Yankees' Custom Bats for Players with New Sweet Spot Don't Violate Rules, MLB Says

Studying Anthony Volpe's hitting style reportedly led the New York Yankees analytics department to develop a new style of bats for their players.

Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay discussed the new bats on the broadcast of Saturday's home game against the Milwaukee Brewers (h/t Awful Announcing.)

Analysis of Volpe's at-bats revealed most of his hits connected on the label rather than the barrel of his bat, Kay reported.

"So they had bats made up, where they moved a lot of the wood into the label, so the harder part of the bat is going to actually strike the ball," Kay said.

The change seemed to be paying off for the Yankees Saturday as the club tied a single-game franchise record with eight home runs in the first four innings against the Brewers.

Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge made MLB history by homering on the first three pitches Nestor Cortes threw for the Brewers.

Amid concern from fans about a potential competitive advantage with the new bats, an MLB spokesperson told The Athletic's Chris Kirschner that "the shape of the bat does not violate the rules."

The 2025 MLB rulebook requires bats to be single pieces of solid wood no longer than 42 inches long.

The rules dictate a maximum diameter of 2.61 inches, but do not specify any particular barrel placement or maximum weight.

Volpe himself hit his second home run of the season two pitches after Kay's comments about his new bat.

Oswald Peraza later set the new single-game franchise record in the bottom of the seventh with the team's ninth home run of the day.

Bellinger, who was the subject of viral video questioning whether he was using a "square bat" during spring training, recently told the New York Daily News' Gary Phillips there is a growing focus among MLB hitters on the weight distribution in their bats.

“There’s ways to move the weight of the bat. Some guys like top heavy, some guys like hand-loaded bats,” Bellinger told Phillips. “You just gotta find a bat that feels good, that kind of moves with you."

Bellinger continued: "You see these golfers, they’re very into their clubs. As baseball players, it’s like why are we just picking up a bat and saying, ‘Oh, this feels good?’ Why is there no science behind anything here? You can test your swing path, you can test your exit velocity. There’s data behind everything now."