How much better is college softball now than 10-20 years ago?

[radness]

[URL
Um, yeah.. the livelier ball. Rad has been saying that for awhile. I just took a quick peek at statistics, NCAA D1 softball went from single digit hr numbers to HOLY CRAP! double digit numbers in a fairly short amount of time after 1993 as @Nimrod says above.

I used to place the 40’ rubber as the most important change but a “drive by” level look at stats seems to imply the livelier ball is more important.

Wonder when the Easton Stealth first came out?

Thank you to @Westwind!
livelier ball!
Glad that finally got recognized!!

Its was a big eye opening moment when i stood at home plate with the new yellow ball and did a self toss and crushed it over the fence. Could not do that with old ball.
Both new bat and old bat.
New bat not as much noticeable farther, much noticeably
lighter.
Like an ax vs. fly swatter

 

[_MIA_]

You cannot use raw stats to compare players across eras. Best way to compare is to see how good somebody was compared to the players in their own era and even that is biased if the pool of players to draw from has changed over the years.

 

[riseball]

Please elaborate. Would love to hear more about SEC softball history.

Players today are better. In 2011 Dallas Escobedo threw 70mph with very little movement and terrible mechanics, yet won a Natty with ASU. Would never happen today.

So how do you reconcile the performance of Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman years before Escobedo? And Barnhill was the poster girl for god awful mechanics yet seems to have done well in the game although she was in only middle school in 2011 when Escobedo won a national championship.

 

[Nimrod]

You cannot use raw stats to compare players across eras. Best way to compare is to see how good somebody was compared to the players in their own era and even that is biased if the pool of players to draw from has changed over the years.

You might see evidence of a livelier ball looking at stats. But I agree you can't compare the quality of players using raw stats.

One thing I'm not getting bites on -- I posted video of a 2003 game. I'm curious to hear what people see in that (or any other game) from a previous era. Does the quality of play not see as good as today's game when watching that? What I see are weaker swing mechanics, weaker throwing (overhand) mechanics and less athleticism. Not by a ton, but enough that it's noticeable. I'm not qualified to comment on the pitching quality as I don't know the mechanics very well or how to scout pitchers.

 

[Westwind]

@RADcatcher you kept saying it and it just never hit me until I glanced at HR stats.

Do you remember/can you guess what bat you might have been swinging that day you first hit the new ball?

google search on 1993 fp bats:

***In 1993, DeMarini took that reputation and advanced it further by introducing double wall bats (the DeMarini Doublewall was, in fact, the world's first multi-wall bat). The ball bounced right off these bats, especially when struck on the bat's sweet spot. This advancement in the technology made some question the safety of using such bats, but that didn't stop sales from reaching more than 10,000 each year.***

***in 1969, when Easton released the first aluminum bat. Ever since, Easton has been trusted to complete other "firsts" in the batting equipment industry, becoming the first sporting goods company to produce bats from titanium (the Easton STI1 Titanium Typhoon, in 1993, produced by a rolled sheet of 0.053" thick titanium) and the first to use a carbon core***

***In 1993 Easton, Worth and Louisville Slugger each introduced titanium softball bats (Worth had kept theirs under wraps for several years because they knew it would radically change the game and only released it when Easton did). At the time titanium bats were introduced, the best single-wall aluminum bats were performing around 93-94mph, so when the titanium bats with batted-ball speeds between 100-103mph entered the game they made an immediate impact. In fact, titanium bats were so much hotter than anything else available that they were quickly banned by all governing organizations within three months of their introduction.***

I also didn’t know the time frame until @Nimrod mentioned it.

 

[quincy]

This was a baseball reference but Ozzie Smiths name has come up a few times in the last month or so.

Love Ozzie but I wonder if he could start in baseball today.

I am 6 1, few times I went to DD's HS a lot of kids in the hall dwarf me, they are getting bigger and bigger, better and better too.

 

[_MIA_]

This was a baseball reference but Ozzie Smiths name has come up a few times in the last month or so.

Love Ozzie but I wonder if he could start in baseball today.

I am 6 1, few times I went to DD's HS a lot of kids in the hall dwarf me, they are getting bigger and bigger, better and better too.

He would probably have to hit better than he did back then but my guess is he would (hit better that is).

 

[Shiloh]

So how do you reconcile the performance of Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman years before Escobedo? And Barnhill was the poster girl for god awful mechanics yet seems to have done well in the game although she was in only middle school in 2011 when Escobedo won a national championship.

Monica and Cat are the best pitchers in history. Whether they pitched 20 years ago, 10 years ago, pitch now, or 10 years from now....it doesn't matter. Their mechanics and movement are so good they could pitch in any era. Heck, Osterman even took 3 years off and regained her form within a few months! Unicorns. (see below)

KB ran into trouble as soon as she was stopped from replanting.
Her stats at Florida:



Dallas also replanted quite frequently, and her performance suffered after it began to be called out.

******************************

But perhaps the best way to even out the eras is to look at the pro stats, since NPF contains college players from the past one to ~ 15 years.

Here are the top NPF pitching stats from 2004-2018:
'

You can see that early in the league's history (2004-2006) several pitchers were able to dominate, but after those early years, there was a substantial falloff in pitching efficacy as more players were drafted straight out of college. Starting in 2010, only Cat and Monica were able to dominate, most likely because the overall talent pool in the later years was stronger than it was in the earlier years.

 

[Towny9]

I would imagine the current players have benefited greatly from the prior players bringing softball to the prime time in college athletics. Certainly more money is going into it than ever before.

He would probably have to hit better than he did back then but my guess is he would (hit better that is).

He was a career .262 hitter. That is almost exactly major league average. In his era shortstops weren’t expected to hit like they do today, but as good as he was defensively - if he hit major league average now he would be in good shape in today’s game too.

 

[radness]

@RADcatcher you kept saying it and it just never hit me until I glanced at HR stats.

Do you remember/can you guess what bat you might have been swinging that day you first hit the new ball?

google search on 1993 fp bats:

***In 1993, DeMarini took that reputation and advanced it further by introducing double wall bats (the DeMarini Doublewall was, in fact, the world's first multi-wall bat). The ball bounced right off these bats, especially when struck on the bat's sweet spot. This advancement in the technology made some question the safety of using such bats, but that didn't stop sales from reaching more than 10,000 each year.***

***in 1969, when Easton released the first aluminum bat. Ever since, Easton has been trusted to complete other "firsts" in the batting equipment industry, becoming the first sporting goods company to produce bats from titanium (the Easton STI1 Titanium Typhoon, in 1993, produced by a rolled sheet of 0.053" thick titanium) and the first to use a carbon core***

***In 1993 Easton, Worth and Louisville Slugger each introduced titanium softball bats (Worth had kept theirs under wraps for several years because they knew it would radically change the game and only released it when Easton did). At the time titanium bats were introduced, the best single-wall aluminum bats were performing around 93-94mph, so when the titanium bats with batted-ball speeds between 100-103mph entered the game they made an immediate impact. In fact, titanium bats were so much hotter than anything else available that they were quickly banned by all governing organizations within three months of their introduction.***

I also didn’t know the time frame until @Nimrod mentioned it.

Sorry no cant recall what new bat.
Both softballs white/yellow used were new.
My bat used is posted in equiptment forum.