How Cubs are experimenting with popular ‘torpedo’ bats in 2025
The new torpedo bats have taken over Major League Baseball after the New York Yankees smashed 15 home runs over the weekend in a three-game series sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Cliff Floyd, former 17-year major league vet, voiced his approval for the new innovation in bat technology on Cubs Pregame Live!
“I’m 100% for it,” Floyd said. “If it works, I’m ordering as many as I can, for everybody.”
The bats – also called bowling pin bats because of their resemblance to them, with a wider barrel closer to the handle of the bat. Several Cubs including Nico Hoerner, Dansby Swanson and Ian Happ have used them at various points during spring training and the regular season.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell is taking a wait and see approach with the new technology, though he is interested in watching the results.
“They’ve been trying things, right? Like, that’s science. You try a lot of things until you find something that produces results,” Counsell told reporters in Sacramento. “That’s what science does. So we’ll see. We don’t know yet.”
[MORE: Cubs catcher Carson Kelly makes history on special day in Sacramento]
Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly explained the technology behind the torpedo bats and compared it to technology in manufacturing golf clubs.
“I use a golf analogy when I kind of talk about them, like guys change their driver, they change the weight in their driver, and it’s kind of that way with the baseball bats,” Kelly told media in Sacramento. “Now we’re starting to figure out more where guys hit the ball, where they do damage and where that’s at on the bat, so just adjusting where some of that wood is going on the sweet spot is kind of a natural progression of where the technology is going and how we’re using that technology to try and help our players.”
After a huge offensive night to open the series in Sacramento, the Cubs look to keep the hot bats, torpedo shaped or not, going against the A’s, coverage available on Marquee Sports Network.