One of the more bizarre stories from the early portion of the 2025 season in baseball has been the emergence of the "torpedo bats" that the Yankees have popularized. Essentially, the new bat design shifts the "sweet spot" on the bat several inches to where many hitters make the most contact. While it shouldn't be considered a silver bullet, the Atlanta Braves are at least exploring the new bats as an option.
After the initial craze surrounding the bats, the Braves reportedly ordered the bats to see if they can give the offense an edge. Most MLB hitters are saying that the craze is overblown and reviews are pretty mixed, but Atlanta is clearly looking to give the bats a try especially after their dreadful start to the season. It can't hurt to try them out, right?
As for which Braves hitters could potentially benefit the most from this new bat design, that is a bit more difficult to parse.
Here are the Braves hitters that could benefit the most from torpedo bats
Part of the issue here is that shifting the sweet spot means that which pitches a hitter swings at matters a lot. Pitches over the middle of the plate remain juicy, but ones inside are a little bit easier to square up while there is slightly less bat to make contact with pitches away from hitters. We don't have a ton of great data from 2025 yet as to which Braves hitters have current tendencies that could benefit the most, but we can take some educated guesses.
Michael Harris II
Most of Harris' Statcast profile looks actually pretty good. By the numbers, he should be putting up at least above average offensive numbers in both the average and power numbers. However, his aggressive approach has led to a bottom of the scale chase percentage and his 54.2% ground ball rate this season have led to subpar production. Assuming Harris can lay off the outside stuff, the new bat design, in theory, should turn more of the contact he makes into line drives and fly balls. Given how hard he usually hits the ball, that would be good news.
Austin Riley
Riley's batted ball profile this season is really weird. His bat speed and barrel percentage are elite in 2025, but he is striking out at a frightening clip thus far this season and the percentage of swings that results in optimal exit velocity (squared up%) is in the bottom 5% in all of MLB and it is an area he has struggled with throughout his career. There is a chance that torpedo bats could lead to better contact on pitches on the inner third of the plate, although they could also make him more vulnerable to outside sliders that caused him a lot of trouble early in his career.
Ozzie Albies
Albies' propensity for swinging early and often is well-documented at this point. The Braves' second baseman is among the game's most aggressive hitters and given his inability to make consistent hard contact and willingness to chase, that is a problem. However, moving the sweet spot inward so that he can compensate for his subpar bat speed and put more bat on the ball on inside pitches could very well improve those contact metrics and help him turn on pitches that he should be doing damage on instead of the weak grounders and pop-ups that have become far too commonplace.