The baseball world was quick to notice the oddly-shaped bats some Yankees players were using amid their 20-9 blowout win against the Brewers on Saturday at the Stadium.
Jazz Chisholm and Anthony Volpe both stepped to the plate using bats that appeared to have a unusually skinny end cap with a thick barrel positioned toward the bat’s handle.
YES broadcaster Michael Kay took time during the game to explain the bats, along with the reasoning behind Volpe and Chisholm using them.
“The Yankee front office, the analytics department, did a study on Anthony Volpe and every single ball, it seemed like, he hit on the label,” Kay said during Saturday’s YES broadcast. “He didn’t hit any on the barrel. So they had bats made up where they moved a lot of the wood into the label so the harder part of the bat will actually strike the ball.”
Both Chisholm and Volpe homered during the Yankees’ rout which saw the Bombers hit a franchise-high nine home runs, leaving some baseball fans skeptical about the new bats.
According to MLB rules, however, there is nothing illegal about the bats.
MLB’s official rulebook states, “the bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length,” and the bats fit within those guidelines.
As of Saturday’s game, Chisholm and Volpe are the only two players who used the new bats, with Yankees center fielder Cody Bellinger using a less exaggerated version of the differently-shaped bat.
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