ESPN PRSENTATION ON ncaa softball to MLB game

[Huskerdu]

Hoo Boy, you guys sure can discect the liver out of a gnat. I sent the link to all my parents to have their daughters to look at it from a qualitative perspective. Who cares that the calculations were .01 inaccurate?...the majority of these kids will never ever get the opportunity to face a 70mph fastball in FP anyway. The point is to give these girls an opportunity to understand the timing and speed of the game. I want my infielders to know they only have 3 seconds or less to field and get the ball to first, to understand why girls slap, etc.


When they see the stinky butts out there running around playing 9" white ball, they can feel and understand that the game they play is as superior and competitive and important...breaking the stereotype.

 

[jbooth]

I find this discussion interesting. But, I don't know which is harder to hit. A 70 mph softball is about the same as a 98 mph baseball. BOTH are hard to hit. Each gives you the same time from plate to home plate; 0.419 seconds.

But, as you mentioned; the time is not the only factor. The baseball is covering more feet per second. If your swing takes .18 seconds from launch to contact. You have to swing when the baseball is 26 feet from the plate, whereas, you can start your swing when the softball is 18.5 feet from the plate.

This assumes a constant speed, which is not true. The softball started with a lower speed, has more mass, and less kinetic energy, which means it not only starts at a lower speed, but decelerates at a higher rate also. So, it is slowing down more as you swing at it, than a baseball.

The question is; is it harder to read and react to an object moving at a higher feet per second rate, or not?

I don't know for sure; but I think it is harder to hit the object moving at the higher rate. You have to react to 98 and 70 respectively, in the same amount of time, but the baseball is moving faster and is smaller.

I need to calculate the deceleration rate and find how much of time difference that makes.

Meanwhile, here is a link to a javascript I wrote that gives you various numbers and comparisons.

First Pick Baseball Softball speed calculations

I researched deceleration rates and did some calculations, and my gut feeling was correct. It's harder to hit a baseball pitch than a softball pitch thrown at equivalent rates.

Because the softball starts at a lower speed and decelerates at a higher rate, your decision time is longer when reacting to a softball pitch. It's impossible to be 100% correct on the calculations, but a 70 mph pitch from 43 feet is the same as 98 mph from 60.5.
Taking the decelerations into account, you have very roughly .01 seconds longer to read the 70 mph pitch from 43 feet, than you do on the 98 mph pitch from 60.5. Plus, you have to start your swing when the ball is farther from you, and the ball is smaller.

 

[BLB]

In this comparison, why are people using the best baseball pitchers in the world and not the best softball pitchers in the world? I have clocked a number of pitchers who throw in the low to mid 80s with a release point of 37 or 38 feet. Compare apples to apples and try those numbers out.

 

[Sweet Lou]

In this comparison, why are people using the best baseball pitchers in the world and not the best softball pitchers in the world? I have clocked a number of pitchers who throw in the low to mid 80s with a release point of 37 or 38 feet. Compare apples to apples and try those numbers out.

Are you talking about women throwing in the low to mid 80s or men?

 

[jbooth]

In this comparison, why are people using the best baseball pitchers in the world and not the best softball pitchers in the world? I have clocked a number of pitchers who throw in the low to mid 80s with a release point of 37 or 38 feet. Compare apples to apples and try those numbers out.

We are. And, we are comparing FEMALE softball pitchers to MLB pitchers.

Sure MALE softball pitchers who throw above 75 are absolutely more difficult to hit than even the best MLB pitcher. 78 from 46 is like 103 in MLB. 80 is like 106. That's dang hard to hit.

I compared 70 to 98 which is the top of each sport (female to MLB). Not all female softball pitchers throw 70. I'd say 66 to 68 is more the normal. As is; 90 to 92 for baseball.

If you say that 68 is the norm and 90 is the norm. Then yes, 68 from 43 is harder to hit than 90 from 60.5. So, you could make a very GENERAL statement based upon that, that college softball pitchers are harder to hit than MLB pitchers. But, when you compare equal speed ratios, the baseball pitch is harder to hit.

Even though 68 at 43 gives less read time than 90 from 60.5, I still say the baseball is harder to hit. You have to start your swing when it is farther from you, which makes it difficult to adjust to its location, and the ball is smaller.

There is no absolute answer to this discussion. It's just MY opinion, based upon my research.

If you get a softball going over 72 then, I would say without a doubt that that pitch is harder to hit than the average baseball pitch, because that's in the 101+ range, and VERY few baseball pitchers throw that hard. But then, again not many female softball pitchers throw 72+. And, even comparing 72+ to 101+ the 101+ would be harder to hit, IMO.

The discussion, (I thought) was about pitches with similar times from plate to contact. Of course, any pitch that gives you less reaction time, will be harder to hit. And, any pitch that gives you less than, .25 seconds to make a decision to swing or not, is going to be nearly impossible to hit.

70 from 43, 75 from 46, and 98 from 60.5 all give approximately .249 seconds read time. So, any speed above those numbers is getting awfully hard to hit, because it takes the brain close to .25 seconds to react to any speed. So, speeds giving less than that make it nearly impossible to hit.

A good swing can be executed in .18 seconds and most people can read a pitch in .26 seconds.

That means you need .44 seconds to see it and hit it.

66 from 43, 71 from 46 and 93 from 60.5 give you about .444 seconds. So, you can hit that.

So, a good hitter can fairly easily hit pitches below 62, 66, 87 at the 3 distances. That's why pitchers who throw at that speed need change of speed, movement and/or location, to be successful.

High level MLB hitters can react in .24 and execute the swing in .16 to .17. So, they can hit a pitch with .41 seconds of time. Which is what a 100mph baseball pitch leaves. Or a 71mph female softball pitch.

 

[Rocketech1]

How come no mention of the diameter of the bat in your analysis. Women's fastpitch bat diameter = 2.25" / MLB bat diameter 2.61" (used to be 2.75" until 2010). Men's bats have a 16% increase in diameter.

All things being equal, a pitched ball with a smaller diameter bat is more difficult to hit.

 

[jbooth]

How come no mention of the diameter of the bat in your analysis. Women's fastpitch bat diameter = 2.25" / MLB bat diameter 2.61" (used to be 2.75" until 2010). Men's bats have a 16% increase in diameter.

All things being equal, a pitched ball with a smaller diameter bat is more difficult to hit.

The main focus was on reaction time. The ability to read and hit the different pitches. However, your point is valid.

A common belief is; because the distance is so short, that it is harder to hit. That isn't necessarily true, because, as I pointed out. The baseball is closing the distance to you at a higher rate, even though it is taking the same amount of time to get to you from the different release distances. This IMO, is a pretty significant factor.

A ball thrown at 70mph from 43 feet takes the same amount of time to get to you as a ball thrown at 207 mph from baseball's second base. 127 feet away.

Which do you think is harder to hit? You'd have to start your .17 second swing when the ball was still 51.5 feet away from you in order to make contact. How can you track that speed and determine where to swing, when it's that far away? Yet it reaches you at the same time as the 70 mph pitch from 43 feet, which you can start to swing at, when it is only 17.5 feet away from you. You have to swing at a 98mph baseball pitch when it is 24.5 feet away, even though it is the same travel time as the 43 foot 70 mph pitch.

 

[SBFAMILY]

Did some of you really watch the demo. So if you are right then why can't the MLB hitters hit the female pitchers in the demo's that have been posted? This isn't the first demo that has had a elite female pitcher , pitch to a MLB player. Finch has a demo out there.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

SBF, I viewed the video. The presentation contained multiple distortions.

Someone that takes the Hanson Principle to heart likes to verify the information given. In this case, they demonstrated a heavy bias and an inability to compute numbers correctly … with the errors always being slanted towards the outcome they wished to promote. I much prefer Jim’s fact based approach.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Part of hitting has to do with the building up of a mental database of the ball path.

Contrary to popular opinion, good hitters do not track the ball to contact, but instead draw upon their database of pitches to predict where the ball will be at contact. They are swinging to their “prediction” of where contact will be.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a hitter facing a stream of different pitch profiles will need an adjustment period while they build up their mental database.

We see a reference to MLB hitters first seeing FP pitching without a built-up database of FP pitching. The outcome shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with what is involved with hitting. Let’s see a comparison of FP hitters that are first seeing MLB pitching, without a built-up database of MLB pitching.