I was pursuing little league baseball bat videos on YouTube on a Friday night because when you have 7 children, this is what you do, and I came across a video for a bat called the Easton MAKO Torq. It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on, and then it hit me: My goodness, the freaking handle was rotating around the bat on purpose. See for yourself:
Models Overview
2024 Update: In short, the bat is the same as the highly rated Easton Mako, but it uses a spinning bottom hand to improve the bat's swing supposedly. The idea was novel, but the TORQ has been more of a running joke as a gimmick in the long run. Easton dropped the TORQ from their production lines a couple of years later (when they finally got rid of inventory), and it was otherwise popular to buy the bat, tape down the spinning handle, and use it like a normal bat. Other than this paragraph, we've kept this page largely in tact for posterities sake.
Construction & Technology
This bat, known well now as the Easton Mako Torq (not Torque) is real and is for sale. It comes in a handful of different sizes: BBCOR (BB15MKT) 31 to 34 inches; 2 1/4 Youth Barrel drop 10 (YB15MKT); Senior League 2 5/8 drop 5 and drop 8 (SL15MKT5T, SL15MKT8T).
But before you drop a couple years worth of lawn mowing money on a baseball bat, you should probably ask a more obvious question: Why would a bat ever need to have a spinning handle?
Comparable Bats
But no matter how amazing my eyes have a hard time focusing when I see a baseball bat cost $550. Oddly enough, the $550 bat sure makes the $399 Easton XL1 bat seem like a steal of a deal---which may have been Easton's strategy all along. It also makes the other 2015 innovative bats (RIP-IT Helium and Mizuno MaxCor) look affordable too.
Overall grade: A
Overall grade: A-
Overall grade: C+
