What's the deal with torpedo bats? See how this Baton Rouge bat manufacturer makes them

Torpedo bats are all over the news these days. It started in late March when the 2025 baseball season had just begun. On the second day of the season,  the Yankees scored 20 runs and, and hit nine home runs in the game, a team record.

“This early in the season when the weather’s cold you maybe don’t expect that, “says Tyler Kepner, senior baseball writer for the Athletic. “And there's always people who wonder whether the ball is juiced.”

But this time, it wasn't the ball people were talking about, it was the bat. An oddly-shaped so-called “torpedo bat.” So I decided to pay a visit to Marucci Sports. They're one of the top companies making this bat, and this year, one of the official bat brands of the MLB.

I drive to a big black complex off the highway in Baton Rouge and enter a conference room where bats line the walls, stairs and ceiling. There, I meet Kurt Ainsworth, co-founder and CEO. Even he was amazed at how much people were talking about the bats.

“It was not your normal just ESPN or MLB network talking about baseball,” he says. “It was people with Fox News and CNN talking about baseball. It became everybody that's not even a baseball fan knows about torpedo.”

Ainsworth used to be a pitcher, both at LSU, and for four years in the majors. But these days he’s focused on hitting. He says it wasn’t just the fans freaking out over the bats, players were too.

“I think about 50% of our players have reached out since that weekend asking to at least test or try a torpedo bat,” he says.

Anyone who looks at a torpedo bat can tell that what makes them unique is their shape.

“ I mean, it looks like a bowling pin,” Ainsworth says, hands outlining the bat’s curved top. “They call it a torpedo 'cause it sounds cooler.”

Traditional bats get bigger the higher up you go. But torpedo bats bulge about three quarters of the way up and thin out at the top — like a bowling pin. In other words, there’s a bigger sweet spot.

“It's basically taking the girth and the size of the end of the bat and moving it into the hitting space,” says Ainsworth. “So it gives the player a better chance for success and harder contact.”

So let's say a Major Leaguer wants to try a torpedo bat. First, he comes to Baton Rouge. There, he’ll meet with Micah Gibbs at Marucci’s baseball performance lab. Some of MLB’s biggest stars have paid a visit, including Paul Goldschmidt, Alex Bregman and my personal hero, Mets shortstop, Francisco Lindor.

“We have a fitting matrix,” says Gibbs, describing the players’ personalized bat tutorials. “We have a bunch of different bats, different weights, weight distributions. We put them through an entire physical assessment before they even start swinging.”

Once the player chooses the right bat – maybe even a torpedo bat – construction begins. Marucci owns their own wood mill in Pennsylvania, so first, they ship and dry the wood – usually maple.

“The bats come in as a billet of wood and we will cut it into the shape of the bat. That player specified their bat,” says wood operator Sager Allen. He gives me a tour of the factory where they cut and sand the bats. He assures me they’re not one size fits all.

“We have, I want to say over 70,000 different models we can cut and make,” he says. “So there's definitely an art form to it.”

After the bats are cut, sanded and weighed, they head over to the painting department. We walk to another room where bats of every color line the wall. That’s where we meet  Nathan Bell, engraving and finishing manager.

“After it comes into the engraving room, it'll go into, back into the wood shop to get cupped and knobbed to the specific weight that the player ordered it,” says Bell. “Then  it'll go into the paint booth to make sure that everything's correct. The finish is applied properly, whether it's gloss, mat, or grit.”

Once the bats are painted and knobbed at the bottom – and inscribed with the player’s often illegible signature – they're shipped to the athletes to test out. But I wanted to test these bats too.

We head to Marucci’s on-site batting cages. The same ones where major leaguers are getting fitted. But, I’m not worried, I’ve played two seasons in an adult softball league.

Micah grabs some torpedo bats. I’ve brought along Marty Sullivan – he’s an LSU sports reporter and today – my pitcher. He starts throwing and I start swinging.

I didn’t really notice the bat difference at first. I also wasn’t getting too many hits. Then, after a couple more swings – and convincing my pitcher to stop throwing off-speeds and give me something to hit – I started to get the hang of it.

You can feel it, the sweet spot is bigger. So big, in fact, that earlier in the season, some wondered if the bats might get banned. But, Kepner isn’t too worried.

“ I think it's just an innovation for the hitters, honestly,” he says. “We've seen a lot of advancements the last few years in pitching technology and velocity, and the way to make the ball spin. So I think this is just a, you know, one time when the hitters are fighting back a little bit.

In other words, baseball is constantly evolving, and these torpedo bats are just the latest innovation in pushing the limits of the game.