Posted on 03/29/2025 11:18:59 PM PDT by Az Joe
The New York Yankees put on a show for their fans against the Milwaukee Brewers at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.
The only problem is many watching started to question whether New York’s offensive onslaught was legal.
First baseman Paul Goldschmidt, left fielder Cody Bellinger and right fielder Aaron Judge hit back-to-back-to-back home runs off Brewers starter and former teammate Nestor Cortes on the first three pitches of the first inning.
The Yankees cheating? Who do they think they are, the Astros’?
In Major League Baseball (MLB), bats must be made of solid wood, not exceed 42 inches in length or 2.61 inches in diameter, and have no more than an inch-deep indentation at the end. Grip substances can extend 18 inches from the end of the handle.
You still have to actually hit the pitched ball with the bat, right?
“Louisville AI Slugger”
True. But the bats they used yesterday were shaped differently than traditional
bats.
Thicker sweet spot for home run hitters but narrower barrel end. Not a good choice for the singles hitters who rely on ball contact along the entire barrel.
Always fun to watch the Yankees buy their way to the “final table” every year. Like going to a poker game with $100 and some dude always shows up with $1000. This league is out of hand.
And the Dodgers show up with $2000
I believe that is what is called a Statistical Impossibility. Unless the Brewers pitching staff is comprised of High School girls softball pitchers.
Who do they think they are, the Patriots?..............
It fit within the rules................
There has got to be MLB specs on the demensions of bats. Wouldn’t the Yankees know them?
When you accuse someone of cheating, isn’t it customary to explain what rule they’ve broken? Or how something is unfair? what the Yankees did isn’t sneaky, it isn’t illegal, it isn’t proven to be advantageous, and it can be done by anyone... yet it’s “cheating”???
That Astros situation made me absolutely hate MLB leadership and the sports coverage. Yankees provided proof of the cheating, and everyone in the sports press said it was just spoiled-sport whining, even though the outcome hadn’t even concluded! Yet when the Nationals complain, oh, now we have to do something about it!
Agreed.
Oh, go complain elsewhere. The Yankees have the 7th highest active payroll and are outspent this year by the Dodgers by $100 million (counting Ohtani’s deferred salaries) and $50 million by their market sharers, the Mets (who signed the Yankees biggest free agent).
Meanwhile, the worst team in history is in the nation’s third biggest market and is getting tens of millions of dollars from subsidies... and a chance to get top draft picks play for them for seven years in the majors before going free agents.
When did sports fans become such socialists? There was nothing wrong with sixteen teams, and if there were still just sixteen teams, there would be a competitive market for each of them. But some whiny billionaire convinces his city’s chamber of commerce to hoodwink the city into building a multi-billion-dollar stadium and convention center complex, and now suddenly it’s the Yankees’ fault that Oakland’s minor-league team can’t land Soto or Ohtani.
They should do 8 teams. The rest are just farm teams.
Yup. Not only that, but the Brewers and any other Yankees’ opponents have every right to request the umpires measure the bats and punish the Yankees if they’re not in compliance.
Here’s what happened: The Yankees found that a couple of their right-hand hitters were hitting home runs out of their famously deep (but no longer so deep) left-center field off the label of their bats, not the barrels. So they moved the mass of their bats down towards the labels. Simple. They just used a little statistical analysis to help their players select which shape bat to use, and the result was slightly surprising.
Is the new bat shape helpful? Maybe, at least to mid-level power hitters like Volpe and Chissholm. Is it so helpful that explains NINE home runs, including three in three pitches? Hell no. Is it sneaky, unfair, or illegal? Don’t be stupid, Mike Gallagher of Athlon Sports. You just made your employer a laughingstock.
Louisville Slugger would know. They know down to exact type of wood, density, load etc. It’s crazy what they keep up with and had bins of wood for each players bats.
I’m for going back to sixteen teams. There are some historic franchises that I’d rather keep than the new tenants of their old cities, but let’s face it:
Pittsburgh is no longer a dying shell of a city, but it’s no longer a major-league town. Neither is Cincinnati, or Milwaukee. Kansas City never was. Chicago, the San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and Baltimore-Washington don’t need two teams. (Neither does New York, but apparently it can handle two.) Florida and Arizona are for Spring training. Toronto’s massive; if they can’t afford a baseball team, it’s Ottowa’s tax policy’s fault.
There, that’s down to 20 teams.
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