Another day, another torpedo story. Elly Da Le Cruz tried the torpedo bat for the first time Monday and unleashed this detonation: a 5-4-4-7 line, with two homers and a stolen base. A player as talented as De La Cruz doesn’t need much help, but he’s likely to continue the bat use for a while.
According to Yahoo colleague Chris Cwik, we know of nine players who are currently using the torpedo bat. Start with the Yankees’ core four — Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm. And apparently, Giancarlo Stanton’s power surge last October (seven homers) was fueled by torpedo lumber.
Also using the new equipment are De La Cruz, Jose Trevino, Adley Rutschman, Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner. Rutschman homered twice on Opening Day. Swanson already has a couple of homers, including one in Monday’s rout of the Athletics.
Every league is a copycat league. Look for hitters all throughout baseball to at least consider a change to their bat. And given how pitching has dominated the game for the last few years, I’m not opposed to any reasonable trend that could help scoring. (If the Michael Scott Paper Company doesn’t make it — free shipping! free pancakes! — maybe Michael can look into bat distribution.)
Back to Swanson. He was moved to my bench Monday in a league that requires weekly switches. I missed Kyle Manzardo’s fast start and wanted to get him involved, so Swanson was the odd hitter out. That roster also includes Ian Happ and Kyle Tucker, so perhaps I was trying to avoid being too reliant on one lineup.
But it’s also possible I overlooked another possible cheat code — Sacramento’s park.
Is the Sacramento park about to be a fantasy baseball wonderland?
The nomad Athletics are waylaid in Sacramento for the immediate future, and Sutter Health Park is almost certainly going to be a better hitter’s park than the Oakland Coliseum was. Maybe the difference will be significant. One game tells us nothing, it just makes us curious.
The timing lined up for a Chicago outburst. The Athletics were starting Joey Estes, their No. 5 man. My friend Joe Sheehan has the A’s bullpen ranked as the No. 25 relief unit in baseball, and if the Athletics fall behind, dominant closer Mason Miller isn’t likely to pitch.
On the field, it turned into batting practice. The Cubs racked up 21 hits and 18 runs. Swanson, Tucker, Michael Busch and backup catcher Carson Kelly hit homers — Kelly, in fact, hit for the cycle — the first Cubs hitter to do that since Mark Grace pulled it off in May of 1993. Kelly was born a year later.
The truth about Park Factors is that so much of the data isn’t needle-moving. We don’t care about globs in the middle, we simply want to know about outliers. Coors Field and Fenway Park are glorious places to hit and score runs. Seattle’s park suffocates offense. Some parks are better for lefties and some are better for righties. Weather is also part of the mix — a northern park might be nasty in April but a carnival in June.
I was sad when Oakland lost its team, but I wasn’t sad to see the Coliseum fade away. While the hearty Athletics fans always had my respect, it was a horrible place to watch a ballgame. The Coliseum was a football stadium masquerading as a baseball park. I had first-row seats the one time I visited — behind one of the bullpens — and even then, the game felt secondary, like a rumor.
Mind you, Sutter Health Park is no long-term solution. It’s a minor-league park with a capacity of just over 14,000. The plan is for the Athletics to settle here for three years, then eventually move to a new stadium in Las Vegas for the 2028 season.
Yahoo managers are already keen to the center-cut of the Athletics offense. Brent Rooker, Lawrence Butler and Shea Langeliers were drafted aggressively all spring, and Tyler Soderstrom quickly chased up to 54% rostered after a fast start. Outfielder JJ Bleday (30%) is at least worth consideration as an outfield streamer, especially if the park aids scoring.
Miller, of course, is the pitcher on this team we care most about. But also take note Jeffrey Springs struck out nine in his debut, while Luis Severino worked six scoreless innings. I’m not opposed to JP Sears as an occasional streamer, too. He had seven strikeouts in a quality start at Seattle.
[It’s not too late — join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2025 MLB season]
Severino and Springs pitch the next two days, then happily will miss the weekend Colorado series. I’ll be tuned into Sutter Field baseball for park scouting, but I’m also curious about the two best starting pitchers for the A’s.
The Cubs and Athletics settle in for two more games, then move in opposite directions. Chicago hosts San Diego for three, while the Athletics play a weekend series at Coors Field.
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