Dustin Pedroia

Boston Red Sox's Dustin Pedroia follows through on a single during the third inning of a baseball game against the Cleveland Indians in Boston, Saturday, May 21, 2016. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

(Michael Dwyer)

BOSTON - Last spring training, a representative from Baden Sports visited the Red Sox facilities at JetBlue Park and presented a new style of bat for players to try.

The main difference with this bat was that its knob and handle were designed to contour to a hitter's hands. It was called the Axe Bat.

Red Sox hitting coach Chili Davis held onto the bats for use in the batting cages when Dustin Pedroia, who had left wrist/hand surgery the previous season, came across one.

"Pedey came in the cage and goes, 'This is it. This is the handle. I like this,'" Davis recalled.

Baden Sports developed the concept and collaborated with a major-league approved bat company, Victus, to produce MLB certified models of the Axe Bat.

An image of the Axe bat from BaseballProsectus.com.

Pedroia ordered a few models of the bat last season and continues to use them this year.

"(Victus and Baden) owe a lot to Dustin Pedroia because he really pushed that bat here with some players and he liked it and started telling guys about this bat," Davis said. "The whole design is to minimize the bat movement in your hands. You get a grip and the grip is constant throughout your swing and might help minimize hamate injuries and things like that."

"There are guys that probably won't like it because they're into the traditional knob, but I like the way it feels in my hand," Davis explained. "I've never hit with one, but when I pick it up and fit it in my hands, it just locks my hands in. Now they're starting to tweak the knob a little to fit the different hands and grips. So it's just another way that technology is coming into baseball."

In an in-depth question-and-answer piece for BaseballProspectus.com, Hugh Tompkins, Baden Sports' director of research and development, discussed the creation of the bat and its main purpose and benefit for major leaguers.

The Baden Sports team studied the tension and torque of tendons in hitters' forearms and measured the strain of how holding a regular bat with a cylindrical handle and round knob affected hitters and their swing.

"We spent a year refining this shape, so we know that this shape has all of the biomechanical benefits that we want, and you can't just start monkeying around with it," Tompkins told Baseball Prospectus. "Each curve, each diameter, and each radius is contrived. I didn't want to have to have 50 different knob styles for the 50 different players swinging the bat, but there is some legitimacy to say that different style hitters might benefit from a slightly different execution of the knob."

Pedroia said he used the bat primarily last season, coming off the hand surgery, because it felt more secure in his hands.

"I used it last year probably half the year because I had surgeries and stuff like that so it helped with that and I used it in the beginning of the year," he said. "I go back and forth with the regular bat. It's just personal preference."

His teammates Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts tried it out, too. Bogaerts used it once and didn't like it. But Betts transitioned to using the Axe Bat full-time last season and hasn't switched back to a regular bat since.

"I started using it because it was something new, figured I'd try it," Betts said. "I started to like it and stuck with it. But I think it's just your preference. I got comfortable with it now so I don't want to make any changes or go back to a normal knob. I think there's a bunch of health benefits and I guess scientific things that go behind the bat speed and all that the Axe knob is supposed to improve and so I figured I'd use it and get any advantage I can get."

Because the Axe Bat "locks" a hitters hands in place with the curved knob, the idea is that it provides a stronger more even swing.

Pedroia isn't sure if he's generating more bat speed, but he's liked the feel and grip of the Axe Bat.

"It just locks you into position to hit so I'm sure there's stuff behind it," he said. "If it locks you into position then you'll generate more bat speed."

Whether or not the bat has helped contribute to Boston's major-league leading offense this season is a subjective endeavor. But there's undoubtedly some correllation between a hitter's comfort at the plate and the bat he uses.

Follow MassLive.com Red Sox beat reporter @jcmccaffrey on Twitter. She can be reached by email at jmccaffr@masslive.com.