MLB fans overlooked Cubs taking advantage of new bat trend before Yankees' backlash

For Chicago Cubs fans, the team on the receiving end of the New York Yankees' 20-run, nine-homer barrage on Saturday was as noteworthy as anything given it was the NL Central Milwaukee Brewers.

But it was the bats in the player's hands that stole the show, with numerous Yankees stars stepping to the plate with a 'torpedo-style' bat profile that features a larger sweet spot on the barrel before narrowing off toward the end of the bat. The idea behind it is to put more wood and mass in the barrel, which is where players should be making contact anyway.

Almost immediately, the Internet took notice of the bats - and immediately started skewering the Yankees, wondering how such designs could possibly be legal, etc. But this trend is not specific to New York. In fact, Cubs infielder Nico Hoerner swung one in the first two games of this weekend's series against Arizona - and it went virtually unnoticed.

Hoerner, who has long been known as an elite bat-to-ball player, could really benefit from having more of that mass and density in the barrel of the bat given his bat control. He ranked in the top eight percent of players in squared-up percentage in 2024 and the top three percent the year prior.

This spring, former Cub Cody Bellinger was spotted swinging one of these torpedo bats, hitting a home run in a Grapefruit League game - and it picked up a little steam on social media, but nowhere near the fire that erupted online after the Yankees brutalized their former teammate Nestor Cortes in his return to the Bronx and kept pouring it on all afternoon long.

“I think the benefit for me is I like the weight distribution personally,” Bellinger said on Saturday. “The weight’s closer to my hands, so I feel as if it’s lighter in a way. So that for me was the biggest benefit. And then obviously the bigger the sweet spot, the bigger the margin for error.”

Baseball bats, believe it or not, have always evolved based on the latest trends. A few years ago, the puck knob took the game by storm (remember Patrick Wisdom swinging that with the shamrock decal on the end?) - and now, the torpedo bat is taking center stage.

Whether it sticks or not remains to be seen, but when Hoerner returns to the lineup again (he sat on Saturday and is batting sixth on Sunday), it'll be something for Cubs fans to pay attention to as this story continues to take shape.