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

Baseball’s appeal and pace

• Strong disagreement over whether baseball is inherently boring.
• Critics say it’s too slow, overly three-true-outcome (HR/BB/K) focused, and less intuitive than sports like basketball.
• Defenders argue its complexity, “low-bitrate” nature (great on radio/background), and strategic nuance are the point, and pitch clocks have already helped pace.

What torpedo bats are actually doing

• Design shifts mass and the “sweet spot” toward where certain hitters tend to make contact, without breaking size/wood rules.
• Multiple commenters stress how insanely hard hitting is at MLB speeds; changing a honed swing is high-risk, while changing bat geometry is low-risk.
• This is framed as matching equipment to human biomechanics and hitter tendencies, similar to tailoring tools in software or industrial design.

Customization, fairness, and rules creep

• Many expect player-specific bats tuned via analytics and tracking to spread; youth/amateur access and cost are raised as potential equity issues.
• Some feel equipment should be standardized (“one legal bat”) so sport is about athletes, not tools. Others note that bats have always varied and this is just a data-driven extension.
• Analogy made to banned or constrained tech in other sports: aluminum bats, golf drivers/balls, swimsuits, cycling positions, football “tush push,” defensive shifts, etc.

Will this ruin or improve the game?

• One camp fears more home runs will further erode balls-in-play, defense, and small-ball strategy, echoing concerns from golf’s distance arms race.
• Another camp argues offense and HRs drive viewership and that pitching has outpaced hitting; rebalancing toward more solid contact could be good.
• Several note we’re dealing with tiny samples from a few games; pitchers will adjust, and any real effect needs hundreds of at-bats to measure.

Meta and cultural notes

• Some commenters see media overhyping the bats relative to factors like wind or bad pitching.
• The Yankees’ willingness to pay for innovation fits broader complaints about rich teams buying advantages.
• Separate thread on the article itself: some call it repetitive/SEO-ish or AI-like, but others say that style predates modern AI.