Go and take it! Inside the World Series champs’ Texas-sized turnaround
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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
PHOENIX — There is no one way to rebuild a baseball team, and there is no one way to exit that rebuild and ramp up to contention. There is perhaps a sentiment common to the start of any such project, though, one expressed nine months ago in four words by the general manager of baseball’s newest champions, the Texas Rangers.
“We’re sick of losing,” Chris Young said at spring training in Arizona, answering a reporter’s question about how and why the Rangers took an aggressive stance to free agency the winter before.
Nine months later, that sickness has been cured.
The road between that statement in February and Wednesday night’s pileup at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix — only 37 miles away from the spring training facility where it was spoken — was long, meandering and filled with potholes.
In the end, though, those four words were profound enough to point the way to a new destination for the Rangers — the domain of World Series champions.
“Everybody wants to be a winner,” Texas reliever Will Smith said. “That’s what you want to be known for, is a guy who wins. … It’s a whole lot better than losing.”
Smith, incidentally, knows a thing or two about winning. He has now been on the roster of three straight championship teams — the Atlanta Braves (2021), the Houston Astros (2022) and now the Rangers.
“It’s something I don’t take for granted, for sure,” Smith said.
He shouldn’t. Winning the World Series is hard. Entering the 2023 season, six of the 30 existing MLB franchises had never won a World Series. The Rangers, who began their existence with 11 lackluster seasons as the neo-Washington Senators, had played about 1,300 more games than any of the other titleless teams. In fact, if you zoom in on the 51 campaigns Texas played in Arlington before this season, it represents the longest wait any American League fan base has ever endured for that first World Series title.
That wait, as of Wednesday, is over.
You don’t think of the Rangers as perennial losers. They’ve employed several of the more larger-than-life managers we’ve ever had in baseball, from Ted Williams to Billy Martin to Whitey Herzog to Bobby Valentine, Ron Washington, Buck Showalter and, especially, their current skipper, four-time champion Bruce Bochy. Some of the biggest stars of the past half-century have played for the Rangers, including Ivan Rodriguez, Nolan Ryan, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, Adrian Beltre, Frank Howard (who died during this World Series at age 87) and Ferguson Jenkins. Heck, one of their former owners used to be president of the United States.
Yet, somehow, until Wednesday, these elements had never coalesced into championship form. And until, well, not very long before Wednesday, there had been little evidence that would change any time soon. Entering this season, the Rangers’ five-year winning percentage (.417, or 67.5 wins per 162 games) was the franchise’s worst since 1974, its third season after the move from Washington.
Now, after all of those requited summers baking in the hot Arlington sun, that title thirst has finally been quenched. In the aftermath of seasons with 102 and 94 losses, the Rangers are champs. How did this Texas-sized turnaround happen so fast?
Winter 2021
Starting with the 2021-22 offseason signings of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray by former lead exec Jon Daniels, the Rangers had, in essence, started to put the finishing touches on a work in which the outlines were not yet clear.
Certainly, there was hope that the player development system was going to start yielding key contributors, and it has. But when Seager and Semien committed to the Rangers, they were being sold on a vision, not a track record.
Daniels was calling the front office shots at the time, with Young his top lieutenant, but even as the previous rebuild was faltering, a newer, quicker and, let’s face it, more expensive version was well underway.
“Meeting the Texas Rangers and listening to Chris Young, it definitely aligned with what I wanted to do as a player,” Semien told ESPN in September. “He said he wanted pitching too. He has done everything he said, and Ray Davis, our owner, has been on board too. When you play for an organization that is moving forward and wanting to win, that’s exactly where you want to be.”
If there is a takeaway for other teams from the Rangers’ sudden success, it’s that if you believe in your system, you don’t have to wait to invest in the roster.
“To some extent, it was to accelerate the rebuild,” Young said in September. “In a market this size, I think that our fans deserve that. They shouldn’t have to go through a five-, six-, seven-year rebuild.
“Part of it was because we felt very good about our player development system and the group of players that we had on the cusp of the big leagues, and we felt like accelerating their development would be facilitated by having the right veteran players around.”
Winter 2022
Despite 94 losses in 2022, the Rangers had in place the makings of a solid offense, in large part because of Seager and Semien’s success. Texas finished eighth with 198 homers and scored runs at a clip safely above the MLB average — and those two players set examples for the younger Rangers coming through the system.
“When your best players, the players you’re counting on the most like Seager and Semien, work extremely hard and they care deeply, your team always has a chance to reach its ceiling,” said Rangers senior advisor of baseball operations Dayton Moore, architect of a Kansas City Royals title-winning team. “Semien and Seager are as committed as players as I’ve ever been around. Watching them throughout the season, their work ethic is unbelievable.”
On the pitching side, Young’s club needed more T.L.C., where the Rangers were a bottom-10 team by ERA+. In response, Young dealt for righty Jake Odorizzi early in the offseason. Then, with the blessing of Davis, Young went hard in free agency in the spring, landing, in order, Jacob deGrom, Andrew Heaney and Nathan Eovaldi. That quartet, along with 2022 holdovers like Gray, Martin Perez and Dane Dunning gave the Rangers one of the deepest and most accomplished core rotations in the majors.
“We went into the offseason knowing that we needed to improve our starting pitching,” Young said during the AL Championship Series. “It was a big limitation for us last year. We knew that we had scored runs and we were going to have pretty much the same offensive team back. So the key to us being a good team was going to be to improve our starting pitching. We obviously were very active in the free agent market.”
Based on those acquisitions alone, the Texas baseline win projection moved into the .500 range — and that was without considering the late October news that Bochy had signed on to return to the dugout and guide the team.
The biggest splash on the acquisition list was deGrom, arguably the best pitcher in baseball when he’s able to stay on the mound. Since the beginning of the 2018 season, deGrom has a composite 2.08 ERA with 290 strikeouts per 162 games. That’s not merely ace material, that’s Cooperstown stuff.
The Rangers hit spring training with their brand-new rotation and their legendary manager — and then the depth chart began to thin before the season even began. Odorizzi went down with a bum shoulder that ended up requiring season-ending surgery.
It was only the first such challenge for the Rangers.
Spring 2023
Losing Odorizzi stung, but the Rangers still had good rotation depth as the season began. They still had a dream October one-two punch in deGrom and Eovaldi — as long as they could get to October.
Then, on April 28, during a win over the New York Yankees, deGrom threw his last pitch of the season, leaving early because of two dreaded words: forearm tightness. He tried to work his way back, throwing a bullpen session in late May. In June, he underwent Tommy John surgery.
DeGrom had been the latest marquee free agent to be wooed by not just Davis’ dollars but also Young’s plans to build a sustainable contender. He was a big part of that plan, an irreplaceable component, if lost, from any team’s rotation.
Even when the roster-building plan is perfect, things go wrong. The ineffable quality of a championship team is something else, something more elusive. That something can be called clubhouse chemistry or team culture or what the players might call the “next-man-up mentality.” How you create it or how you even define it is hard to say, but invariably, a championship team is going to have it.
So how did the Rangers respond? By June 12, the date of deGrom’s surgery, Texas owned the second-best rotation ERA in baseball (3.38), leading all teams in innings from starters and ranking fourth in quality starts.
All of those measures remained strong through the All-Star break, partially because Eovaldi and Gray were pitching like All-Stars and because Dunning, who stepped into deGrom’s place in the rotation, owned a sub-3.00 ERA.
“A few guys go down, but you’ll have to face a little adversity in the season to have success,” said Eovaldi, a key member of the 2018 champion Boston Red Sox. “I feel that was one of our main things this year, we had a lot of key players, not just even pitchers, but a lot of guys step up when one of the guys went down and filled in the role nicely.”
It wasn’t just the pitching staff. In April, Seager turned up with a sore hamstring that kept him out of the lineup for several weeks. With deGrom ailing, as well, the Rangers were pressing ahead in the rugged AL West without their most talented pitcher and most talented hitters.
And what happened? Rookie Josh Jung, Bochy’s every-day third baseman from the outset, flourished, posting 12 homers and 37 RBIs by the end of May and diving around the field on defense, doing the best imitation he could of his historical hero, Brooks Robinson. Semien mashed too, and the Rangers went 20-13 during Seager’s lengthy absence, with utility player Ezequiel Duran hitting .305/.342/.533 during that time. Next man up, indeed.
By the All-Star break, the Rangers were leading the majors in runs.
“We’re just resilient,” Seager said. “We’ve talked about it all year. Just playing good baseball, trying to win series and having a pass-the-baton mentality. You don’t have to be the guy every night. It’s just kind of translated for us.”
Summer 2023
Eovaldi caught fire as the season progressed toward the All-Star break, establishing himself as a likely contender for the AL Cy Young Award.
Not surprisingly, that run started in the immediate aftermath of deGrom’s injury. On April 29, Eovaldi threw a three-hit shutout against the Yankees. From that game through July 18, his first start of the second half, Eovaldi went 9-1 with a 1.97 ERA. Ace stuff. Cy Young stuff.
Then Eovaldi also got hurt. During that July 18 start, he threw six shutout frames against the Tampa Bay Rays, but his velocity was down. A start was skipped. A forearm strain was reported. He didn’t pitch again until September.
When Eovaldi went down, Texas was 19 games over .500 and led the division by 4½ games with the trade deadline looming two weeks away. And then it all started to turn.
The star-starved rotation began to suffer, and the Rangers bled runs at an alarming rate. Texas lost its last three games going into deadline day. Their lead over archrival Houston had shrunk to one game.
So what happened? Young doubled and tripled down on an already expensive rotation, dealing for Max Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery. Rather than rest on the talent, Young made the Rangers one of the clear winners of deadline machinations.
“By the time we got to the deadline, we needed to readdress our rotation, so that’s what we did,” Young said, his matter-of-fact tone implying that every team goes out and trades for two All-Star starters midstream.
The Rangers won on deadline day, the first of eight straight victories. They won 12 of 14 overall to move a season-high 24 games over .500 by the middle of August. Things were good, with the new order suggested by the Rangers’ strong first half seemingly restored by Young’s characteristic aggression at the deadline.
As it turned out, the Rangers’ rollercoaster was just starting to roll. After hitting that high point on Aug. 15, Texas lost nine straight (including twice to Arizona, the team they just vanquished in the Fall Classic). They fell into a tie in what had become a three-team struggle with Houston and Seattle.
The slump just kept getting worse. From Aug. 16 through Sept. 8, Texas lost 16 of 20. During those games, the Rangers’ staff put up a 6.33 ERA. Only four teams put a lower OPS at the plate. What had seemed like a surefire playoff spot was no longer assured.
Nothing was clicking. Bochy’s pitching staff was on fumes. It all came to a head during what Young refers to as “the disaster series.”
Houston was in town. Despite the Rangers’ slump, they were still in good position, and a strong series against the Astros not only would put Houston in a major hole, but it could restore some of the Rangers’ earlier momentum.
Over the next three days, despite Eovaldi’s return to action and a marquee matchup that pitted Scherzer against Justin Verlander, Houston outscored the Rangers 39-10, a frightening differential that looks even worse when you consider that Texas led the first game 3-0 at one point.
Injuries (Heim and Jung, among them) played a big part in the skid, but Texas looked very much like a team that had fallen into an irreversible spiral.
There was no one moment that pulled them out. Texas started to get healthier, at least on offense, though Scherzer was lost with a shoulder injury that everyone thought would end his season. Young called up top prospect Evan Carter. Eovaldi began to round into form. Montgomery performed like the top-of-the-rotation starter Texas badly needed. The Rangers won six straight and regained their lead in the AL West.
“I think we had to deal with more this year than any year I’ve ever had to manage,” Bochy said. “And that’s what makes me proud of these guys, too, how they were focused on that as much as, hey, let’s focus forward. And they kept doing that.”
Carter was a revelation almost from the start, hitting .306/.413/.645 down the stretch while flashing plus speed on basepaths and defense in the outfield. The system Young had bet on was paying off again.
So, too, was the Rangers’ emergent clubhouse culture where in a room peopled by some of the game’s biggest stars, rookies like Carter and Jung, and reinforcements like Duran and Travis Jankowski felt right at home. Next man up, yes, but it was every man up as well.
“It shows that no matter who we have on the field, we’re going to compete,” Carter said. “A team like us, we’ve got the Coreys, the Marcuses that are so high up there in the baseball world, it’s kind of easy to overlook the other people who are really good contributors. Obviously Corey and Marcus are huge reasons for our success but at the same time, we had people come in and contribute in all kinds of ways.”
October 2023
The Rangers had an up-and-down finish to the regular season and missed a chance to win the AL West outright by dropping a 1-0 game in Seattle on the season’s final day. They tied the Astros for the division lead, but Houston owned the tiebreaker (in part because of the disaster series).
Instead of resting at home in the wild card round, Texas boarded a plane in Seattle, enduring one of baseball’s longest flights: across the continent for a winner-takes-all series against the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The Rangers took two straight, swept the Rays, then won two on the road against the Baltimore Orioles in the next round. By Game 3 of the ALCS, the Rangers had played only one game at home — and had won every single road game they played in three other cities.
There were still more setbacks at the very end of the Rangers’ run. Adolis Garcia, who, along with Seager, powered the Texas offense in October was lost to an oblique injury suffered in Game 3 of the World Series. Scherzer, who shockingly returned during the ALCS, had his back lock up in the same game.
Both players were removed from the Texas roster simultaneously before Game 4 against the Diamondbacks.
And what happened? Bolstered by an emotional pregame speech by the devastated Garcia, the Rangers clubbed Arizona 11-7 in Game 4, and finished off the Snakes in Game 5. Injury after injury, setback after setback, this was one rapid rebuild that was not going to be denied.
Young, a native of the Dallas area and a former Rangers player, had delivered the franchise’s first title. Bochy had won his fourth. While you can look at the splashy free agent signings and the stars acquired through trade, moves that had Seager and Semien and Eovaldi and Scherzer and deGrom and Garcia dancing around the same clubhouse with Jankowski and Jung and Carter and everyone else, what is perhaps most impressive is not how quickly the talent was gathered, but how quickly that elusive thing — chemistry, comradery, culture, next-man-upness, whatever you want to call it — became this team’s manna, the fuel that helped them overcome more than their fair share of roadblocks.
It was the team Young built, in his first full season as Texas’ lead exec. Not a bad bit of work for a guy who was pitching in the majors just a few years ago. Even when he was still hurling for Moore’s teams in Kansas City, winning a title in 2015, the Royals’ title-winning GM knew Young had future exec written all over him.
“Everybody talks about how smart C.Y. is, but he’s got emotional intelligence too,” Rangers advisor Dayton Moore said. “You have to have a natural love and passion for this game, which he does. You have to have baseball wisdom, which he does. And then you also have to love people. He has all three, and he has a great work ethic. I think he’s got a chance to do this successfully for a long time.”
Young and his team have a tough act to follow after Wednesday, but one thing is certain: They aren’t going to get tired of winning any time soon.
Sports
‘It’s taken on a life of its own’: Inside the 48 hours torpedo bats launched into baseball lore
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.
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.
A week has passed since torpedo bats burst onto the scene as the talk of the 2025 MLB season, and the hitting innovation is still buzzing through the industry.
We asked our MLB reporters to talk to players and coaches to see if they think the bowling pin-shaped bat trend is here to stay, how much it really helps hitters — and if they believe it should be allowed in the majors.
Here’s what those around baseball had to say about the trend taking the sport by storm.
When did you first hear about torpedo bats?
Andrew Benintendi, OF, Chicago White Sox: I had never heard of it. I’ve used the same bat for nine years so I think I’ll stick with that. 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.
Robert Van Scoyoc, hitting coach, Los Angeles Dodgers: I’ve heard about bat fitting. We do bat fitting and all that. I just haven’t heard about this specifically. When I first heard about [torpedo bats specifically] was when everyone else kind of knew about it.
Ryan O’Hearn, first baseman, Baltimore Orioles: (Orioles assistant GM and former NASA engineer) Sig Mejdal deserves credit. Sig has been on the torpedo bat for a long time. He’s been trying to get guys to experiment with it, use it. He’ll send them out, send us everybody. He sent some in the offseason. He sent me the traditional torpedo bat and then he sent me a special model that, based off of my batted ball data, would fit better. He’s been all over it. I think I first heard about it in maybe the end of ’23 from Sig. And then he made them available. I took BP with it. I was unsure because it does feel a little different. Not in a bad way, just different. I feel like I was hitting balls and kind of feeling the vibrations on the end, which I didn’t really like.
Dansby Swanson, SS, Chicago Cubs: This offseason. It’s just caught on. People have used it before. It’s not that new.
Adam Ottavino, veteran reliever: I noticed last year that there were some guys with different shaped bats. I think [Francisco] Lindor had one. And, honestly, I didn’t think too much of it because there’s always been a lot of tinkering with bat models since I’ve been in the big leagues. There’s so many bat models. Even like custom handles like big knobs. Some hockey puck knobs. And there’s like those triangular knobs. So I didn’t really think too much of it. I didn’t maybe understand what they were going for.
Nolan Schanuel, 1B, Los Angeles Angels: I heard about it in spring training this year. Chuckie Robinson had a bat. We kind of weren’t serious about it, you know? He pulled it out and we were like, “Uh, that’s kind of strange.” But the science behind it makes total sense. I didn’t really think about that from that standpoint at all until the science came up for it and said why it would benefit certain people’s swings.
[Robinson] never used it … I don’t know if he had it the year prior, but for some reason he had one. And we were just like, “That’s a weird-looking bat.” I didn’t think anything of it until come Opening Day, you see all these guys swinging it in the regular season.
Martin Maldonado, C, San Diego Padres: I don’t know anything about it other than what I read on Twitter.
Have you used a torpedo bat before and if not, are you planning to try it now? If so, how did it feel?
Max Muncy, 3B, Los Angeles Dodgers: It felt good. The swing felt good. But after the Dylan Lee at-bat (in which Muncy struck out in the sixth inning last Wednesday), I felt like the bat was causing me to be a little bit off-plane, a little bit in and out of the zone. My swings felt really, really good tonight but just a little bit off. So the last at-bat I decided just to go back to my regular bat.
Matt Shaw, 3B, Chicago Cubs: I’ve used it in batting practice. I wasn’t a big fan. The weight felt a little heavier. The ball feedback wasn’t as good. But we’ll see.
Swanson: It’s not the perfect product. There are so many nuances involved. I’ve committed to using it enough to get a good sample size. There is definitely validity in everything, but it just has its media craze right now.
Jed Hoyer, president of baseball operations, Chicago Cubs: I talked to [Swanson] a lot this winter about it. He was very open-minded. It’s a process. That’s why we wanted to have guys use them in spring training. The more the veteran guys do it, hopefully that has a carry-over effect.
Michael A. Taylor, OF, Chicago White Sox: I would love to try one. I’m sure everyone is trying to order one right now. It’s interesting. I’m not too educated on the science behind it, but it seems pretty straightforward. I tried the axe bat then the puck bat so the torpedo bat is the latest thing. I want to try it.
Byron Buxton, OF, Minnesota Twins: I haven’t tried it. Not going to try it either. I’ve been doing perfectly fine with my bats. No point in trying to switch it up now. People blowing up the Yankees about all the homers they hit. Same guys that hit homers are the same guys that hit homers last year. It’s not that big of a deal.
O’Hearn: I’ve used a torpedo bat for one major league at-bat. I struck out. And then I threw it in the trash. Didn’t even make contact. I’m weird, man. I just remember guys laughing at me, being like, you’re done with it already?
Salvador Perez, catcher, Kansas City Royals: No, but it’s interesting. I’m going to talk to Davy (Royals VP of major league team operations Jeff Davenport) about that. Are we going to put in some orders for that bat? I talked to Gary Sanchez yesterday. He used the bat yesterday. The first time that I saw that bat, I grabbed it. Big barrel. I think if it helps, why not? Why not just try it out and see what happens?”
Mark Canha, outfielder, Kansas City Royals: It wasn’t anything I was aware of during spring until that half of the first week. I’m using kind of a modified one right now. It’s torpedo-esque. It’s not as drastic. I didn’t even know what I was ordering. Pete Alonso told me to get that model. It’s great. And usually he knows a lot. He’s really likes stuff like that. So I kind of just trusted him, and it’s been working. I like it. But I do like that there’s more barrel, a little lower than I’m used to swinging. It feels a little different. It’s not as ringy when I get it closer to the label, which I like.
Schanuel: I mostly miss [the ball] on the inner side of the barrel, so if I miss the barrel, I get jammed the most. If I were to get a torpedo bat … I think it would help me out a lot, especially my bat path and seeing the ball deep. I’d be more than willing to try it yet.
Nicky Lopez, 2B, Los Angeles Angels: I gave it a little bit of a test run in spring training because that’s what everyone was kind of doing. But it takes a little bit of getting used to.
Your whole career you’ve been using a bat that you know, and you know where the sweet spot is, and it’s one kind of length. You have the specifications of it and you kind of feel where that barrel is, and now when you move that barrel down a little bit, you have to refine where that sweet spot is. It takes a little bit to get used to. I used it a little bit in BP and I’m going to continue to use it and just see where it’s at.
Nico Hoerner, 2B, Chicago Cubs: I’ve used it since mid-spring training. Every AB I’ve taken this year has been with some version of the reverse taper barrel (which is what the Cubs call the torpedo bat). Still in the process of figuring that out, but I like it. It’s not something I’m thinking of when I go to the plate. A misconception I’ve heard is guys are not changing what they do to fit the bat. It’s kind of the opposite.
What do you make of the way the topic has blown up across the sport?
Ottavino: I mean, listen, first of all, 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 boogeyman and that’s what some people are going to do and can’t really stop that. But there’s also a lot of misinformation and noneducation on it too.
I was in Boston this spring and there were a bunch of guys using those types of bats over there too. So, they’re all over the place. It’s not unique to this organization. Maybe it originated in [the Yankees clubhouse], but I mean, there’s no secrets in baseball. Everybody’s going to be using what they think’s going to give them the best result. So I don’t really make too much of people complaining about it, honestly.
Schanuel: I think it’ll help out, especially to boost offensive performances. I think it’s good for MLB itself. Fans would like to see it. Everyone loves homers. Everyone loves when guys get on base. I think it’ll help out a lot. I mean it’s just exciting talking about it.
Mark Leiter, reliever, New York Yankees: I wouldn’t say I’m surprised just because I think there’s a level of it’s something to talk about in a big market. I mean, just the fact that it’s within the rules and stuff, I just think it’s more surprising that it took this long for somebody to do this. Just because you know about customizing golf clubs and stuff like that. Like, it makes a lot of sense.
Buxton: Everyone is blowing up the Yankees about all the homers they hit. Same guys you see hit homers, are the same guys that hit homers last year. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s like when the sweeper came around. We were like, “What’s a sweeper?” We had never heard of sweepers. And now we’ve never heard of torpedo bats and now they pop.
Shaw: The Yankees hitting a bunch of home runs made it blow up. Aaron Judge not using the torpedo bat is funny to me. It blew up with the Yankees, but he doesn’t swing it. You can clearly see both sides. They might work, but the old bats work too. The difference might be very small.
Do you think it should be allowed in the sport to use torpedo bats?
Canha: Yes. I do feel like we need all the help we can get. These guys are throwing so hard now. But it’s not a cheat code. We’ll see how it plays out over a little bigger sample size.
Freddie Freeman, 1B, Los Angeles Dodgers: I do not look down on anybody. If it’s legal, you can do whatever you want. I swung the same bat for 16 years. I will not be changing to a torpedo bat. I’ve swung the same length, ounces, everything. If it works for the guys, go for it. I know some of our guys are getting them, so, we’ll see. I will not be swinging them.
Jake Cronenworth, 2B, San Diego Padres: [Torpedo bats] give everyone something to talk about. If any team hit 15 home runs, you’d be like, “What bats are they using? Are they legal?” And they are.
Are torpedo bats a trend based on this week’s buzz or something that is here to stay?
Lopez: I think so, yeah. I really do. I think this can be a good thing for a lot of hitters.
Van Scoyoc: I’m sure some guys will try it out. Someone gets hot, then you’ll probably see more guys going to it. I think it’s good. In pitching they have Trackman. In hitting we do, too. But we don’t capture the bat, which is essentially our same equipment. That’s why I think hitting is behind — because they just get more information that’s useful a lot faster.
O’Hearn: It’s kind of like the axe handle or puck knob. I think just because the Yankees went bananas for two games, it’s going to blow up. And I honestly felt bad for Sig when it went crazy because I was like, I don’t know if he was the first one on it, but I feel like he’s sitting around somewhere, like, ‘I wish the Orioles would’ve done this.’
Freeman: I promise you I have not read a thing about it. I only know there’s a torpedo bat and it looks kind of like the barrel’s shorter or lower down. That’s all I’ve got. Nor will I read into it. That’s just me. I’m not the right guy to ask those kind of questions. I swing the same bat every day.
Muncy: Baseball is not a one-size-fits-all sport, going from socks to batting gloves to shoes to pants. It’s not a one size fits all for anyone in this game. So, everyone swings different. Everyone likes their bat different. There’s some guys I think it could be a real benefit for, and there’s some guys it might be a detriment. I still don’t know where I’m at on that scale.
Hoerner: I think [it’s a trend]. There was the axe handle. A lot of guys with the Red Sox had success with that. Then in 2021, there was the big puck knob trend. You still see some of those. This is a little different when you’re changing where you impact the ball with. The jury is still out. I don’t look at that Yankees series and think it would have been a totally different series without the bats. It’s about marginal differences over the course of 600 ABs. That really matters.
Hoyer: This isn’t the kind of thing, one team did it and everyone copied. There were a number of teams on this. There is a lot of attention because of the size of the market and [the Yankees] scored 20. Guys were hitting in the cage with them last year. Pete [Crow-Armstrong] used it in a game last year in September (he flew out). It’s new, but it’s not like it started game two last weekend and everyone copied it quickly.
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