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MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

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Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#181

Post by MajimasEyepatch »

kaycebasques wrote: post #12

If only the Yankees get access to it (e.g. they patented it and won't let other teams use it) then I could see it as an unfair advantage. In most other areas of America life, though, this innovation would be allowed or even celebrated. I imagine it will go the way of the brilliant strategic innovation a few years back of shifting defenders heavily depending on the batter's statistical hitting patterns. It'll get bann…

There are already other teams using these bats, and it seems like they will spread pretty quickly: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6243085/2025/03/31/mlb-torp...

I don't know why anyone would be upset about this, but baseball fans tend to be curmudgeons.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#182

Post by mauvehaus »

hnburnsy wrote: post #150
Pet_Ant wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm picturing a caddy standing off to the side of the batter with a bag full of bats, sizing up the last pitch and say "May I suggest the pine with the conical twist sir?"

A caddy? How about an instant 3D printer\CNC machine?

If you find yourself in Louisville, Kentucky, you can see how they make bats at the factory. At least 20 years ago, it was already pretty automated. They put the blanks on a copy lathe and turn out bats from a template.

Sanding and finishing are subsequent steps.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#183

Post by bluGill »

dionidium wrote: post #147
ramesh31 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely can't understand the thought process of a Yankees fan. If it's just a tradition thing, then sure whatever. But someone who watches them play and goes "yeah that's my team" is just mindblowing. They'll have a batting lineup that costs more than the opponents entire field, knowing full well they are all just hired guns who will be gone the moment the contract is up, and then you watch them in the playoffs a…

> I genuinely can't understand the thought process of a Yankees fan. There is very little free agency in American sports fandom. People are (for the most part) fans of the team local to where they grew up. (This kind of bums me out as someone raising kids in New England, which is not where I'm from, and so not whose teams I root for.)

Backing the local team always makes the most sense. In NYC you can choose Mets or Yankees (though where you live in the city affects even that). Choosing a team from some other city means you see your team play much less often and only after much effort. Worse there are less people to talk about the game as nobody has seen your team play and you didn't see their team plan. (except when your team plans the local team)

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#184

Post by nemo44x »

vessenes wrote: post #104
ranger207 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baseball is a different spectator sport. You don't have to pay attention to it 90% of the time. If you're looking for a game to pay attention to constantly, then yeah baseball's not ideal. But if you're looking for a game to put on in the background, or go to a ballpark and have a picnic, then baseball's the perfect sport. Also, regarding your last sentence, the new pitch clock rules in 2023 have helped a lot, bringi…

I like to say that baseball goes perfectly with radio: it can be enjoyed as a low bitrate entertainment. That said there’s actually a fair amount going on during any one play; who’s warming up in the pen? Where are fielders shifting to? What’s the lead off look like? television and radio both edit most of this out to focus on the pitcher or the hitter, which I think makes baseball less interesting to watch or listen…

My favorite thread here. In essence making the case for baseball in that you don’t have to pay attention and it’s even better when you can’t see it, only hear about it. But it’s all true. Having a game on the radio outside with a group of friends having a good time not really paying it too much mind and then everyone alert during a moment of built up tension and release is what summers are all about.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#185

Post by pinkmuffinere »

facile3232 wrote: post #163
demosthanos wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line isn't purely arbitrary, it's a reflection of the reality of what most people expect from sports: we want them to be a contest of human skill on the part of the athlete, not just the amount of money someone is willing to spend on the team. We also want underdogs to have a chance, which is very hard without some sort of limits. You could probably accomplish something similar by strictly capping spending per te…

> we want them to be a contest of human skill on the part of the athlete, not just the amount of money someone is willing to spend on the team This is simply not reflected very well in how professional sports are structured. If this were really a priority teams wouldn't be privately owned. It has extremely negative effects on each sport, easily dwarfing the influence of performance enhancing drugs. Anyway, I would ab…

Can you say more about the impact of private ownership? I don’t watch sports at all, so this is news to me — what are the negative effects? Is it just you get teams with massive funding and others with none?

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#186

Post by facile3232 »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #185
facile3232 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we want them to be a contest of human skill on the part of the athlete, not just the amount of money someone is willing to spend on the team This is simply not reflected very well in how professional sports are structured. If this were really a priority teams wouldn't be privately owned. It has extremely negative effects on each sport, easily dwarfing the influence of performance enhancing drugs. Anyway, I would ab…

Can you say more about the impact of private ownership? I don’t watch sports at all, so this is news to me — what are the negative effects? Is it just you get teams with massive funding and others with none?

Yea, and to be fair the leagues try to compensate for this with varying degrees of success by regulating how much you can spend, subsidizing poorer teams, etc.

But ultimately you run into issues like the colorado rockies where the owner just views it like an entertainment venue and basically refuses to invest in the team in any rational way. The entire model of competiton-through-investment doesn't make as much sense once you realize you can place butts in seats without a competent team to root for.

(And personally, i think it makes a lot of sense for the team to own itself, or a state to own a team, or something like that. I think the Green Bay Packers have a setup like this.)

It's also not possibly to divvy players rarely—sometimes you run into people who are truly extraordinary, and exorbitant salaries can help balance this, to debatable efficacy.

Edit: yup, https://www.packers.com/community/shareholders. Kind of an orthogonal issue to disproportionate spending of teams, though.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#187

Post by arrosenberg »

bluGill wrote: post #178
arrosenberg wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't friction from the grip (that can occasionally pop up), the issue is when you hit the wrong spot and the energy of the ball gets dumped entirely into your hands instead of evenly distributed through the bat.

That is what padding gloves help with. Though I suspect thick padding causes less control of the bat and so overall isn't worth it.

It just doesn't help that much to be worth the change in mechanics and the compromise on grip strength - too much energy, too quickly to effectively dissipate. I stopped playing competitively in my teens and I still remember how much that hurts.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#188

Post by treis »

lenerdenator wrote: post #110

Cool. Make it open-source for the rest of the league. Otherwise this is just more proof that Yankees fans are the same kind of people who would cheer when the casino wins another slot machine pull.

Open source what exactly? It's a piece of wood turned on a lathe. Not an atom bomb

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#189

Post by 3vidence »

trillic wrote: post #128
adzm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the "tush push". It's not a particularly complex play, but for some reason the Philadelphia Eagles can pull it off astoundingly better than anyone else in the league I looked this up and am still unclear why only the Eagles seem to be able to perform this maneuver effectively, other than having an exceptionally strong person at the front?

Their quarterback squatting 600 lbs doesn’t hurts.

Also helps he is not exceptionally tall to keep a lower center of gravity.

Josh Allen on the bills also tries this and is very strong but it's harder for him to get as low.

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