‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A: Why Kevin Long likes torpedo bats, their impact, and more
As more hitters experiment with using torpedo bats, we asked Long to weigh in on baseball’s newest craze in the latest episode of "Phillies Extra."
There isn’t much that Kevin Long hasn’t seen in 19 seasons as a major league hitting coach.
But torpedo bats? That’s new.
Long, 58, is in his fourth season on the Phillies‘ coaching staff. He previously worked for the Yankees, Mets, and Nationals. And with a roster of hitters that includes Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Canó, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, Yoenis Cespedes, Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and Juan Soto, he has been to the World Series with four organizations and won two championships.
» READ MORE: Everyone is intrigued by the torpedo bat, including the Phillies. Will it be a revolution or a fad?
So, as more hitters experiment with using torpedo bats — in which the densest or fattest part is shifted from the end of the bat toward the label, where the hardest contact is most often made — we asked Long to weigh in on baseball’s newest craze in the latest episode of Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball show.
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, which has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Watch the entire interview below.
Q: With the torpedo bat, are we witnessing an invention that’s going to revolutionize how people hit a baseball? Or do you agree with Brewers manager Pat Murphy, who said, “It ain’t about the wand. It’s about the magician?”
A: If you look at the back of the baseball card, those numbers are pretty much going to read the same. There’s not going to be any magical potion put on one of these players. Good players are going to be good players. I think when you look up at the end of the year, these guys’ numbers are going to be very similar to what they’ve been in the past. Does it give you a different option, and could it help a player maybe get over a couple obstacles, meaning if a guy gets jammed a lot, does it move that barrel down and help him maybe get some more hits and give him a different option? Certainly, I think that’s something that we can throw into the equation.
I really feel like we haven’t seen enough of these bats. I can’t make a very educated decision as to how it’s going to affect our game. But I kind of like it. I like to talk. It’s certainly given baseball some hype, and a lot of people are talking about it.
» READ MORE: Phillies’ Bryson Stott says torpedo bats aren’t for him, but teammate Alec Bohm is already trying them
Q: When did you become aware of torpedo bats and how familiar are you with them?
A: Well, I know it’s been around for a while. It’s just there hasn’t been many people that have taken to it. And just the other day, Bryce Harper had a torpedo bat, and he was using it before the game just in case he may use it. But I don’t know. He put it down after five swings and really didn’t like the feel he was getting. So I think that was more the case than anything else. These players were trying it and didn’t necessarily like the feel they were getting with it. Now, with all this craze coming out and the Yankees hitting all these home runs, it seems like it’s gaining some steam and guys are willing to try it and give it maybe a better opportunity to see if it can really help them.
Q: I know Bryson Stott reached out to the guys from Victus, and they drove down and delivered a shipment of torpedo bats before the home opener [last] Monday. Alec Bohm used one right away. He said, “Why wouldn’t you want to try it? Look what the Yankees just did.” What’s your advice to guys as far as giving torpedo bats a try?
A: An Alec Bohm, who tends to hit the ball deeper and tends to hit it down near the label more than he does off the end of the bat, I think it would benefit somebody like him. Harper hits balls off the end of the bat a lot more than he does near the label, so I don’t know if that’s going to benefit him as much. Bryson Stott’s a little bit of both.
We do have data that can support certain players using it and certain players not [using it]. We’re meeting with the company that designed the bats [this] week, and we’re going to have our front office there. We’re going to do a Zoom call, and everybody’s going to be involved and we’ll kind of get a better understanding of the whole science behind it and see if it’s something that we can exploit and use to our benefit and help some of our players. And it’s going to be on an individual basis. It’s going to be something that we look into deeply as far as where they consistently hit the ball, according to their bat. And then we’ll just take it from there. It’s interesting that there’s maybe a tool out there that could help some of these guys.
» READ MORE: Phillies fight back to beat the Dodgers, taking 2 of 3 from the World Series champs
Q: Could it become like golf, where you’d have several bats in your bag and pick the one that suits the situation best?
A: Well, I think you have to make some sense of this. And I think there has to be some kind of understanding on why you’re using a certain bat against a certain pitcher. Guys make adjustments all the time. They may use a heavier bat against somebody. They may use a lighter bat against somebody. They may back off the plate. They may get closer. They may do a two-strike approach. They may do a leg kick. There’s so many different avenues that these guys can go to.
You don’t really talk about the tool, though — the bat. How many times does a guy go in with a different bat? Not a whole lot, unless you’re like Yoenis Cespedes, who I had [with the Mets]. He’d hit a home run with a certain bat, and then the next at-bat, he’d use a different one. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘It’s not the arrow, it’s the Indian.’ And I said, ‘Hmm. Interesting.’ But that was his psyche behind it, meaning that it’s kind of what Pat Murphy said. I think it’s more the person swinging the bat than the actual bat itself. So, we’ll see where this ends up going. But it’s certainly interesting and fascinating in a lot of ways.
Q: Some people have compared torpedo bats to the Tush Push in the sense that every team has the capability to deploy it, but one team — the Eagles — does it so much more effectively than everyone else, and now, some owners want the NFL to ban it. Do you worry that some teams are going to get better at figuring out which hitters will benefit from the torpedo bats and MLB is going to have to legislate how they’re used in order to level the playing field?
A: No, I really don’t. There’s going to be opportunity for every individual player, every organization to kind of look into this and explore it. But I mean, it could be the same advantage for every single team if they wanted to use it. And I don’t, again, we’re talking about different guys using it. There’s going to be certain guys that it’s just not going to work for, and they’re not going to use it.
So those guys will have to decide who they are and if they want to do that or not, and that’s going to be their choice. But the fact that they can get their hands on these bats, and they’re going to be accessible to them, I don’t think it’s going to give any team an unfair advantage at this point.