
Olney: ‘Torpedo’ bats could be catching the eye of MLB teams
Buster Olney reports on the Braves exploring the new “torpedo” bats the Yankees have been using and how other teams could explore it as well.
Even though Saturday marked its launch into the mainstream, this shape of bat has actually been around for a while. Hillerich & Bradsby had its first contact with a team about the style in 2021 and had nondisclosure agreements with four teams as the bat evolved; back then, it was referred to as the “bowling pin” bat. The Cubs’ Nico Hoerner was the first major leaguer to try it — and apparently wasn’t comfortable with it. Cody Bellinger tried it when he was with the Cubs before joining the Yankees during the offseason.
Before Atlanta took the field Sunday night, Braves catcher Drake Baldwin recalled trying one in the Arizona Fall League last year (noting that his first impression was that it “looked weird”). Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor used it in 2024, in a year in which he would finish second in the NL MVP voting; Lindor’s was a little different from Volpe’s version, with a cup hollowed out at the end of the bat. Giancarlo Stanton swung one throughout his playoff surge last fall, but no one in the media noticed, perhaps because of how the pitch-black color of Stanton’s bat camouflaged the shape.
Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli saw one in the Twins’ dugout during spring training and picked it up, his attention drawn to the unusual shape. “What the hell is this thing?” he asked, wondering aloud whether the design was legal. When he was assured it was, he put it back down.
Baldelli’s experience reflected the way hitters have used and assessed bats since the advent of baseball: They’ll pick up bats and see how they feel, their interest fueled by the specter of success. Tony Gwynn won eight batting titles, and many teammates and opposing hitters — Barry Bonds among them — asked whether they could inspect his bats. The torpedo bat’s arrival was simply the latest version of that long-held search for the optimal tool.
On Opening Day, eight teams had some version of the torpedo bat within their stock, according to one major league source. But with video of the Yankees’ home runs being hit off unusual bats saturating social media Saturday afternoon, the phone of Kevin Uhrhan, pro bat sales rep for Louisville Slugger, blew up with requests for torpedo bats. James Rowson, the hitting coach of the Yankees, began to get text inquiries — about 100, he later estimated. Everyone wanted to know about the bat; everyone wanted to get their own.
In San Diego, Braves players asked about the bats, and by Sunday morning, equipment manager Calvin Minasian called in the team’s order. By the middle of the week, all 30 teams had asked for the bats. “Every team started trying to get orders in,” Hillerich said. “We’re trying to scramble to get wood. And then it was: How fast can we get this to retail?”
Victus produces the bats Chisholm and Volpe are using and has made them available for retail. Three senior players, all in their 70s, stopped by the Victus store to ask about the torpedoes. A member of Congress who plays baseball reached out to Louisville Slugger.
The Cincinnati Reds contacted Hillerich & Bradsby, saying, “We need you in Cincinnati on Monday ASAP,” and soon after, Uhrhan and pro bat production manager Brian Hillerich, Bobby’s brother, made the 90-minute drive from the company’s factory in Louisville with test bats.
Reds star Elly De La Cruz tried a few, decided on a favorite and used it for a career performance that night.
“You can think in New York, maybe there was wind,” Bobby Hillerich said. “Elly hits two home runs and gets seven RBIs. That just took it to a whole new level.”
A few days after the Yankees’ explosion, Aaron Leanhardt, who had led New York’s effort to customize its bats as a minor league hitting coordinator before being hired by the Marlins as their field coordinator, was in the middle of a horseshoe of reporters, explaining the background. “There are a lot more cameras here today than I’m used to,” he said, laughing.
Stanton spoke with reporters about the simple concept behind the bat: build a design for where a hitter is most likely to make contact. “You wonder why no one has thought of it before, for sure,” Stanton said. “I didn’t know if it was, like, a rule-based thing of why they were shaped like that.”
Over and over, MLB officials assured those asking: Yes, the bats are legal and meet the sport’s equipment specifications. Trevor Megill, the Brewers’ closer, complained about the bats, calling them like “something used in slow-pitch softball,” but privately, baseball officials were thrilled by the possibility of seeing offense goosed, something they had been attempting through rule change in recent years.
“It’s all the rage right now, given what transpired over the weekend,” said Jeremy Zoll, assistant general manager of the Twins. “I’m sure more and more guys are going to experiment with it as a result, just to see if it’s something they like.”
That personal preference is a factor for which some front office types believe the mass orders of the bats don’t account: The Yankees’ recommendations to each hitter were based on months of past data of how that player tended to strike the ball. This was not about a one-size-fits all bat; it was about precise bat measurements that reflected an individual player’s swing.
“I had never heard of it. I’ve used the same bat for nine years, so I think I’ll stick with that,” White Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi said. “It’s pretty interesting. It makes sense. If it works for a guy, good for him. If it doesn’t, stick with what you got.”
As longtime player Eric Hosmer explained on the “Baseball Tonight” podcast, the process is a lot like what players can do in golf: look for clubs customized for a player’s particular swing. And, he added, hitting coaches might begin to think more about which bat might be most effective against particular pitchers. If a pitcher tends to throw inside, a torpedo bat could be more effective; if a pitcher is more effective outside, maybe a larger barrel would be more appropriate.
That’s the key, according to an agent representing a player who ordered a bat: “You need years of hitting data in the big leagues to dial it in and hopefully get a better result. He’s still tinkering with it; he may not even use it in a game. … I think of it like switching your irons in golf to blades: It will feel a little different and take some adjusting, and it may even change your swing subtly.”
Two days after the home run explosion, Boone said, “You’re just trying to just get what you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit. And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be — it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
“I’m kind of starting to smile at it a little more … a lot of things that aren’t real.”
Said the player agent: “It’s not an aluminum bat with plutonium in it like everyone is making it out to be.”
Reliever Adam Ottavino watched this all play out, with his 15 years of experience. “It’s the Yankees and they scored a million runs in the first few games, and it’s cool to hate the Yankees and it’s cool to look for the bogeyman,” Ottavino said, “and that’s what some people are going to do, and [you] can’t really stop that. But there’s also a lot of misinformation and noneducation on it too.”
Major league baseball mostly evolves at a glacial pace. For example, the sport is well into the second century of complaints about the surface of the ball and the debate over financial disparity among teams. From time to time, however, baseball has its eclipses, moments that command full attention and inspire change. On a “Sunday Night Baseball” game on May 18, 2008, an umpire’s botched home run call at Yankee Stadium compelled MLB to implement the first instant replay. Buster Posey’s ankle was shattered in a home plate collision in May 2011, imperiling the career of the young star, and new rules about that type of play were rewritten.
The torpedo bat eruption could turn out to be transformative, a time when the industry became aware how a core piece of equipment has been taken for granted and aware that bats could be more precisely designed to augment the ability of each hitter. Or this could all turn out to be a wild overreaction to an outlier day of home runs against a pitching staff having a really bad day.
On Thursday, Cortes — who had been hammered for five homers over two innings in Yankee Stadium — shut out the Reds for six innings.
In Baltimore, Bregman, who had tried the torpedo bat earlier this week, reverted to his usual stock and had three hits against the Orioles, including a home run. Afterward, Bregman said, “It’s the hitter. Not the bat.”
This story was also reported by Jeff Passan, Jorge Castillo, Jesse Rogers and Kiley McDaniel.
Sports
What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB’s hottest trend
Published
3 hours agoon
April 4, 2025By
admin
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.
Trending
-
Sports2 years ago
‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months ago
Story injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year ago
Game 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years ago
MLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years ago
Japan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years ago
Game-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years ago
Bank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway