I guess I don't see less than 1 person/team as that many throwing that hard. Throwing it 100mph is one thing, getting it where you want it is another. I'm sure there are outfielders and probably even a few infielders/catchers who can throw it that hard, but they can't pitch.
The Phantom 100-mph Fastball
- Thread starter Go2Guy
- Start date
He was a head case, but I'll always love the guy for the time a guy (maybe from the Reds?) charged the mound and Farnsworth took him down and just pounded him.
Also a side story about 100-mph fastballs. In senior league (junior high) our coach had a standing bet that if anyone got a hold of a pitch in the batting machine with the machine set to 100 mph they got $10. I was hitting well one day warming up for a game and told my buddy to crank it up to 100 mph. Stupidly I didn't step back and take a pitch since the location changes when the speed changes. I barely even saw it and it caught me right in the jaw. Luckily it was one of those softer batting cage balls and nothing happened beyond swelling up and not being able to talk for a day. I'm one of the few that can say he took a 100 mph fastball to the jaw though.
I can buy that argument. I just see how big of a difference throwing 85 is from 90, and the difference from 90 to 95 is even larger. It is just hard for me to imagine some of these guys (like you said, maybe one per team) hitting 100 as consistantly as they seem to do. Even though MLB pitchers are superior athletes, it is just hard for me to fathom that many guys are doing it seemingly so easily.
It's hittable you just have to cheat a little bit. Our coach was an idiot in HS and thought he had the machine set at about 80. I was a dead pull hitter and was fouling everything off or hitting to right field, we busted out the gun and it was coming in at 96. Amazed me that major league hitters could handle that crap.
Have we even come up with 10 guys yet pitching today that are throwing that hard? If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Johan at his best was throwing his fastball mid 90s and he was overpowering because he'd kill you with his change up. Same with King Felix now, and Strasburg.
It's really impressive. I never tried again, but think I could have hit it, but not consistently. I don't think our batting cage was set to the full 60'6". There was absolutely no way I could have gotten out of the way though when you are expecting it to come right at your face.
Justin Verlander hit 100 in the 8th inning of his no hitter 3 years ago. It was incredible seeing that after throwing over 90 pitches
Joel hit 101 against the Astros last year. Pence was WAY behind it. I took a pic of the TV screen!
I was sitting 5 rows behind home plate and off to the left side just far enough to be out of the way of the screen while some minor league guy in C-Springs was throwing 100+. He threw 5 pitches and 3 of them were over 100. It's pretty damn scary just being behind home plate. Can't imagine trying to hit that.
Even though I used the word easily, I did not mean to imply that it was actually easy. I just don't think there are as many guys throwing 100 as the TV/stadium gun shows. Here is a blip about Zumaya throwing almost all the pitches that were actually over 100 this season so far. And Strasburg the most for a starter.
Is Stephen Strasburg the 100-MPH King? -- MLB FanHouse
By the time those guys take their stride, and let go of the ball, its probably leaving their hand from about 50 feet away. A quick calculation tells me that the time it would take to get to the plate (assuming a constant speed of 100 mph) is .34 secs. At a full 60'-6" it would be about .41 secs. Not a lot of time to get turned on the ball.
I'd guess 54+' is probably a much better estimate, but the fact that it's a fraction of a second doesn't change. MLB hitters have less than a half second to find the ball, figure out the pitch, decide if it's a ball or strike, and get their hands to it. Impressive.
He threw a few changeups at 91 against Atlanta. That's almost unfair.
Actually, I want to say that on Mythbusters that the velocity of a pitch stays fairly consistent from the pitchers hand to the catcher, but I could be wrong.
I'm pretty sure that the high dollar radar guns that the scouts use can pick up the velocity at the point of release. The run-of-the-mill guns that most local teams use read out an average velocity as the ball approaches the plate. There is usually a 2-3 mph difference in the readings.
