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Several people have asked me about the accuracy of the speeds reported by PITCHf/x systems around the major leagues in the early going. I usually wait about a month into the season before I run checks on the calibrations of the PITCHf/x camera systems installed in all the major league ballparks. We need a sample size of 10-20 games before we can be really confident that we are evaluating the cameras and not just the specific set of pitchers that have played in a given stadium or the weather they have been playing in. In my full set of PITCHf/x accuracy checks, I adjust for those things in order to improve the estimates.

However, in order to get a quick idea of how to evaluate the fastball speed readings we have seen so far, it is not necessary to chase accuracy down to the tenth part of a mile per hour. I took the average fastball speed of every pitcher in every game and compared to his average fastball speed over the 2008-2010 seasons. Then I averaged these differences across all the fastballs thrown in each park this year. This result will include the effects of temperature and pitchers in early-season condition. In other words, we should expect fastball speeds that are slower than average because temperatures in April are colder and pitchers are not in mid-season shape.

Without further ado, here are the results by park:

Ballpark Speed Delta (mph)
Toronto Blue Jays -0.3
Colorado Rockies -0.3
Seattle Mariners -0.4
Florida Marlins -0.4
Minnesota Twins -0.4
Baltimore Orioles -0.5
Washington Nationals -0.5
Chicago White Sox -0.6
Pittsburgh Pirates -0.6
Surprise -0.6
Oakland Athletics -0.6
St. Louis Cardinals -0.6
Tampa Bay Rays -0.7
Boston Red Sox -0.7
Cincinnati Reds -0.7
Atlanta Braves -0.7
Houston Astros -0.7
Texas Rangers -0.7
Milwaukee Brewers -0.7
Los Angeles Angels -0.8
Peoria -0.8
Arizona Diamondbacks -0.8
San Diego Padres -0.9
Chicago Cubs -0.9
New York Mets -1.0
Los Angeles Dodgers -1.0
San Francisco Giants -1.0
Philadelphia Phillies -1.2
Kansas City Royals -1.2
New York Yankees -1.3
Cleveland Indians -1.4
Detroit Tigers -2.2

The average (mean and median) recorded fastball speed is 0.8 mph slower thus far in 2011.

Let me remind you of a few things before I go. First, changes in fastball speeds can be due to things other than a change in pitcher performance. As mentioned, temperature has an effect. Pitch classification can also have an effect. (Joakim Soria is Exhibit A.) Second, last year's speed measurements at a pitcher's home ballpark may have been slightly off (again, see Soria). Third, I do not consider these values an accurate assessment of PITCHf/x camera performance given the temperature bias, point-in-season bias, and relatively small sample size. Please do not consider this data an evaluation of Sportvision or Major League Baseball Advanced Media data quality. Rather, it is intended to help people gauge early season fastball speeds in context, to the extent that is possible two weeks into the season.

Thank you for reading

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Oleoay
4/12
This reminds me a bit of an article a few years ago by Dan Fox measuring the mph difference between the pitcher's release point and the speed the ball crossed the plate. The numbers seemed to vary a bit by park though it was also hard to tell if that was a calibration issue.

Know anything about Trackman? Verducci (surprisingly) did an amazing article for it at CNNSI and it discussed things like spin rates of curveballs and release points.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/04/12/fastballs.trackman/index.html?xid=cnnbin&hpt=Sbin
mikefast
4/12
I can do a more in-depth investigation of the calibration of the camera systems with respect to velocity. That's included here in a big bucket with a number of other factors.

Correcting speed measurements is a lot more complicated than correcting position measurements. So I've debated about how to work through that and present it one piece at a time.

The article I did a couple weeks ago on how temperature and point in the season affects fastball speed was a piece of that investigation. I've done more work that I haven't published yet.

As far as TrackMan goes, it's a very promising technology, both for pitch tracking and especially for batted ball tracking. The data is very unlikely to become public. I have some reservations about the conclusions that are drawn by TrackMan's folks about curveball spin rates and release distances, as published by Verducci and others previously.
mikefast
4/12
I should disclose that I've worked briefly as a consultant for TrackMan, but my comments here are based entirely on what's known publicly about their system and data.