What is the average baseball pitch speed

The shift in how pitchers are used in the majors has partly contributed to this trend. In the past, a kid with a good arm was trained to become a starting pitcher. As major league clubs increasingly pull their starters out of games early, they go to their bullpens more often. And teams need guys who can bring the heat. Of all the MLB pitchers who threw 95 mph or harder on average in , 80 percent of them appeared on the disabled list at some point during the season.

Only Jeff Zimmerman, a baseball statistical analyst, correlated the relationship between fastball velocity and injury among MLB pitchers from to Pitchers who threw 96 mph or more had over a 27 percent chance of appearing on the DL the following season. That risk was almost double that of the pitchers who threw 90 to 93 mph. Plus, these hard-throwing pitchers were on the DL for longer amounts of time. Research studies have shown a risk between increased pitch velocity and injury, especially an ulnar collateral ligament tear that leads to Tommy John surgery.

A study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine followed 23 professional pitchers for three seasons. The 14 pitchers who remained injury free had a mean pitch velocity of The nine pitchers who were injured averaged The three pitchers with the highest maximum velocity all needed Tommy John surgery.

Sarris said command correlates to longer outings and improved health outcomes. Conversely, one American League executive noted that, historically, command improves over time while stuff tends to decline. The AL official conceded that because command and intent are more difficult to measure—especially when evaluating players or prospects in different organizations—it is more difficult to create an effective feedback loop in training.

Perhaps only time and experience can improve command. But some teams are trying to accelerate the process. The mound is fitted with force plates more commonly found in golf training. Johnson has always experimented. As a college coach he was testing weighted balls in , when few considered them an effective training tool in baseball.

While he has helped develop velocity in arms, he has become more and more interested in creating a better method for command training. Johnson often goes outside of baseball to other sports for inspiration. Last year, he became more and more interested in golf, and the processes and technology modern golfers are using to improve their skills. He was interested in how they used TrackMan data on spin to optimize ball flight, but he was fascinated by how they were employing force plates—which measure balance and weight transfer—to improve their accuracy.

He thought this could be used to help train command. Force plates could be part of an improved feedback loop to teach command. For example, Twins pitchers are learning where they are off-balance in their deliveries this spring.

They are also learning that they often have different amounts of force for different pitches. The psychological aspect of developing command is particularly tricky. Johnson is also trying to borrow from the performance mindsets of elite golfers, a sport he sees having a lot of carryover to pitching.

Something that he found interesting is golfer Dustin Johnson typically only plays a fade—a shot hit to the open side of his stance—off the tee. He has mastered that shot. He only worries about playing, generally, the right side of the golf course. This spring, the Twins are telling some of their pitchers to focus on only the half of the plate they command best.

As a result, Chapman has faced little competition to retain his crown for the fastest pitch in With deGrom sidelined indefinitely due to inflammation in his throwing arm, baseball fans must look elsewhere for arms throwing with serious gas. With the MLB season wrapped up, here are a few hurlers to keep an eye on in who could top the chart for fastest pitch in MLB next year.

Brusdar Graterol's Fastball velocities have ticked up over time. Between pitchers tweaking their mechanics and throwing with greater effort thanks to lower pitch counts, the radar gun is hitting triple digits like never before. FanGraphs detailed in Apri how the average fastball velocity jumped from The measurement of fastball velocity has also changed in recent decades, as Baseball America explained in detail.

MLB changed the point at which it tracked the baseball coming in. When the Hall of Famer was unleashing heat from , his fastball was being tracked closer to the plate. He was still credited with hitting mph multiple times, topping out at The documentary Fastball examined velocities and how different speeds might look if modern technology was used.