The Rise of the Bowling Pin Bat: A Game-Changer in Baseball?
Early in the 2023 season, Aaron Leanhardt, a minor league hitting coordinator for the New York Yankees, embarked on a mission to enhance the performance of the team’s hitters. With the league-wide batting average at its lowest point in over fifty years, Leanhardt posed a critical question: How could offense keep pace in an era dominated by exceptional pitching?
“Players were frustrated by the fact that pitching had gotten so good,” Leanhardt explained. His background as an MIT-educated physics professor at the University of Michigan equipped him with the analytical skills needed to tackle such challenges. As he engaged with more players, a potential solution began to take shape. With strikeouts at an all-time high, hitters sought to make more contact, and Leanhardt hypothesized that increasing the size of the bat’s barrel could be the key.
However, elongating the barrel, the part of the bat that generates the hardest and most contact, presented a dilemma. While it sounded promising in theory, in practice, it would increase the bat’s weight and slow down swing speed, negating the benefits of a larger sweet spot.
Leanhardt approached the problem from a different angle. He asked players to imagine that every bat had a “wood budget”—a specific amount of weight (usually 31 or 32 ounces) to be distributed over a specific length. The challenge was to allocate a disproportionate amount of that budget to the barrel without compromising the rest of the bat.
This line of thinking led to what could be the most significant advancement in bat technology since players switched from ash to maple bats a generation ago. The creation of the bowling pin bat, also known as the torpedo bat, optimizes the most crucial tool in baseball by redistributing weight from the end of the bat toward the area 6 to 7 inches below its tip, where major league players typically strike the ball. This design gives the bat a unique appearance, with the fat part closer to the handle and the end tapering to a smaller diameter, resembling a bowling pin.
The Big Debut
The Yankees unveiled the bowling pin bat in spectacular fashion, tying a major league record with 15 home runs over their first three games. Nine of those homers came from five Yankees who adopted the new bat style: Jazz Chisholm Jr. (three), Anthony Volpe (two), Austin Wells (two), Cody Bellinger (one), and Paul Goldschmidt (one). The unusual shape of the bats caught the attention of Yankees announcer Michael Kay, and soon players across the league were inquiring about acquiring one.
The Yankees’ home run spree sparked a wave of interest and debate. Some fans and opposing players questioned the legality of the bats, with Brewers reliever Trevor Megill likening them to “something used in slow-pitch softball.” However, the bats comply with Major League Baseball’s regulations for shape, barrel size, and length. Few realized that the bowling pin bat had already been used for significant hits in 2024, thanks to one of its earliest adopters.
Giancarlo Stanton’s Influence
Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton played a pivotal role in the bowling pin revolution. Leanhardt’s logic behind the bat’s geometry resonated with Stanton, whose average bat velocity of 81.2 mph last year was nearly 3 mph faster than the second-fastest swinger and over 9 mph quicker than the average MLB swing. Stanton embraced the new bat, using it to hit seven home runs in 14 postseason games.
The Physics Behind the Bat
Understanding the bowling pin bat involves a lesson in physics. Consider a sledgehammer and a broom handle. The sledgehammer is harder to swing due to its weight distribution, while the broom handle can be swung quickly but lacks mass. With bats, the length and weight are constants, but the distribution of mass is the variable. Leanhardt’s design optimizes both mass and velocity for maximum impact.
Scott Drake, president of PFS-TECO, a Wisconsin-based wood products laboratory that inspects all MLB bats, explained, “This bat is just trying to say: What if we put the mass where the ball is going to hit so that we have an optimized equation of mass and velocity?”
Trade-offs and Adoption
While the bowling pin bat offers potential benefits, it also comes with trade-offs. Because much of the mass is concentrated in the barrel, swings that miss the sweet spot can result in weaker hits compared to traditional bats. However, as Leanhardt noted, the difference between a 101 mph batted ball and 102 mph can be the difference between a flyout and a home run.
Leanhardt, who left the Yankees after the 2024 season and is now the major league field coordinator for the Miami Marlins, emphasized the importance of maximizing the “wood budget” for the barrel. “Every penny counts. The fact of the matter is you want your barrels to count the most. You want the most bang for your buck there.”
Creating the bowling pin bat required collaboration across the bat supply chain. Once players embraced Leanhardt’s idea, they requested samples from manufacturers. The bats were given model numbers starting with BP for bowling pin, though Leanhardt admits “torpedo sounds kind of cooler.”
Precision and Balance
Manufacturing the bowling pin bat demands precision. Every fraction of an ounce matters, and bats are measured not only on a standard scale but also through pendulum-swing tests. Traditional bats, with weight concentrated at the end, don’t oscillate as much as the more balanced bowling pin models.
With relatively lenient regulations from the league, manufacturers have the freedom to innovate within the rules, leading to the creation of this new bat design. Stanton’s success served as proof of concept, and manufacturers brought bowling pin models to spring training for players to test.
Player Reactions and Future Prospects
Players like Ryan Jeffers of the Minnesota Twins have experimented with the bowling pin bat. Jeffers, who went 1-for-8 in the first three games of the season, remarked, “We’re just swinging the same broomstick we’ve swung for the last 100 years.”
In an era when the average fastball velocity is around 95 mph, players have adjusted their bats to keep up. Jeffers noted, “The bat is such a unique tool. You look at the history of the game, and they used to swing telephone poles. Now you try to optimize it, and it feels like some branches are starting to fall for us on the hitting side of things.”
Jeffers, who has been searching for ways to counterbalance the technological advancements in pitching, tried a bowling pin model from manufacturer B45 in batting practice and ordered a batch for the final weeks of spring training. Around the same time, Chisholm received his new bats and found them indistinguishable from his traditional model.
“I mean, it still felt like my bat,” Chisholm said. “I hit the ball at the barrel, feel comfortable in the box. I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t know the science of it, I’m just playing baseball.”
The science behind the bowling pin bat is multifaceted. Beyond potential increases in exit velocity from the increased mass in the barrel, the weight distribution toward the knob should promote faster swings. Among the five Yankees using the bat, all have seen increases in bat velocity year over year, with Volpe up more than 3 mph, Bellinger up 2.5, Wells 2, Chisholm 1.1, and Goldschmidt 0.3 mph.
“Credit to any of the players who were willing to listen to me, because it’s crazy,” Leanhardt said. “Listening to me describe it is sometimes even crazier. It’s a long-running project, and I’m happy for the guys that bought into it.”
While the data on the bat’s effectiveness is still limited, more bowling pin bats are expected to appear in major league games soon. Leanhardt mentioned that his new team, the Marlins, will feature players using the bat. Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays already used one to hit an RBI single. The Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles are also investing in bat geometry research.
One player, who doesn’t plan to use the bowling pin model, noted that multiple teammates are considering trying it in batting practice after the Yankees’ impressive performance. The adoption of the bat will depend on both comfort and success. In a sport where advantages are quickly discovered, the Yankees’ edge might be short-lived.
“There’s going to be a lot more teams wanting to swing them,” Jeffers said, “because of what the Yankees did this weekend.”
Originally Written by: Jeff Passan
