The so-called “torpedo” bats with more mass in the sweet spot have been in the works for a couple of years, but a nine-home run barrage by the New York Yankees on Saturday—with some of the memorable blasts coming from the custom equipment—has turned it into the must-have item for many MLB players.
“It’s been crazy,” Doug Trimble, senior marketing manager at Victus Sports, said in a phone interview. “Everybody wants to try it, who hasn’t tried it essentially. We’re just trying to manage all the orders coming in.”
Kurt Ainsworth, Marucci Sports co-founder and CEO, added in a video interview that fans should expect to see many more MLB players try out the equipment in the near future.
“More than 50% of our [MLB] orders here the past few days have been torpedo bats,” said Ainsworth, who pitched in MLB before his full-time sports business career.
The bats do not violate any rules, per an MLB spokesperson. MLB’s rulebook lays out the specifications for a bat. “The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length,” Rule 3.02 states.
Victus and Marucci, both owned by Fox Factory, are the two official bat partners of Major League Baseball. They took over this year after two decades of Louisville Slugger in the role. The brands were not planning on making the torpedo bats available at this point, but the buzz over the Yankees’ record-tying home run barrage to start the season changed those plans.
“We own our wood mills and our lab and everything here,” Ainsworth said. “So, it was easy for us to jump on that and start selling it, if that’s what the kids want.”
Marucci, Victus and Chandler Bats made torpedo bats available to the public on their websites this week. Ainsworth and Trimble wouldn’t comment on specific sales. Trimble said it was a “big number” and Ainsworth said website traffic was its highest ever at this point in the season. “The bat everyone’s talking about is here,” adorns the top of Marucci’s website. A message left for Chandler was not returned.
Prices range from $170 to $239.
The total U.S. bat market, including metal bats, was $320 million in 2023, according to SFIA. The commercial wood bat market is relatively small, as most youth programs use metal bats, which rarely break. But people are ordering the new torpedo bats, and the interest is driving sales of other baseball equipment and accessories this week.
While the bats have become an MLB phenomenon this year, Ainsworth said Aaron “Lenny” Leanhardt reached out to Marucci’s performance lab about them in September 2023. Leanhardt was an MIT physicist-turned-coach who was working with the Yankees at the time. He’s now with the Miami Marlins.
Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton tried the bats in spring training last year but didn’t like the feeling, according to Ainsworth. A few players, including New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, used the bats during the 2024 season. Stanton switched course and used the torpedo bats in the postseason when he hit seven home runs and was the American League Championship Series MVP.
Ainsworth and Trimble both stress that the torpedo bats are tuned to the specifications of individual players, similar to how golf pros work with equipment manufacturers for their clubs. Roughly 55% of MLB players use Marucci or Victus bats.
Not everyone likes the new bats, with some equating them to a Fred Flintstone bat, or a “Godzilla” bat in the case of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. On Tuesday, Portnoy went on Fox Business and argued the bats go against “hundreds of years of baseball,” based on pitchers wanting to throw inside.
Yet, the notorious Boston sports fan might be singing a different tune soon. Ainsworth says Alex Bregman, who is featured on Marucci’s homepage and signed a three-year, $120 million contract with the Boston Red Sox in February, just requested a shipment of torpedo bats.
They are on their way.
