The Weekend In Review 3/31
From the baseball diamond to the basketball court, this week’s action is full of surprises. The New York Yankees are shaking up MLB with their game-changing “torpedo” bats, setting records and sparking conversations about a potential new league-wide trend. Meanwhile, the NCAA Tournament is heating up as we head to San Antonio for a historic Final Four—where the top-ranked teams and their hungry coaches are all vying for a first-time title
A New MLB Meta?
The New York Yankees and their “torpedo” bats took the baseball world by storm over the weekend. New York tied a major league record with 15 homeruns in their opening three game homestand while scoring a total of 36 runs. The change in bats drew public attention after it was discussed by broadcaster Michael Kay live on air during Saturday’s 20 run outburst – but it’s important to get the facts straight as of now.
Firstly, this isn’t the first time these bats have been used in games and the Yankees are not the only team that have experimented with it. The innovation is attributed to Aaron Leanhardt, a former Yankees analyst who currently works for the Marlins. It was found that SS Anthony Volpe gets jammed a lot and hits the ball off the label of his bat, so they responded by tweaking the dimensions of his bat and moving more wood towards the barrel. Major League Baseball confirmed Sunday that the bats do not violate Major League rules or bat supplier regulations. Rule 3.02 states that bats cannot be more than 2.61 inches in diameter and 42 inches in length. Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells are among the Yankees swinging “Torpedo” bats, which also saw use in Spring Training and during last season. Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays used this bat model during his pinch hit appearance on Sunday, as well. It’s worth noting that Giancarlo Stanton is dealing with an elbow injury that he attributed to “bat adjustments” made during the 2024 season. It’s too early to tell what will come of this and what data we can take away from such a small sample-size but I would expect the use of these bat models to increase across the league in the short term.
Heading to San Antonio
The chalky start to the NCAA Tournament continued into the Sweet 16 & Elite 8 over the weekend with only a few close games and all favorites advancing. Despite the overall chalkiness, we have no shortage of storylines and we are in for what should be two classic Final Four games.
For just the second time in the history of the tournament all four number one seeds have advanced to the Final Four. These four teams are so good – that whichever one of them wins the title will end up as the highest ranked KenPom Champion in over 20 years. In fact, the KenPom era started during the 1996-97 season. All four of these teams rank inside the top-10 all-time in KenPom rankings showing you just how elite these four teams truly are. Furthermore, none of these coaches have ever won a national title so we are guaranteed a first time champion coach as well