How tall are softball players?

Some of the greatest pitchers of this generation:
Jennie Finch 6',0"
Cat Osterman 6',3"
Monica Abbott 6',3
Even the great Japenese pitcher Yukiko Ueno (5'9") is well above the average women's height.

See a trend here? All things being equal: Long levers, longer stride, long fingers to better spin the ball, etc. all contribute to the effectiveness of height in the circle.

My very short DD has already been called too short, tiny, been ignored at tryouts due to her size (10U), but she hasn't let that hold her back. No, she may not be able to generate the speed some of the taller kids have (fastest one I saw last year was a foot taller than her, but has the classic hello elbow delivery so it's a matter of time before she maxes out), but she is the most competitive kid you'll ever meet and always battles. Usually the results are pretty good.

Something I NEVER hear discussed when talking about pitchers physical attributes is length of fingers. Its not a statistic that is obvious to see or readily available, but it makes a big difference when it comes to throwing a ball.

Another coach and I were talking about pitcher's futures and he mentioned that his DD wasn't going to be tall but she had long fingers. I have seen her easily apply spins to the ball that more than compensated for a lack of speed.

"You can't teach height"
Who said that?

"You can't teach height"
Who said that?

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A Basketball Coach

IMO, "short" pitchers are college SB's equivalent to Moneyball's undervalued high OBA players.

If shorter players are truly discriminated against, you could find evidence of it in college softball with some research. Shorter players would perform above the conference average. If there's no discrimination, then taller players and shorter players would perform about the same.

For example, let's take a conference like the Big 12. Suppose that 1/3 of players in the Big 12 from California. Then at the end of the season if 1/3 of the best hitters and 1/3 of the worst hitters are from California, then California players are rated correctly. But if 1/10 of the best hitters are from California, or 8/10, then there's evidence that they are very underrated, or overrated.

We saw that in the 1950s with African-American players. The average A-A player was well above the league average. That's because teams were eager to take on Aaron and Mays and Robinson and Newcombe and Campanella, but weaker A-A players were shut out. So the average black player performed much better than the average white player.

Similarly, if 1/6 of Big 12 players are 5-4 or shorter, but they make up half the all-conference team, then there's your smoking gun. Sounds like a science research project for somebody's 5-foot-2 DD.

JAD said:

While great pitchers can come in all sizes, height and longer limbs offers a mechanical advantage. Longer arms produce a larger radius circle which increases velocity and longer legs normally means longer strides which moves the pitchers release point closer to the batter.

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I will concede that the pitchers release point is closer to the batter but would argue this delta is not significant. From physics we know that longer levers require more work to move.

Does a Pitchers-height-matter

obbay said:

Something I NEVER hear discussed when talking about pitchers physical attributes is length of fingers. Its not a statistic that is obvious to see or readily available, but it makes a big difference when it comes to throwing a ball.

Another coach and I were talking about pitcher's futures and he mentioned that his DD wasn't going to be tall but she had long fingers. I have seen her easily apply spins to the ball that more than compensated for a lack of speed.

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I shook Jennie Finch's hand in PCB a few years back. She has the longest fingers of any woman I've ever met.

MTSU has a freshman pitcher who is 5-0 who played HS ball in Murfreesboro. She's a heck of a player and pitches in the low to mid 60's, not to mention she can hit the cover off of the ball as well. Probably an outlier. I'll be excited to see how she does in the circle this spring vs Tennessee and others.