| Much Internet traffic this week regarding the number of runs (and home runs) scored in a recent MLB baseball game. The buzz is about the use of a specially designed bat to assist hitting the baseball – We make the argument that it is much better to improve the batter’s sports vision, then rely on a “torpedo” bat |
| The Yankees just scored 20 runs with 9 home runs in the second game of the 2025 MLB season (not to mention several batters having multiple home runs). Following the game, there has been much talk about “torpedo bats” as an explanation for such an offensive explosion. A few words of clarification are due, as well as some observation from the perspective of vision. Firstly, 20 runs with 9 home runs are certainly impressive, but it isn’t that exceptional. The 2022 Blue Jays scored 28 runs against the Red Sox, and the 2020 Braves scored 29 runs with 7 home runs against the Marlins. In fact, many teams have scored 20+ runs in a game as well as scoring up to 10 home runs in a game, throughout baseball history (the 1987 Blue Jays hit 10 home runs in a single game). Historically, there have been 224 games with a team scoring 20 or more runs (1), so last week’s events are not that unusual, but certainly interesting. The large amount of discussion regarding the use of torpedo bats as an explanation of the events that day may or may not be true, but they certainly do obscure a much more powerful driver of offensive baseball performance. The bat is designed to be thicker in the batter’s sweet spot to make solid contact with the ball. These bats are individually designed based on the position on the bat where a particular batter is most likely to make contact with the pitched ball – based on historical data. It is certainly easier to make contact with a wider bat. In fact, my guess is that if a bat the size of a tennis racquet was used, there would be many more balls put into play. But alas, MLB rule 3.02 states that the bat cannot be more than 2.61 inches in diameter negating, among other reasons, the possibility of a tennis racquet sized bat. Speaking as a board certified Ophthalmologist with 30+ years of Sports Vision experience at the MLB level, we should be thinking about optimizing the batter, not the bat. Instead of thinking about creating a larger bat to make better contact, we should be thinking about optimizing the batter’s ability to place the bat in the optimal position for best contact on each pitch. There are certainly many factors that contribute to this ability, but one of the most important abilities is the batter’s “vision”. By “vision” I mean not only sharpness of vision (i.e. visual acuity or the result of a standard eye chart vision test), but also the ability to detect contrast (detecting the spin of the baseball seams, against the white ball, provides the batter clues regarding what type of pitch was thrown) and the ability to detect the ball in a very short time (about a tenth of a second viewing time) all contribute to batting performance. In fact, we noted in a published peer-reviewed scientific study of hundreds of professional MLB batters, those with better “vision” were more likely to walk and did not chase pitches out of the strike zone. The more accurately the batter can predict the position of the oncoming ball as it crosses the plate, the better his ability to make ideal contact with the ball (2). Vision does not end there, other vision-based abilities such as eye-hand coordination, reaction time, and the “quiet eye”, among others, are all critical for optimal batting performance. In another published peer-reviewed scientific study, based on hundreds of professional MLB batters, we noted that batters whose eye-hand coordination were in the top 20% of all batters walked significantly more frequently than those in the bottom 20% of hand-eye coordination ability (3). So instead of relying on a “larger” bat, why not optimize the natural system that allows the batter to properly decide which pitch to swing at, when to swing, and most importantly, where to place the bat for optimal contact? References: 1. Huber, Michael R., and Rodney X. Sturdivant. “BUILDING A MODEL FOR SCORING 20 OR MORE RUNS IN A BASEBALL GAME.” The Annals of Applied Statistics, vol. 4, no. 2, 2010, pp. 791–804. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29765530. Accessed 3 Apr. 2025. 2. Laby, D.M., Kirschen, D.G., Govindarajulu, U. et al. The Effect of Visual Function on the Batting Performance of Professional Baseball Players. Sci Rep 9, 16847 (2019) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-52546-2 3. Laby DM, Kirschen DK, Govindarajulu U, DeLand P: The Hand-Eye Coordination of Professional Baseball Players: The effect on batting. Optometry and Vision Science, 95(7):557-567, 2018 https://journals.lww.com/optvissci/Fulltext/2018/07000/The_Hand_eye_Coordination_of_Professional_Baseball.2.aspx |