WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson is known for his routine and sticking with what works for him.
That extends to the bat he uses. Well, at least it did. Swanson has been consistently using the new “torpedo” bat in games this season, along with second baseman Nico Hoerner. Other Cubs hitters have tested it out to varying degrees in non-game environments. First baseman Michael Busch is among them, though he said he didn’t notice much of a difference and as of now doesn’t plan to use one.
The model’s torpedo moniker is inspired by the barrel’s unique design that features a more bulky area intended to increase contact on the sweet spot of the bat.
Swanson started testing Marucci’s torpedo bat in the offseason and spring training before committing to trying it for one or two at-bats in Cactus League games. As Swanson put it, “You can’t knock it until you try it.” Swanson was using the bat when he homered Sunday and Monday, the latter part of back-to-back home runs with Michael Busch in the Cubs’ 18-3 win against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park.
“You’ve got to have a legitimate sample size — buying into understanding that there are some good results that can come from it, and it just pushed me to start trying to use it a little bit more often,” Swanson told the Tribune on Monday. “All the data and everything behind it obviously supports that it works. They’ve done a lot of working on trying to make sure that it’s as identical to whatever normal model we’ve swung in our careers, so I give them a lot of props for that.
“There’s nothing that anyone’s doing that’s against bat regulations,” Swanson said. “It’s just a different way of creating something. I think it’s a cool thing that ideology has been challenged a little bit.”
While the torpedo bat gained attention when some New York Yankees were spotted using them as the offense put up 20 runs and slugged a club-record nine home runs in their win Saturday over Milwaukee, its existence wasn’t exactly a big secret to teams, at least not the Cubs.
Hitting coach Dustin Kelly told the Tribune on Sunday that the organization has known about this bat prototype for a while and had even done some internal research and testing. He first started hearing talk about it toward the end of last season.
The bulkier barrel of the torpedo bat moves some of the “sweet spot” material down to potentially maximize hits off the barrel. Kelly said they are still trying to figure out the bat’s potential impact on mechanics — there isn’t a ton of data yet because not many players have used them in games. But the idea is to make the torpedo bat feel the same as a player’s typical, traditional bat.
“We’ve looked at baseball bats the same way since we were 3 years old, you pick up a bat and it’s looked the same outside of like a big T-ball bat or something so the visual part of it is really tricky, like, how’s this gonna work?” Kelly said. “But when you actually kind of think about it and they explain to you why it’s made that way and what the benefits are, it makes a ton of sense.
“It’s like if you had a (golf) driver for three years and you went and bought the new one, it’s going to feel different in your hands. Are guys willing to get over that part and give it an extended run to see if there are some batted ball metrics that are better?”
Hoerner has tried different bats during his career, switching to Louisville Slugger this year, and the torpedo shape is admittedly even more of a change. Like any change, the adjustment can take time and trust. Hoerner started using the torpedo bat in the spring, and he said his swing felt good, prompting him to continue with it in the regular season.
“Honestly, as players we’re hyper-aware of opportunities to get better and it’s so hard to improve at this level, so whether it’s training tools or equipment or whatever it is, opportunities you have to improve your skill set as a player is always important,” Hoerner said to the Tribune. “If there is a difference, it makes a difference over the course of a long time and a lot of different at-bats, like most changes in baseball, its sample sizes need to be pretty big in order to feel significant. I like it.”
Although the torpedo bats look odd, they fall under Major League Baseball’s regulations. The league stipulates in Rule 3.02(a) that the bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part while not more than 42 inches in length and shall be one piece of solid wood. It also notes that no laminated or experimental bats shall be used in a professional game until the manufacturer has secured approval from MLB of the design and methods of manufacture.
A torpedo bat, left, sits next to a standard bat during a game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals in Toronto on Monday, March 31, 2025. (Thomas Skrlj/The Canadian Press via AP)
“We’ve seen technology and so many things change in this game,” Kelly said. “Golf has been ahead of us for a long time with changing different weights and a lot of that so I think we’re starting to catch up and go on that end of it. … I do think you’re going to start to see more and more guys using it from different manufacturers that are starting to catch on and trying to make it ideally perfect for each individual.”
Like Swanson, rookie third baseman Matt Shaw uses Marucci bats and has experimented with their torpedo design. Shaw plans to see if Marucci can make him a version that has half the taper length of the torpedo bat — essentially middle ground between his current traditional bat barrel size and the torpedo version — to still give him the potential benefit of lowering the material to a more concentrated area though not as extreme.
“But I don’t know if I’ll ever use them in a game,” Shaw told the Tribune. “I’ll definitely start to experiment with them and see if I like them.
“There’s definitely data that says that it’s a good thing and data is important, but at the same time, I mean, Aaron Judge is swinging a normal bat and he’s hit five home runs,” Shaw said. “At the end of the day, it’s more the player than the bat so it can be a good, maybe small thing that can be very helpful but whether guys swing it or don’t swing it, I don’t think it’s going to impact their career.”
Pitching advancements have left hitters in catch-up mode and have contributed to a drop in run-scoring around the league. TrackMan data provides instant feedback for pitchers, who can immediately tweak or work on a pitch in bullpens to get the shape or velocity. Innovation on the hitting side, perhaps the torpedo bats playing a role, could help hitters keep up, or at least not significantly lag behind, pitching developments.
“Pitching pretty much will always and forever be ahead of hitting because at the end of the day, the play can’t start until the pitcher throws the ball,” Swanson said. “And they’ve obviously done so much work just around the metrics and analytics and high-speed cameras and all these different things. It is pretty cool offensively trying to do things a little bit different as well.”
The speed at which data and technology have advanced over the last 10 years forces coaches and teams to stay on top of advancements and, as Kelly noted, be willing to figure out, “How can I apply this to one player?” The torpedo bat could ultimately be an inconsequential blip that doesn’t have staying power in the majors. Teams will continue to explore avenues, however unconventional, to help their players.
“I think our guys appreciate that part from our organization that we are willing to put in some of the extra time and resources to try and figure out, hey, we think it’s going to make you better so we’ll give you access to it and then whether they use it in the box or not is up to them,” Kelly said. “But we’re at least putting ourselves out there, trying to make it happen.
“What you’re seeing or information that you’re being fed or given is going to help at least one player at some point down the line within the season, so that’s the growth mindset that you have to have.”
Originally Published: April 1, 2025 at 6:00 AM CDT
