Probably stupid baseball hypothetical...

[IlliniLou]

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Very interesting. Can you share some of the analysis and background that led you to this conclusion?

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remember i was in 8th grade but this is what we did, we took 50 at bats from major league hitters swinging at fastballs and how long it took them from the time they started their swing until their bat would go through the strike zone. then we took the basic amount of time it takes for the human body to start to react to a pitch and did some calculations based on how far to the plate the ball would be before a batter could start their swing. for a 109+mph fastball, the bat would never be able to make solid contact and at the very best it would just barely get a piece of the ball

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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Very interesting. Can you share some of the analysis and background that led you to this conclusion?

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remember i was in 8th grade but this is what we did, we took 50 at bats from major league hitters swinging at fastballs and how long it took them from the time they started their swing until their bat would go through the strike zone. then we took the basic amount of time it takes for the human body to start to react to a pitch and did some calculations based on how far to the plate the ball would be before a batter could start their swing. for a 109+mph fastball, the bat would never be able to make solid contact and at the very best it would just barely get a piece of the ball

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I'm not gonna nit b/c that's good work for an 8th grader, but I'll just add that your study assumes that MLB hitters won't develop faster reflexes/swings once they start seeing 110mph fastballs.

ie you basically said "at current peak hitter performance, pitchers would be unhittable if they threw 110mph"

[IlliniLou]

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Very interesting. Can you share some of the analysis and background that led you to this conclusion?

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remember i was in 8th grade but this is what we did, we took 50 at bats from major league hitters swinging at fastballs and how long it took them from the time they started their swing until their bat would go through the strike zone. then we took the basic amount of time it takes for the human body to start to react to a pitch and did some calculations based on how far to the plate the ball would be before a batter could start their swing. for a 109+mph fastball, the bat would never be able to make solid contact and at the very best it would just barely get a piece of the ball

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I'm not gonna nit b/c that's good work for an 8th grader, but I'll just add that your study assumes that MLB hitters won't develop faster reflexes/swings once they start seeing 110mph fastballs.

ie you basically said "at current peak hitter performance, pitchers would be unhittable if they threw 110mph"

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yeah we gots the blue ribbon for the science fair lol maybe i should get some new data and redo the project

[THEOSU]

1) i'm disappointed someone beat me to sidd finch. damnit.

2) i wonder what would have happened if dalkowski hadn't blown out his arm while with the Os. there's quite a bit of precedent of particular managers being able to get the most out of hard throwing relievers that are not, shall we say, rocket scientists (think ozzie guillen and bobby jenks), and i think weaver certainly could have had that effect on dalkowski.

3) just echoing what others have said. i'm sure there's a point where speed is unhittable, but clearly we're not at that point. movement and control are still paramount.

[tdarko]

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How hard would a fastball have to be to be more or less unhittable without movement and only average location (ie some pitches on the corners but some catch a lot of the plate).

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When I was at Nebraska my roomate, his gf (now wife) and I went to play putt-putt. We got done and for goof's sake went into the batting cages to play around. We went to the 30 MPH cage or some speed really slow and were doing are best "Griffey" impersonations. We got bored and decided we would go to the fastest speed they had which was 90 MPH. Now these machines weren't 60 feet away, I don't know how far they were (didn't break out the measuring tape or anyting) but it looked like it was 45-50 feet away, that machine was close.

I went first. The first ball hit the mat behind me so fast I could barely blink--that wasn't 90 mph. We were baseball players at Nebraska and had just got back from a road trip at Baylor and the closer there threw 95-98 and I swear this ball looked harder. I just figured it was b/c the machine was so close. I didn't hit one ball fair in that first round of 10 or 15 or whatever you get. My roommate didn't either.

The next round I missed the first couple and then started hitting the ball pretty well. My roommate did even better than me. My roommate was in the big leagues last year w/ the Brewers--so he had some ability.

About a month later we went to play putt-putt again, this time super excited about facing "Kyle Edens" (it is what we called the machine, in memory of the hard throwing Baylor closer). But sadly they had turned it down, waaaaaay down. My roommate asked what the deal was and one of the workers said that the employees during lunch breaks turn the machine all the way up to see if they can even touch it (they said nobody ever can) and then when lunch is over they turn it back down--the guy said someone must have left it up (which wasn't good). My roommate asked how high the machine went, he said 100--he then asked how far the machine was from the plate and he the guy said 54 feet. Now I don't know if the machine was turned all the way up but it was coming in real fast.

The point of that was if the ball is straight and you know the fastball is coming you can time it, that isn't hard. If the fastball has any wrinkle to it at all and is coming at the speeds we are talking about I don't know how it would be hit effectively, I don't know how you could center it. Now if you had to think about an offspeed pitch then you would be done, no chance.