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If, as you say, "nearly 92 percent of all right-handers have at least average velocity, 80 percent are above average"

it would be helpful to define what you mean by average. Or at least define the set from which that average is derived. Major league pitchers? Professional pitchers? Humankind as a whole? Becaue my math says that if 80 percent are above average, the other 20% are throwing with negative velocity.

I haven't taken a math class in 15 years, but isn't saying that a certain percentage of pitchers have above-average velocity, based on the scouting scale, a bit misleading? The "average" you're describing is the midpoint on this arbitrary scale. I don't know when this scale was developed or whether it's been adjusted over time (I'd guess that velocities on the whole have risen over time), but I'm not sure it's the best measure to prove your point (though I don't disagree with the hypothesis, necessarily). Wouldn't a better exercise be to compare the velocities of big league regulars with the velocities of those that never made the show or couldn't stay there?

Well, there was Randy Jones, so there is at least *some* evidence that you can get people out, at least for a couple of years, without throwing all that hard. Jones might have managed it for a few more years without the 300 inning work load. Granted Jones is an anomaly, but is that because guys that only throw in the low 80s can't get hitters out, or because guys that throw in the low 80s never get drafted and/or promoted?

I think this article is trying to say that only hard throwing righty get promoted to the show

Velocity is necessary but not sufficient for a major league pitcher.

Tease! who were the 7 80's!!!! Did Feliz throw enough pitches to qualify (I'm assuming not) and would you rank him as an 85 given that he's thrown 101.


One other question. If fastballs are rated mostly on velocity, how are curveballs ranked? Break? velocity? deception? feel? what!?!

Interesting study as it kind of dovetails nicely with Joe Posnanski's posts (http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/09/02/a-few-baseball-ideas/#more-2575) the last few days. Is it that pitchers who throw slow are not going to be a future success or that pitchers that throw slow are not going to be given a chance?

Great analysis. This is definitely a cool area of discussion.

The scale refers to major league average, not humankind; but if more than half the pitchers are above major-league average, the scale could use a bit of updating. We also have to remember that there are some radar guns that inflate the numbers a bit. It would be interesting to see the velocity groups compared by some pitching effectiveness metrics. My guess is that the higher the velocity, the higher the effectiveness (on average).

Don't know if Trevor Hoffman qualifies (300 fastballs) but he's a RHP at 20 on the scouting scale who's got his ticket to Cooperstown already punched - it can happen.

I thought of that Joe Posnanski post too. Alderson gives the Pirates a nice opportunity to take the Joe-Pos Challenge.

Several years ago, I was coaching in an American Legion league that included some players graduating from high school and some players who played in the community colleges. It was a pretty high standard of ball. About 7 kids from the league were drafted in the majopr league draft. My son, who was our best pitcher, (even though he had just finished his junior year of high school) got by on command and guile, but didn't throw more that mid - 80's on a good day. When he heard who had been drafted he was surprised and disappointed. I remeber him saying "That kid can't pitch, he just throws hard". I told him that the majors think they can teach those kids how to pitch, but they can't teach you how to throw in the 90's.

Still true.

I would love to see the list for LHP's.

This is an interesting piece. One thing that I'm curious about: how many righties with low-velocity just don't throw many fastballs and, therefore, didn't make the list even if they've racked up a bunch of innings throwing breaking balls and off-speed stuff and only the occassional fastball. I suspect that, knucklers aside, not many pitch like this, but maybe there are a bunch of them and Kevin needs to amend his saying to, "If you rely on your fastball at all, throw hard or go home."

I have to say I'm surprised at the reaction -- that's the scale, and using the term 'above-average' might not FULLY calibrate to some kind of scale you guys are looking for, but the base point of you HAVE to have velo remains. I think we've gotten a bit pedantic here.

I wonder if this will lead to a less conventional Top 11 than ever before. KG's a velo-whore (his words) to be sure, but with data...maybe we'll see some interesting rankings.

Kevin, great article! Despite some of the comments here, it was easy to follow and made a simple, but important point. Keep up the good work!

The take home here is that 90% of the Major League right-handers throw 90 mph. That in itself is very nice to know, thank you. How this relates to scouts' fb scale would be more interesting and meaningful if we comparitively saw how prospects who made the major leagues fared on the scouts' other scales.

Fits with Seidman's thoughts on Lidge's collapse this year.

I would like to know about an added dimension: performance. What are the stat lines like by velocity?

Nice post, Kevin. But I'm thinking that we shouldn't necessarily assume that the frequency/likelihood of making the majors with a certain fastball grade correlates with performance once there. That is, while major league GMs have, over the past decade, become much better at identifying and rostering the best available talent, we're not all the way there yet, are we? I mean, Littlefield and Bowden don't have jobs anymore, but still.

So I think an even more interesting way to look at this would be to examine the actual 2009 results of the pitchers in each of these groups, and see if a trend emerges which justifies the bias for rostering harder throwers. While I think in general you're likely to find a strong correlation in support of your theory, I also think -- based on the groups of five "20's" and seven "80's" you identified -- that you might find some anomalies at the extremes. That is, at the top end of the scale there may be a slight dip in performance, in that the group (exclusive as it is) may include a disproportionate number of arms who are in the bigs merely because they can light up the radar gun, even though they have no idea where the pitch is going (read: Lindstrom). Whereas a 60 or a 65 heater is very good, but not so good that you can coast to the show on it without developing your control, command, and secondary offerings. Similarly, at the low end of the scale you may be more likely to find only those pitchers with true mastery of control, command, and secondary offerings.

And deception and extreme height, too, yes. But I think something like deception should be analyzed as an almost perfect substitute for velocity, or perhaps simply as a component of it. That is, the *reason* velocity is important is that it gives the hitter less time to read and react to the pitch. And deception is important for the very same reason. All that matters is that the hitter has X.X seconds to see and swing. It doesn't matter if he has this amount of time because the ball is on its way faster (Neftali), stays hidden longer (Ziegler), or is released from closer to the plate (Chris Young, Danny Almonte, Jennie Finch). All accomplish the same result. In fact, one might even argue that accomplishing it through deception is superior to doing so through sheer oomph, since all things -- read/react time for the hitter included -- being equal, harder contact (and with it, presumably a higher HR rate and BABIP) will be generated off of a 99 mph fastball thrown without deception than off of an 87 mph one thrown with it.

In any event, definitely food for thought. Though I'm worried that the more you talk about this, the more you are taking away my secret weapon for drafting pitchers in my fantasy leagues. First stop is PECOTA, but the second is fangraphs for the velo data!

I'd like a better baseline comparison. What is the similar breakdown at AAA? AA? A? top 25 DI college?

"But the scale doesn't exist to measure major league players, who are all above average baseball players, but minor leaguers"

That's why I think everyone should be rated on a major league scale. Why should I care if a guy is an above average Rookie League shortstop, I want to know how he compares to major leaguers.

I think the take-home of all this, to oversimplify it perhaps, is "velocity is a necessary, but not sufficient, ingredient for a successful MLB pitcher".

It was interesting to see that velocity histogram Kevin - thanks for the piece.

Nice article. A similar article from Baseball Time in Arlington drew similar conclusions. http://www.bbtia.com/home/2009/7/1/fastball-velocity-pitching-performance-and-rangers-starting.html

Just a thought - if the prevailing thought among teams is consistent with the conclusion you came up with ("there is no evidence that we've found anything to replace the radar gun reading as an indicator for future big-league success"), wouldn't there be a Moneyball-like market inefficiency created where a team could collect RHP's with less than plus velo yet solid results (aka Tim Alderson) for very little cost and with very little risk and let the other teams compete for the Colt Griffin's and Nick Neugebauer's of the world? Not exclusively mind you but just as a complementary piece of a portfolio that also includes other plus velo RHP's that fall to them in the draft?

I'd be interested in seeing what the list looks like for starters. I think you'd see much more congregation around "average" if you got rid of the relievers; for instance, all the 80 guys are RPs, and I'd imagine that the vast majority of the 70 guys would be as well.