MLB commissioner Rob Manfred makes his stance clear on controversial torpedo bats
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred isn’t about to torpedo baseball’s offense-boosting bats.
In fact, Manfred said that the torpedo bats that the Yankees and other teams are using to slug their way to early-season victories are “absolutely good for baseball” during a Q&A with The New York Times.
No, not because MLB wants the Yankees to succeed, as some conspiracy theorists want to believe. But because controversy injects life into baseball at a time when ratings are declining and ESPN is ending a longtime television broadcasting partnership.
“I believe that issues like the torpedo bat and the debate around it demonstrate the fact that baseball still occupies a unique place in our culture, because people get into a complete frenzy over something that’s really nothing at the end of the day,” Manfred told The Times. “The bats comply with the rules.”
Torpedo bats have more of the barrel centered around the individualized frequent point of contact for each player.
“Players have actually been moving the sweet spot around in bats for years,” Manfred says. “But it just demonstrates that something about the game is more important than is captured by television ratings or revenue or any of those things, when you have the discussions and debates about it.”
Pitchers began to complain about the torpedo bats during opening weekend, when the Yankees swept a three-game series from the Brewers by tying an MLB record with a 15-home run barrage.
Giancarlo Stanton, who had a legacy-making postseason run as the Yankees reached the 2024 World Series, was among the MLB players who used a torpedo bat last season.
He is sidelined by an elbow injury this season, but declined to draw any correlation between the two.
Sports are often accused of tweaking their rules to favor scoring and offense to capture fans’ attention.
Manfred said MLB isn’t necessarily trying to create more home runs as much as it is less downtime.
“You often hear about the balance between pitching and hitting and those sorts of issues,” he said. “One thing we learned through all the research that we did with fans is that athleticism matters the most, maybe more than anything else. Anything you do that promotes defensive athleticism, stolen bases. Action, movement, the ability to show how athletic you are. Any changes that allow the showcasing of the athleticism of your players is huge.”
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