Michael Kay Says Yankees Designed New Bats for Better Hitting

The longtime Yankees announcer detailed how New York changed bats to optimize hitting on Saturday.

Jazz Chisholm was one of the Yankees players using a funky bat against the Brewers / YES Networ

Viewers watching the New York Yankees' absolute shellacking of the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday afternoon may have noticed something... odd about the bats some pinstripes were using.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe both stepped up to the plate against Milwaukee with unusual-looking bats. Instead of "normal" bats, they wielded bats that were fatter on the barrel towards the label and thinned out towards the tip. They looked somewhat like bowling pins.

Longtime Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay explained why they were using those bats during the YES Network broadcast and revealed the team actually custom-made those bats to improve hitting for those who tend to make contact closer to the label than the true barrel, like Volpe and Chisholm.

"The Yankee front office, the analytics department, did a study on Anthony Volpe and every single ball, it seemed like, he hit on the label," Kay said. "He didn't hit any on the barrel. So they had bats made up where they moved a lot of the wood into the label so the harder part of the bat will actually strike the ball."

Michael Kay explains that the Yankees made new bats "where they moved a lot of the wood into the label so the harder part of the bat is going to strike the ball."

Seems relevant today... pic.twitter.com/cpldzigdrT

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 29, 2025

It's certainly an unusual strategy. It also seemed to work; Chisholm and Volpe both went yard with the funky bats as part of a historic Yankees onslaught of home runs.

The new bats will likely be a talking point in the baseball world for a while. In the meantime, the Yanks were up 20-7 on the Brewers through seven innings.

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