The MLB Will HATE What They Are About to Do...

The Phillies home opener is now in the books with a special guest appearance from the Lombardi Trophy by way of Saquon Barkley and Brandon Graham and the Bats did come alive in the late game to move to 3-1. Max Kepler hit his first career home run in a Phillies uniform with Nick Cassiano's going back to back. However, the story of the sport of baseball has been the emergence of these Torpedo Bats with the Phillies looking like they're going to get in on the action. I want to break down exactly what the deal is with these Bats, if it can be advantageous to the Phillies moving forward, which players are getting in on the mix and everything else with this current team. But before I dive fully into it, do I remind you guys, make sure you are hitting that subscribe button that at this point in time, 63.7% of you guys out there watching these videos have not subscribed to us here on Phillies Digest just yet. We are in the full swing for this season and wanting as many of you as possible a part of this Phillies Digest family. So make sure you're hitting that button and let's get ready for an awesome Phillies season. Now to dive into exactly what went down today, I first want to start off by highlighting the box score here. It was a 6-1 victory, a pretty quiet start from this team. The lineup looking a little bit of lifeless here. The Rockies did jump out to a 1-0 lead, did have a solo shot on Christopher Sanchez, but ultimately the Phillies did battle back and the Bats did come alive in the late innings, most notably from the back-to-back homers from Nick Cassianos and Max Kepler there. And by the way, with Max Kepler specifically, I'm feeling optimistic. I'm not ready to get there just yet, but I'm pretty excited by the version of him we've seen. It was a towering homerun right down that right field line, just yanked it as the big left-handed approach, ripped it down the line and did hang in there just beyond the foul pole. And I think we could be seeing a lot of that. So shout out to Max Kepler for getting his first one over the wall right there. And I think there is plenty more where that came from. Now to bring up the topic of the Bats before I circle back to a little bit more about that game, first I want to dive into exactly what's going down. So we know the story as far as there is this newfound bat on the market here that the concept has changed. And to kind of dumb it down to as basic as possible, the main premise of this being, we all know what a baseball bat looks like, right? The basic of how it is designed there. What is different about these Torpedo Bats is there is more wood on the barrel and more specifically, basically the sweet spot of where you hit it. But they're a pretty individualized product here. And Bryson Stott specifically, to pull up what he said here, that he was speaking, shout out to Devin Caney of WIP in the pregame, and she said, I asked Bryson Stott about the Torpedo Bats and if they are something the Phillies have discussed using in-game. He said he's already texted his guy at Victus about it and shout out to Victus, but located out of King of Prussia for everyone local here and the Phillies are getting in the mix. To add to that a little bit further, we do get the report that per Ben Silver, that Bryce Harper, Alec Boehm, Bryson Stott, and Brandon Marsh have all placed orders for Torpedo Bats with Victus per source, assuming right directly from them would be my guess there. And to add to that, we got our first look of Alec Boehm with that Torpedo Bat in the game here. Now you can kind of see the design of it here, that there is a little bit more thickness up top on the actual barrel of the bat here with the obvious thought process of this being, when you've got to have a little bit more wood behind where you're hitting it, it could go farther here. Now my first thought on this to be completely up front of you guys was how is this legal? My mindset has kind of shifted to the stance of how did it take 150 years for these guys to figure out that you can design a bat a little bit differently and it could impact in a better way? Now why this has come to the forefront of the surface has been the New York Yankees. There's no way around it. They've hit 16 home runs in their first three games, Jazz Chisholm absolutely roping them out of the parks there, Aaron Judge picking up right where he left off, just smashing home runs over the fence to start the season. I'm not saying that it's directly because of the Torpedo Bat. In fact, I'm going to let a little bit more of a sample size go before I'm ready to determine if there is that much of a contributing factor with these specific bats because the bottom line is these guys still got to hit the ball when they get up to the plate, regardless of what you have resting on your shoulder or what you're holding in your hands when you're up there. You still got to make contact. You still got to see the ball out of the pitcher's arm and you got to find a way to put that bad boy over the fence regardless of what you have in your hand there. So that is kind of my main thought process here, but to dive into the exact legalities of it. We did get this report, this coming from USA Today, which writes, are torpedo bats legal? And it says MLB rule 3.02 states, quote, 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. The bat should be one piece of solid wood. So obviously we're not talking about bringing in aluminum bats or cork bats or the Combat V2 there. But for the bat specifically here, this is something that is really individualized to these guys' approach. I did watch the full interview with Bryson Stott and he basically talked about his process for how he came up with this. He went in the cage, he got all censored up and figured out exactly how this worked, took a thousand hacks, and then they really analyzed where is your primary contact point on that bat. For guys that are more diverse hitters that use all parts of the bat here, will go all directions here. This isn't something that is going to be a match for them. This is not a cure-all that every player in the MLB is going to be working with a torpedo bat moving forward. But what I do think is fair to assess here, this could help the power hitters. This is not steroids. This is not cheating. This is not something that changes the sport to that extent. But I do think we could see some pretty illustrious home run numbers for the guys that have really solidified their contact point, are really consistent with the way they hit the ball, and now have the card stacked in their favor whenever they do make contact there. I am curious to flash forward two or three years from now, or maybe even to the end of this season depending on how things go, if there is kind of a readjusted stance from the MLB for how they look at these things here, but for the time being, it is a lawless land. Everyone is now onto this new tip and trick and jumping on it with the Phillies being no different here. Now, with Alec Boehm specifically here, and to highlight a little pic of him with it once again, you can see the difference with the actual barrel and the size of it there. Alec Boehm was ass-spattered after the game if he thought it was effective, and his reply was simply, did I hit a home run, which he did not today. But regardless, I thought Boehm had a solid game, and to reflect on a couple other notable takeaways from the home opener here, that we did see Schwarberg go yard was nice to see, really broke the game open and that was probably what kind of really put this together for the Phillies team. Some really nice signs out of the bullpen, I thought Joe Ross looked really good today which is intriguing there, Christopher Sanchez, the velocity continues to rise, he just looks like the real deal on the mound, which is really nice to see, and once again, I do think Max Kepler could be a guy for this Phillies team here, and I cannot get much farther without acknowledging Trey Turner here. Trey Turner went in and pinch hit for Brandon Marsh today, I've been a guy that's a Trey Turner skeptic, if you want to put it nicely, I'm not going to go as far as Trey Turner hater, because I want to be won over by Trey, I want that to be the case, that he can be a foundational part of this Phillies team that can win a World Series here, but I have not seen it to this point, but what I've got to give Trey credit for was his battle today man, he went down 0-2 in the count on his pinch hit for Brandon Marsh, ultimately worked a walk and that really led the floodgates to open and the runs to be poured on. I'm not saying that Trey Turner won the Phillies the game today, but that certainly was a statement and not the easiest thing to do when you're coming off cold off the bench to put forth that type of a bat there, so got to tip the hat to Trey, good to see that the back is ok, that he's fully fine, can swing the bat as normal, and I do expect that he will be back in the lineup moving forward, but I don't think we will have any more missed time from Trey Turner, he suited up and took a couple hacks today which was great to see, and that should be the expectation moving forward, so shout out to Trey for really starting off that inning. Now, with this Phillies team as a whole, the biggest concern I probably would say, this is now several games that we've seen the bats not open up until the late innings, but they seem to be struggling to hit starting pitching, there have been some ridiculous performances, I think it was 13 strikeouts by Mackenzie Gore, and frankly Mackenzie Gore is not quite that guy on a regular basis, I don't think that performance will really ever be replicated against the Phillies, but he had his moment and he made the most of it there. Another performance today where we did not see any signs of life from the offense until the late innings. Now it's a good thing that this team is still getting to bullpens, and the result to the result, a win is a win, I'm not going to critique what ultimately turned out to be a 6-1 victory here, but the bottom line is, this team has taken a bit for the bats to wake up on a regular basis here, and I would like that to change moving forward, this is not a leadoff hitter conversation, this is not anything beyond the guys just needing to deliver a little bit more than has been the case when they get there, but once again, I'm not going to complain, this team is 3-1, they look solid, they can beat you in a lot of ways, they are feeling dangerous to me, we are only 4 games into the season and I'm not ready to get ahead of myself yet, but pretty happy with what I've seen from this Phillies team, and maybe those Torpedo bats could take them another level once again. So we'll see what the updates are on this, I'm also curious to hear a little bit more, this is also new on the scene from a baseball perspective of what they actually bring, like that has to feel different as far as taking hacks up there, there's no way that a bat that is, you know, the weight of it distributed differently, feels the same when swung off the shoulder, so I'm wondering if some of these guys kind of turn on it once they actually try and aren't a fan or whatever the case, but nonetheless, per the report from Ben Silver once again, that we do know the Phillies that will be rolling out this Torpedo bat, with the expectation being Bryce Harper, Alec Boehm, Bryson Scott, and Brandon Marsh there. So it will be interesting how soon we see this, once again we did see Alec Boehm today, and Alec spoke pre-game, or post-game, kind of talking about that bat got dropped off a couple minutes before first pitch, he took a couple practice swings and said, hey, I'll give it a go. I'm not going to, you know, critique him for that, we'll see what happens with the larger sample size, but kind of a pretty fascinating story that has been all around the MLB to this point. The Yankees are not the only one, and I do encourage you guys to read up on that full story as well, pretty fascinating, just overall perspective on where it came from, an MIT grad who was a former teacher, who basically loved baseball, got involved and created this, worked for the Yankees organization for a stretch of time and kind of pitched this, he now works for the Marlins, so we'll see how things shake out from there, but pretty interesting and something that I did not expect to be even thinking about, or would remotely be a possibility in baseball to this point to start the season. So shout out to the inventor of the torpedo bat, shout out to the Phillies for embracing it, and shout out to you guys for tuning into this video right here. I do want to hear if you guys have any thoughts on that, I'm still kind of open for the taking, a little confused on the entire topic, and once again, my biggest takeaway being, if this is possible, if this is legal, with all indications being that that is the case, how in the world did it take this long for people to figure this out? How was there not one guy in the history of baseball that took a second and said, wait a minute, if these are the rules, why don't we just throw up the bigger bat here? I mean, we think about playing wiffle ball in your front yard, that was banned in wiffle ball, that you could not use that extended barrel like that, but nonetheless, it flies in the MLB, it flies in the MLB apparently. So we'll see what the fallout from this, if this just sticks around at the major league, or if they do begin to stricken down on this. At this point in time, if you have a chance to capitalize, the Phillies absolutely should, and that does seem to be the game plan from there. So once again, drop your thoughts on the Torpedo Bat in the comments below. Do want to remind you guys one more time to make sure you are hitting that subscribe button. Only 36.3% of you guys watching these videos have subscribed to the channel just yet, so let's get this Phillies Digest family continuing to grow, and hopefully a lot more wins ahead. Appreciate you guys for tuning in one more time, and talk to you next time. Peace.