Never one to shy away from a controversial topic, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred lauded “torpedo” bats as the future of America’s pastime, calling them “absolutely good for baseball” in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times.

"They're absolutely good for baseball," he said to the New York Times ' Michael S. Schmidt. "I believe that issues like the torpedo bat and the debate around it demonstrate the fact that baseball still occupies a unique place in our culture, because people get into a complete frenzy over something that’s really nothing at the end of the day.

Torpedo bats are just the latest innovation in the design of baseball bats, some of which stuck, and others which ... did not.

One individual voice who had not weighed in on the situation, however, was MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. He remedied that Sunday, throwing his full support behind torpedo bats. Manfred went so far as to call them " absolutely good for baseball ," according to the New York Times.

And yet, fans were none the wiser until play-by-play announcer Michael Kay highlighted the "torpedo" bat during a Bronx Bombers broadcast. That's when the innovation exploded on social media and started to dominate every MLB-related conversation.

Torpedo bats drew attention over the weekend when the New York Yankees hit a team-record nine homers in one game.

The story of the 2025 MLB season so far is the torpedo bat designed by Miami Marlins coach and former MIT physicist Aaron Leanhardt.

Los Angeles is the first defending World Series champion to win its first eight games of the following season.