Posted on 04/02/2025 2:25:21 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Without reading I would surmise the mass is concentrated at a single point. Less contact, less absorption of kinetic energy.
Here is how they work. The ball comes off of the bat and is hit to a place where Aaron Judge drops it.
...Aaron Leanhardt, the field coordinator for the Miami Marlins, is the mastermind behind the torpedo bat. You can watch the full 8-minute interview recorded by Kevin Barral of our sister sister Fish on First. Otherwise, here are some takeaways:
His background is in physics and electrical engineering, and he has a PhD from MIT.
The idea took more than two years to get to this point.
He credits the batters, not the bats.
The bat was first utilized in 2023 (he wouldn’t say by whom), at both the minor- and major-league levels. It was tested as early as 2022, but not in regular-season games.
The industry was more aware of players trending toward using these bats than the media and general public were; this didn’t sneak up on teams or players.
Leanhardt points out that traditional bats are at their thickest at the end instead of at the barrel, which is where players are trying to make contact...
?
This bat is unlikely to be used by the high average base hitters due to their relying on the entire barrel length for their hits.......
LOL. Gee, make an error in a World Series game, and it draws a lot of attention......
Not saying they’d work better, but I wonder if cricket bats would be allowed.
I remember bats like that from when I was a kid.
Don’t remember actually swinging one.
My favorite bat in high school was a Wally Moon model.
The early baseball bats were longer and heavier. They often have little taper over their lengths and look more like a modern softball bat than they do a modern baseball bat. The knobs have all sorts of shapes.
I had a ca.1860 decorated one (for a league championship) that I consigned to an auction. It would gag most here if I told you what it sold for.
My guess is it widens the sweet spot a little
Ah, they answered my question (that’s what comes of reading the article): “The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part . . .”
Disappointed in what a physics professor would come up with.
What the bottle bat does (and the design was quite common in the early Babe Roth era) ismove the center of percussion more inward on the handle, closer to the label where many batters make, or try to make, the impact point on the ball.
It is the point where all energy is focused on the impact point with the ball, and little or none of the energy wasted on the hand holding point. That’s what is amplified when you hit the ball back on the handle, especially on a cold day when it stings.
Energy wasted elsewhere on the bat other than that center of percussion ( the sweet spot) is energy not imparted to the ball.
The real question, as any engineering student would tell you, is why hasn’t bat design done this years ago.
I wonder how the bats would work if Ángel Hernández was working the plate, calling balls and strikes? Never mind, he retired.
...I mean, we know how moonbat’s work.
“When you want a great night, go straight for the Hiney”
I hope they used that line.
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