The biggest story in sports right now may not be the NCAA Tournament, NFL free agency, or even the upcoming Masters tournament. Instead, Major League Baseball has stolen the early April headlines thanks to the buzz surrounding the torpedo bats of the New York Yankees and their impressive number of home runs this season. These torpedo bats have been designed to transfer more mass into the barrel, similar to golf drivers that have increased sweet spots, allowing hitters to make stronger and longer contact.
The torpedo bats have led to immediate success for the Yankees, who dominated the Brewers over the weekend, hitting nine home runs in a single game. This trend has prompted other players, such as Elly de la Cruz, to test them as well, yielding quick results.
The excitement has escalated to the point where DraftKings now features a section for home run prop bets tailored to players likely using the torpedo bats in their games.
DraftKings has now filtered home run props by players that they believe will be using Torpedo bats today (via @EvanHAbrams) pic.twitter.com/U2UhksZuIp
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 1, 2025
Typically, sportsbooks look to leverage any edge they can get over bettors, raising questions about whether these odds might be skewed, considering the current power of these juiced bats. DraftKings even remarked on the torpedo bats in a tweet, accompanied by a humorous meme.
“Billy this is the torpedo bat. It’s like a regular bat, except the barrel is tailored for each hitter. You locate a hitter’s sweet spot and move more wood to that area. Its defect is that the Yankees gained notoriety for using them.” pic.twitter.com/LoLICEONW2
— DraftKings Sportsbook (@DKSportsbook) April 1, 2025
Major League Baseball must be thrilled with the attention and coverage the torpedo bats are generating. The narrative of innovative engineering and MIT research is a far more compelling angle on the modern home run surge than revisiting another steroid era. Yet, a lingering question remains: in over 150 years of baseball, how did this idea not emerge until now?
