Second Best

I shall not refer directly to the Pedro the Lion song, but please know that it's a great song on a truly amazing album.

No today I am second best because I am lazy and didn't bother to write down or talk about a thought I had the other day.

During this years post season baseball games on Fox I noticed something that I had never really thought about before. Fox has been showing the speed at which the ball leaves the pitchers hand the speed at which it crosses the plate. Now, without every thinking about this I knew that there was no way the ball was the same velocity out of the hand as it crossed the plate.* However, I never went to the next logical point. Which pitchers lose the least velocity on their pitches when they leave their hand? Which pitchers lose the most velocity when the pitch leaves the pitchers hand.

I think we can all agree that a fastball that stays as close to it's peak speed as possible when coming out of the hand is the better fast ball.** However, what about breaking ball that loses a ton of speed? Is that why Knuckle ball can be so hard to hit? Is that why a really good 12-6 curve will make you look silly?

What I would love to see is a list of pitchers who's fastballs hold their velocity best from release to home plate, and the start and end speeds of all their breaking pitches. Maybe we could learn something here. Sure I could do this research myself and become a baseball research rock star, but frankly I am to lazy to do such a thing. Someone please get on this.



* In case anyone didn't know the velocity of a pitcher is judged by how fast the ball is moving when it leaves his hand. Not when it crosses the plate.

**provided the fastball isn't to true