Meet the MIT physicist who has become a trainer of the Marlins behind the “Torpedo” bats used by the Yankees

NEW YORK – New York Yankees bat was the story of the day of the team of nine houses of the team franchise against the Brewers Milwaukee on Saturday. Then came the discussion on the real bats used by certain victory players 20-9.

Unique wood wood is the result of two years of research and experimentation with a former physicist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has become coach at the helm.

The question in its center?

“Where do you try to hit the ball?” Aaron Leanhardt said in a telephone interview on Sunday morning. “Where do you try to contact?”

Leanhardt, 48, began his work when he was a member of the Yankees Minor League department in 2022 and brought him to the major leagues last season when he was the team’s main analyst, with some players, including the Anthony Volpe Cop, trying them in the Games. Now, up to five Yankees will use them in the matches at least at the start of the season, according to the outfit Cody Bellinger.

Bats – with their torpedo form – are tailor -made preferences for players and are designed so that the densest part of the bat is the place where this particular striker comes into contact with baseball, said Leanhardt, who became coordinator on the field with the Miami Marlins during the offseason.

“Really,” he said. “It is simply a question of making the bat as heavy and as fatty as possible in the area where you try to do damage on baseball.”

A spokesperson for the Major Baseball League said Athletics that bats infringe any rules. The MLB 3.02 rule indicates that a bat “must be a smooth round stick no more than 2.61 inches in diameter with the thickest part and no more than 42 inches in length. The bat must be a piece of solid wood. ” He also indicates that “experimental” bats cannot be used “until the manufacturer has obtained approval from the major baseball league from its design and manufacturing methods”.

When asked if he was the inventor of technology, Leanhardt said that it was a group effort, the results from conversations with coaches, players, MLB and bat manufacturers.

“Credit goes to those who take it,” said Leanhardt. “But if people want to assign credit to different people, then I take a certain cut.”

An official of Yankees, however, said that Leanhardt deserved “a lot” of credit. The field player of retirees Kevin Smith, who spent four seasons in the majors, also credited Leanhardt as inventor.

Leanhardt took an unorthodox route to baseball.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and a doctorate. in MIT physics. He was a professor of physics at the University of Michigan from 2007 to 2014.

Leanhardt began to train in the Atlantic League in 2017 and led to a Montana community college before joining the Yankees in 2018. In the majors in 2024, the club said that it was its first “major league analyst” and “responsible for the integration of the use of quantitative information with performance and preparation in the field”.

Why leave the university world for baseball?

“I think this is one of the interesting things about sport is that it is very competitive,” he said. “Guys are ready to push the limits. It’s just an opportunity to bring my history in an area and find ways to innovate. ”

Talking to players over the years has revealed that their biggest concerns were double, said Leanhardt. They wanted to establish more contact with the terrains and they wanted to hit the ball more often with the “Sweet Spot” of the drinest bat or zone.

“They will point to a location on the battle which is probably six or seven inches from the point of the bat,” he said. “This is where the Sweet Spot is. It is just through the conversations where you think of yourself, why don’t exchange us how much wood we put the tips in relation to how much we put in the ideal point?

Leanhardt said he had not seen many drawbacks to redistribute the weight of the bat.

“The speed of the bat should remain the same,” he said. “Maybe the speed of the bat can even increase a little depending on how you want to rethink the bat. But in the end, you get a bigger barrel, a heavier barrel in the ideal place. So, in a certain sense, you can have your cake and eat it here too. You can get earnings without making sacrifices.”

Leanhardt said he didn’t want to talk about the experiences of individual players with the new bat. Yankees’ designated striker, Giancarlo Stanton, told journalists earlier this month that it was “probably some bat adjustments” last season which caused the ligament tears in his two elbows that led to his current stay on the injured list, although he did not impose anyone on anyone. Then he added: “I don’t know why it happened.” Leanhardt refused to comment on Stanton’s situation.

“Yankees’ medical staff should be asked about it,” he said. “I will postpone all these questions to the medical guys from the Yankees.”

Leanhardt said that it was “the nature of our business” that it took years to a radically new conception of bats.

“People at the time swung very heavy bats in Hickory, then someone had this idea of ​​genius to swing something lighter, something like Ash, and it was revolutionary in the 1920s, from the 1930s” in a way in this transition, then the industry remained the course for a while “, he said.” In the end, it is simply necessary to ask the good questions. “

He got a kick to see the fervor of the social media that bats caused Saturday. He said that while some players were starting to use them last season, “the whole industry had a wind” and “it exploded during the offseason”.

“This is why you see him in the hands of so many guys right now,” he said. “Obviously, performance (on Saturday) has drawn a lot of attention.”

It took a lot of coordination for bats to go from the design to manufacture stadium. Leanhardt said he “guaranteed” that he was on a first name with MLB officials who supervise BAT regulation and “all those who exploit the tour for each bat manufacturer in baseball”.

“You really communicate with each business and try to find the person who really knows the wood and knows how to turn wood on a trick. You just build a relationship with these guys and convince them that it is something that is in their best interest in producing for their players. They want their players to be as successful as possible.” It is really like it has accumulated. “

(Top photo of Aaron Leanhardt (right) with the manager of the Marlins Clayton McCullough: Jasen Vinlove / Miami Marlins / Getty Images)