The New York Yankees keep circling the wagons around Anthony Volpe. Every insider, reporter, and beat writer focuses on one narrative: his glove has been brutal this season, and yet the front office refuses to bench him. That much is true—Volpe’s defense has regressed into a liability. But here’s what everyone else overlooks: even with an MIT-inspired, custom-engineered bat designed for him, Volpe still can’t hit.
A Bat Built by Science, Marketed to Fans
Volpe’s relationship with Victus Sports, the bat company in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, has been public knowledge for years. He has swung their lumber since he was 13. When the Yankees looked for a way to optimize his swing, Victus joined forces with data analysts and physicists to create the “torpedo bat”—a stick designed by Aaron Leanhardt, a former MIT physicist turned baseball coach.
The premise looked groundbreaking: shift the barrel closer to where Volpe makes contact, increase the sweet spot, and let science squeeze more results out of a player who, frankly, wasn’t producing at the plate. MIT professor David Pritchard even explained that the classic bat design wasted energy, while the torpedo redistributed weight to give hitters a fraction of an edge.
And yet here we are in late August 2025, with Volpe still hitting .209. Again. That’s the exact same batting average he posted as a rookie in 2023. Three years into his big-league career, not even a bat crafted by MIT minds and backed by the Yankees’ analytics department has turned him into a consistent offensive threat.
Meanwhile, Victus Sports pushes those same torpedo bats to the public. Fans pay $200 to swing the very model Volpe uses. It’s a slick marketing campaign. But if the guy they built it for can’t crack a .220 average with it, why should anyone believe it’s a miracle piece of lumber?
The Numbers Don’t Lie
The Yankees expected this bat to be the breakthrough. Volpe, now in his third season, was supposed to show growth. Instead, the advanced metrics show a hitter who has barely moved the needle.
Through 127 games in 2025, Volpe holds a .209/.276/.403 slash line with 18 home runs and 65 RBIs. His strikeout rate sits at 24%, and his on-base percentage remains below league average. Even the small boost in power—his ISO sits at .194 this year—doesn’t offset the fact that he doesn’t get on base enough to matter.
His expected stats offer little encouragement. Statcast lists an xBA of .235 and an xwOBA of .314. Those numbers are marginally better but still barely league average. The supposed “scientific advantage” has produced little. Other torpedo bat adopters like Austin Wells or Cody Bellinger flashed production early, but Volpe stands out for all the wrong reasons.
And his defense? That was supposed to be the one thing keeping him in the lineup. Even that has collapsed. Costly errors and declining range have made him one of the most criticized everyday Yankees.
So when Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone keep defending Volpe, it’s not just about loyalty or development anymore—it’s delusion. He’s been given every advantage: elite training labs, cutting-edge analytics, and now a revolutionary bat built with physics in mind. Yet his career batting average sits at .222, and he’s putting up another below-average offensive season.
At some point, the Yankees must stop selling hope and face reality. Their shortstop isn’t just struggling with the glove. He’s failing with the bat too—and no $200 piece of equipment is going to change that.
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