NEW YORK — The New York Yankees’ bats have been the story of the crew’s franchise-record nine-home run day in opposition to the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday. Then got here the dialogue concerning the precise bats utilized by some gamers within the 20-9 win.
The uniquely formed lumber is the results of two years of analysis and experimentation with a former Massachusetts Institute of Expertise physicist-turned-coach on the helm.
The query at its middle?
“The place are you attempting to hit the ball?” Aaron Leanhardt stated in a cellphone interview Sunday morning. “The place are you attempting to make contact?”
Leanhardt, 48, started his work when he was a member of the Yankees’ minor-league hitting division in 2022 and introduced it to the most important leagues final season when he was the crew’s lead analyst, with some gamers, together with shortstop Anthony Volpe, attempting them in video games. Now, as many as 5 Yankees shall be utilizing them in video games no less than early this season, in line with outfielder Cody Bellinger.
The bats — with their torpedo-like form — are custom-made to participant preferences and are designed in order that the densest a part of the bat is the place that specific hitter most frequently makes contact with the baseball, stated Leanhardt, who grew to become a discipline coordinator with the Miami Marlins within the offseason.
“Actually,” he stated. “It’s nearly making the bat as heavy and as fats as attainable within the space the place you’re attempting to do harm on the baseball.”
Anthony Volpe (holding a “torpedo” bat) congratulates Jazz Chisholm in the course of the Yankees’ 20-9 win on Saturday. (Mike Stobe / Getty Photographs)
A Main League Baseball spokesman instructed The Athletic that the bats don’t break any guidelines. MLB Rule 3.02 states {that a} bat “shall be a easy, spherical stick no more than 2.61 inches in diameter on the thickest half and less than 42 inches in size. The bat shall be one piece of strong wooden.” It additionally says that “experimental” bats can’t be used “till the producer has secured approval from Main League Baseball of his design and strategies of manufacture.”
Requested whether or not he was the inventor of the expertise, Leanhardt stated it was a gaggle effort, the outcomes coming from conversations with coaches, gamers, MLB and bat makers.
“Credit score goes to those that take it,” Leanhardt stated. “But when individuals need to ascribe credit score to completely different individuals, then I’ll take some minimize of it.”
A Yankees official, nonetheless, stated Leanhardt deserves “quite a bit” of the credit score. Retired infielder Kevin Smith, who spent components of 4 seasons within the majors, additionally credited Leanhardt because the inventor.
Sure, the Yankees have a literal genius MIT Physicist, Lenny (who’s the person), on payroll. He invented the “Torpedo” barrel. It brings extra wooden – and mass – to the place you most frequently make contact as a hitter. The thought is to extend the variety of “barrels” and reduce misses. pic.twitter.com/CsC1wkAM9G
— Kevin Smith (@KJS_4) March 29, 2025
Leanhardt took an unorthodox path to baseball.
He has a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering from the College of Michigan and a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. He was a physics professor on the College of Michigan from 2007 to 2014.
Leanhardt started teaching within the Atlantic League in 2017 and coached at a Montana neighborhood faculty earlier than becoming a member of the Yankees in 2018. Within the majors in 2024, the membership stated he was its first “main league analyst” and “answerable for integrating the usage of quantitative info with on-field efficiency and preparation.”
Why depart academia for baseball?
“I believe that’s one of many cool issues about sports activities is it’s very aggressive,” he stated. “Guys are keen to push the envelope. It’s simply a possibility to take my background to an space and discover methods to innovate.”
Speaking to gamers over time revealed that their largest issues have been twofold, Leanhardt stated. They needed to make extra contact with pitches and so they needed to strike the ball extra typically with the bat’s “candy spot,” or the densest space.
“They’re going to level to a location on the bat that’s in all probability six or seven inches down from the tip of the bat,” he stated. “That’s the place the candy spot usually is. It’s simply by these conversations the place you assume to your self, why don’t we alternate how a lot wooden we’re placing on the tip versus how a lot we’re placing within the candy spot? That’s the unique idea proper there. Simply attempt to take all that extra weight and attempt to put it the place you’re attempting to hit the ball after which in alternate attempt to take the thinner diameter that was once on the candy spot and put that on the tip.”
Leanhardt stated he didn’t see many drawbacks to redistributing the burden of the bat.
“The bat pace ought to keep the identical,” he stated. “Perhaps the bat pace may even enhance just a little bit relying on the way you need to redesign the bat. However finally you’re getting a fatter barrel, a heavier barrel on the candy spot. So in some sense, you may have your cake and eat it right here too. You may get some positive factors with out really making sacrifices.”
Leanhardt stated he didn’t need to speak about particular person gamers’ experiences with the brand new bat. Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton instructed reporters earlier this month that it was “in all probability some bat changes” final season that induced the ligament tears in each of his elbows that led to his present keep on the injured checklist, although he didn’t place particular blame on anyone. Then he added: “I don’t know why it occurred.” Leanhardt declined to touch upon Stanton’s state of affairs.
“You’d must ask the Yankees’ medical personnel about that,” he stated. “I’ll defer all these inquiries to the Yankees’ medical guys.”
Leanhardt stated it was “the character of our enterprise” that it took years for a radically new bat design to come back alongside.
“Folks again within the day swung very heavy bats made out of hickory after which somebody had this genius thought to swing one thing lighter, one thing like ash, and that was revolutionary again within the Twenties, ’30s, ’40s type of in that transition, after which the trade type of stayed the course for fairly a while,” he stated. “In the end, it simply takes individuals asking the appropriate questions and being keen to be forward-thinking.”
He acquired a kick out of seeing the social media fervor the bats induced Saturday. He stated that whereas some gamers started to make use of them final season, “your entire trade type of caught wind of it” and “it exploded within the offseason.”
“Which is why you see it within the palms of so many guys proper now,” he stated. “Clearly, (Saturday’s) efficiency threw an entire lot of consideration to it.”
It took loads of coordination for the bats to go from the design stage to being manufactured. Leanhardt stated he would “assure” he’s on a first-name foundation with officers at MLB who oversee bat regulation and “everybody who operates the lathe for each bat producer in baseball.”
“You actually simply are speaking with every firm and looking for the one that actually is aware of the wooden and is aware of learn how to flip the wooden on a lathe. You simply construct a relationship with these guys and persuade them that that is one thing that’s of their finest curiosity to supply for his or her gamers. They need their gamers to be as profitable as attainable. Some guys purchase in and it positive factors traction,” he stated. “That’s actually the way it acquired constructed up.”
(High photograph of Aaron Leanhardt, proper, with Marlins supervisor Clayton McCullough: Jasen Vinlove / Miami Marlins / Getty Photographs)