Does Atlanta Braves Pitching Miss Out on Speed?

Feeling the Need For Speed

A 100 mph pitch travels 146.66 feet per second.  An 80 mph pitch goes 117.33 feet per second.  In each case, there will be a dropoff in velocity of a couple mph between the pitcher’s release point and the hitting zone, which I’m placing at the front of home plate (for convenience in measurement).  The figures I am sharing today will not take this reduction into consideration, but if you’d like to think in those terms, then you could do so as follows:

• A 100 mph fastball on release might be roughly 98 mph at home plate, and therefore averages 99 mph during its whole trip.
• Likewise, you might want to think of all pitches of “X” mph to average “X”-1 mph

The chart at right is the result of those calculations.  Hitters have 1/3rd of a second to react to a 100 mph pitch… a tenth more for an 80 mph pitch, and somewhere in between for an average speed fastball.

I was a bit surprised that the difference wasn’t a bit larger from top to bottom.  If you were to take a stopwatch in hand, start it and then stop it as quickly as possible, you’d probably have a lot of trouble getting it to stop in as little as 0.10 seconds… yet that’s the difference in arrival times for pitches thrown between 80 and 100 mph.

Let’s put this in a different context.  A speed difference of 1 mph represents about 1.46 feet per second… 17½ inches.  If you are driving 70 mph on the highway and come across a car traveling at 69 mph, how long will that take to pass your counterpart?  There’s the following distance… which should be about 200 feet, the length of both of your cars (about 40 feet), and a safe clearance distance to complete the pass (another 150+ feet).  That 390 feet at 1.46 feet per second would require almost 2½ minutes to accomplish.

Thus, 1 mph really isn’t a big difference… 10 mph?  Much bigger.

Distance Matters

One more graphic:  Suppose you could throw 21 pitches simultaneously and then also thrown them at every speed from 80 to 100 (1 mph increments).  Now suppose that the instant your 100 mph pitch reaches home plate, everything freezes in position.  This chart shows every one of those baseballs and how far they will still be from home plate at that moment when the 100mph pitch arrives.

For each mph of speed reduction, the hitter gets roughly an addition 6+ inches to see the ball, and 3-4 more thousandths of a second to react.  Given that all reactions have to be done in something between .353 and .441 seconds, it’s probably the distance that matters a little more, here, for if you have to wait to react, then the ball will be in the catcher’s glove before you do!

Discussion

This all leads me to the following thoughts (not so much conclusions):

• Pitch Movement would seem to be more important than pitch speed.  Pitchers have a strike zone plane of approximately 1½ feet by 3 feet to aim a ball… and that’s a lot of space to use for a spheroid of just under 3 inches in diameter.
• Pitch Deception is likely at least as important as pitch speed.  If a batter believes you’re throwing the express and instead gets a changeup, their reaction goes from ‘drive the ball’ to ‘stop my bat’ in a hurry… advantage to the defense.
• Speed differences are important – a hitter yanking a ball foul may simply be the result of slowing a pitch by 1 foot – 2 mph – while the batter fails to adjust.

Speed differences can still be done whether your peak velocity is 100 mph or 88 mph.  Thus all other things being equal, the impact of a 95-100 mph staff (like that of the Mets) would seem to be largely psychological.   Without movement or quality secondary offerings, a 100 mph fastball is just a pitch… one that can be timed and beaten.  Still, major league hitters have shown that ability to generally make better contact with slower pitches.

The Braves have excelled over the past couple of decades in getting pitchers who knew about deception, command, and location.  Most have not been flame-throwers.  Even John Smoltz, the fastest throwing of the ‘Big Three’, got his strikeouts due to movement on his fastballs and sliders… not from raw speed alone.  Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were more hittable (in terms of contact), but they relied on location and movement.

Next: Gomes...Gomes on the Rampage...

Let’s see how your reactions are to these charts.