Torpedo bats are all the rage this season, and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says he believes all that chatter is good for the game. In a Q&A published by The New York Times, Manfred also praised the testing of robot umpires during spring training. He said he’d like to see their use expanded to the regular season by 2026. Torpedo bats drew attention recently when the New York Yankees hit a team-record nine homers in one game. With several players using a strikingly different model in which wood is moved lower down the barrel toward the label, shaping the end a little like a bowling pin, the bat has become baseball’s latest fad.