New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge walks to first base during the seventh inning of a baseball game … More against the Milwaukee Brewers, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
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Baseball fans must be reminded – it was only one weekend. Supporters of the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals shouldn’t get over their skis, and fans of the Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins shouldn’t despair. Still, a lot of interesting stuff went on during the season’s first weekend, none more overpowering than the onslaught unleashed by the Yankees upon the Brewers in Yankee Stadium.
3 games and 36 runs for the Yanks, with an amazing 15 home runs. And the term “torpedo bat” entered the industry vernacular, with the new expanded hitting zone weapon paying immediate dividends for the home team. (For the record, 12 players on six teams, including the Yankees, are known to have used this type of bat to start the season. Many more teams and players have been in contact with their bat suppliers – those numbers are about to mushroom.)
Five Yankees are known to be using torpedo bats, and they combined for nine homers in the opening series against the Brewers (three for Jazz Chisholm Jr., two each for Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells, and one each for Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt. That’s an instant payoff for the new technology.
There were other factors in the Yankee homer barrage, to be sure. Four of the homers were hit off a pair of fresh rookies making their respective MLB debuts. Five were hit off of former Yankee Nestor Cortes, making his Brewer debut – he allowed the first three PITCHES he threw on Saturday leave the yard. Jitters, perhaps?
On Thursday and Saturday, when 11 of the 15 Yankee homers were hit, the wind was blowing out aat 17 and 15 mph, respectively. On Saturday, when nine of them were hit, the temperature was 30 degrees warmer than on Thursday, at 78 degrees. Ideal homer-hitting conditions, especially for this early in the season.
Much of the chatter online among Brewer fans – I live in the Milwaukee metropolitan area – was that Yankee Stadium was a bandbox, a minor league ballpark. Going to have to respond to that with some reality.
Yankee Stadium IS a homer-friendly park. I’ve been compiling batted ball-based park factors every year since 2013, and it has inflated homers each and every year over that span. However, it is just as clear that Yankee Stadium deflates run-scoring. From 2021-24 it has consistently done so, and it has deflated doubles and triples each and every year since 2013. In 2023 and 2024, it had the 30th and 26th highest single season park factors in MLB at 87.1 and 93.5 respectively. How will 2025 play out? We will see, but this isn’t Coors Field or Great American Ballpark we’re talking about, for sure.
Eight of the 15 Yankee homers this weekend were hit at 105 mph or higher. In 2024, 74.2% of fly balls hit that hard left the yard. They’re gone anywhere. Four of the 15 were hit between 100 and 105 mph, 35.9% of such flies left the yard in 2024. They’re legitimate homers.
That leaves three dicey Yankee homers against the Brewers. Two (Judge’s 99.4 mph and Volpe’s 91.8 mph flies) on Saturday and Chisholm Jr.’s 99.6 mph bolt on Sunday were hit at less than 100 mph. 10.7% of 95-100 mph flies went for homers in 2024; only 1.2% of 90-95 mph flies cleared the wall. These, and especially Volpe’s, were accidental round-trippers.
What broader conclusions can be made about the first weekend slate in general? Hitters are impacting the baseball better than they did in the 2024 season as a whole. Only 8.4% of fly balls were hit at 105 mph or better in 2024; 11.7% of fly balls have been hit that hard thus far in 2025. 23.7% of fly balls were hit at 100 mph or harder in 2024; 29.6% of fly balls have been hit that hard thus far. Now, hitters are physically fresher as the season begins (but so are pitchers) but that seems significant, no?
Now the outputs of those extra well-struck fly balls haven’t kept up, for predictable weather-related reasons. The percentage of 105+ mph flies going for homers is down to 62.4% in the early going, and the homer percentage for 100-105 mph flies is down to 23.7%. If hitters continue to drive the ball hard in the air this consistently as the season unfolds, offense is going to be way up this season once the weather warms up. Is it the bats? The balls? There’s a lot to monitor as we move forward.
One last statistical oddity in the early going. It seems like all of baseball has been taking on the characteristics of Yankee Stadium in the early going – the whole stingy with runs, but not with home runs thing. MLB hitters struck 7771 doubles and 5453 homers in 2024, a ratio if 1.43 doubles for every homer. Through the season’s first full weekend, there have been 150 doubles versus 131 homers, for a 1.15 ratio. That’s a huge change, and remember that if anything, the homer totals to date have been suppressed by the weather. It’s early, but a lot of baseballs could be leaving the yard in 2025. A healthy Aaron Judge could hit 75 bombs.
