The New York Yankees had an unbelievable weekend, and it had their haters questioning everything. The newest problem Yankee detractors are up in arms against is their use of what is being dubbed as their 'Torpedo Bats'.
Over the weekend the Yankees tied a major league record with 15 home runs in the first 3 games. They had multiple players hit multiple home runs and Aaron Judge led the way with 4 home runs, 11 RBI and an OPS of 2.461 over the 3-game set. But all anyone wanted to talk about was the new bats.
The bat discussion turned baseball fans, and Yankee haters, into babbling idiots, looking for excuses why the Bronx Bombers are crushing the baseball. So, let's set the record straight. First of all, the bats are being used by only two players full time, Jazz Chisholm and Anthony Volpe, and Cody Bellinger did try it over the weekend. In fact, the Yankee who had the best offensive series was asked about using the new bats and the captain said he wasn't using the new bat and added "I think what I did this last year speaks for itself."
The bat in question is a new model designed to prevent getting jammed often, something Jazz and Volpe had issues with, by distributing the most amount of wood into a central location on the bat itself. Let's make it very clear to all of the X and social media posts that called it cheating ... the bats are legal. The rules state that the barrel can't exceed 2.61 inches in diameter, which these bats don't, so it's a distribution issue, not an illegal bat.
To take it further it's not just the Yankees. A noted Red Sox fan from Barstool sports, wants to ban the bats, but his favorite team's manager Alex Cora actually said the Red Sox tried these bats in spring training. Other players around the league have also been using them including Francisco Lindor, sorry to the Mets haters who had to jump on the Yankees success, Ryan Jeffers from the Twins, Junior Caminiero from the Rays and others. In fact, it's not just a one-year thing as Bellinger said the Cubs used them last year.
Chris Kirschner reported that the league told him the shape of the bat does not violate the rules. So, people like Trevor Megill, whose team was lit up by the Yankees and said "I think it's terrible. We'll see what the data says ... but it's the Yankees, so they'll let it slide." You sound unintelligent and uninformed.
As to the question that suddenly everyone seems to be asking of will they ban the bats? The answer is no. It's not breaking the rules, and seemingly only the Yankees have had success with the new design ... or perhaps it was just Megill's terrible team that had something to do with it because after all Aaron Judge, Austin Wells, Paul Goldschmidt, Oswald Peraza, and Ben Rice all went deep on his team without the new torpedo bats.
The Brewers, and the rest of baseball fans hating on the Yankees new bats should take a word of advice from the Milwaukee Manager Pat Murphy who when asked about the new bats had this to say. "My old ass will tell you this for sure: It ain't the wand, it's the magician."