Latest / Bleacher Report / The Impact of 'Torpedo Bats' Explained & How Can Pitchers Adjust? | MLB on TBS

Transcript

The Impact of 'Torpedo Bats' Explained & How Can Pitchers Adjust? | MLB on TBS · Bleacher Report

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Are off to a fantastic start. Look at this, fifteen
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: home runs in three games. It was against the Brewers.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I'm so curious what Casiro would say if he's staring
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: down the mound at a torpedo bat and you bat
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the Yanks among others are using and maybe as a
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: result are not certain.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Because he's not using it, but some of his teammates are.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: They're legal. Explain the difference, Jimmy, Well.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: What they're doing is just moving a center of gravity.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: They're changing the sweet spot. So every bat, well traditional
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: batchel somewhere between where the barrel and I guess where
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: the handles start to submerge when they formed the bat,
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: and between that and then on the bat, you have
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: about maybe about three or four inches that is considered
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: the sweet spot. But what they're doing now is shifting
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: that sweet spot down. We always hear here to some
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: about I just missed it. Usually when you just miss
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: it meaning the ball just got in where you just
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: missed a sweet spot. So science and baseball are saying,
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: you know, what, what can we do to take that
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: away that when I just miss it? Because we want
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: to let the ball get deep, we want to travel
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: it caused you to miss the ball in as opposed
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: off the bat. If we can change the center of gravity,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: we can make the sweet spot a little bit in
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: that where I just missed it, you're going to get
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: the results that you're seeing now. The opposite is, I
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: don't know what happens as you hit it towards towards
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: the end of the bat, which is never good. But
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: with the traditional bats you still have some weight there.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Sure it changes the weight distribution.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: Would you've used it with the amount of information they
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: have now telling you, hey, you're hitting the ball on
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: this part of the bat. If we can move the
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: bat there and therefore where you're hitting it, you can
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: be rewarded. You got to think about it. And baseball
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: players are very superstitious and we're very If we get
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: something and it works, we're gonna stay with it. Case
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: in point, the first time I got a maple bat
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: in my hand, I never.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Put it, never went back, you know.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: And that's the thing we have it we see trends
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: like this. Before we went from ash bats to maple bats,
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: maple bats to birch bats. We went from the axe
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: handled to the hockey puck handles. There's always been changed
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: and tinkering in the bats. And if you get hits, Lauren,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: you're gonna keep using bats.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I got my little torfeedo.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: But I'm ready.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I am ready.
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: First time ever they there you go for the first
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: for the first time ever, they made a bat that
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: according to you, you know what a little bit I
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: think I could come out with that retirement after this
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: getting jammed on that one.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Not at all.
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: Listen, I'm gonna add a little bit to what Curtis said.
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of data and information about how this
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: bat was made for different hitters, kind of like the
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: the the the golf players that had their own their
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: own clubs made according to how well. That also takes
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: me to to believe that there's some adjustment that needs
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: to me to be made by the pictures, because when
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: I see Bolpi with a little thinner back the end
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: but thicker in the inner part, he's exposing exactly what
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: his weakness are. So it's just a matter of time
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: and execution until the pictures make the adjustment to seeing
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: what kind of barrier you have where your defect is,
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to go and attack those areas with
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: the best of it or maybe expand those areas where
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: you're weaker. And with the amount of information that's being
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: handed to the Pictures and the rest of the league,
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: it's just a matter of time and execution. Remember I'm
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: talking about execution because some of those pictures that you
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: saw the Yankees hit out in that game against Milwaukee,
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: those were cripple pitches. Those were pitches that were mediocre.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: For Nestor, he got ambushed. He got ambushed on three
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: pitches against three good guys that have a lot of power.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: And what they have to do is use quality pitches
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: from the go against a team like the Yankees, especially
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: this early in the season, which is really hard to
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: do for the for the starting pictures.
• 4:06
  Speaker 6: You know, it's so interesting, that's right that you likened
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: it to golfers because Aaron Boone was asked a lot
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: of questions about this, and this is what he had
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: to say about the new that some of his players
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: are using.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: What's to listen to this?
• 4:21
  Speaker 7: I say to you, guys, all the time, we're trying
• 4:23
  Speaker 7: to win on the margins and trying to get and
• 4:25
  Speaker 7: that shows up in so many different ways. Whether you
• 4:27
  Speaker 7: see you know, bat models. You know, we saw the
• 4:33
  Speaker 7: momentum steals that volpi does you see shifts? He like
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: when I say those kind of things, like we have
• 4:40
  Speaker 7: a big organization that are invested in a lot of
• 4:42
  Speaker 7: different things where we're trying to be better in every
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: possible way.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Now we're talking.
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: Now, we're talking Jimmy's language, by the way, because he
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: likens it to a golfer. You're not going for a
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: three day trip with rentals, No, not at all.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Why because they're customed to your swing.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: It's the same thing exactly that the lie, the flex,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: and the chef, your swing speed, all that contributes to
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: what happens with the ball when you're hit in contact,
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: hitting on a toe, you hitting on a heel. So
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: why not have a bat that's custom made for my swing?
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And I'm happy that the players are doing so because
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: every other sport has something that's custom. We usually get
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: the order of the length and the weight. So if
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: we wanted, you know, a little top heavy, they don't
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: cut it. If we wanted, you know, thirty two ounces,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: but we wanted to cut that the end, they're going
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: to get a denser piece of wood cut out the end,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: so they kind of so they can get the way accurate,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: and it distributes the weight in the barrel slightly differently.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: But if I have a swing that says every ninety
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: percent of my swings, is this this this, I have
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: a bet that's made for that, I should get better results.
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: It's always evolution of man. We sit here and talk
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: about that all the time. Guys are throwing one oh
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: four at times?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Is this I know? Right? Is this the hitters sting?
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: It could be an advantage for the hitters. The hitters
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: are always going to be behind. But one of the
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: best things I remember older players telling me, they said,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: one of the great things about getting to the big
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: leagues you can design your own bat. If you want
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: a spinner handle or a bigger up top, or you
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: want to make it longer, you could do that, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: now you have even more options to hopefully help you out.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: But Pedro said it, even with the best bat, even
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: with the best clubs, if I don't execute, I'm not
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: going to get the hits. And the games that we
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: saw with the Yankees and the Brewers, the Brewers pitchers unfortunately,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: were not executing. It didn't matter what bat you were
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: swinging balls down the middle of the plate. Those hitters
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: are going to hit the ball.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: I totally agree, And you saw judges not using torpedo bat.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: He doesn't need to.
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: He doesn't need to, but when he hits it and
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: he's not well executed, forget about it.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: He was asked, are you gonna use it? He's like,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: can excuse me? Sixty runs? I don't need.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: That?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Park is tailor made to his swing.
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: Before the twenty twenty five New York Yankees, there's Heiney
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: grow of the Cincinnati.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: Who's the street is a cricket clubs that?
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm gonna do with that?
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Dean Doug Johnson.
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: I wonder what event we'll break him down after this
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: uncle