I apologize if I made you do the math again, because

ClemsonTiger1988®

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You're fair at math.

Mar 31, 2022, 12:12 AM

Check the relationship between the dia of a hard ball as it relates to the distance and velocity and compare that to the number generated by the same calculations of a soft ball.

That's BS of course. A baseball will move around much more than a softball though a slower thrown soft ball can move quite a bit but nothing like the movement on a baseball thrown at say, 64mph by Greg Maddux. My son, at 12 y/o could throw a ball at your ear hole and it would break down and cross the plate in the zone. Nobody could hit it but that's the way with 13-14 yr olds who see a real pitcher for the first time. Chase Caldwell hit him one time using a tee ball bat in a

One of the bigger keys to the difference, imo, is that location of a pitch isn't gauged until after the swing of the bat has begun. You can't sit there and start swinging after the ball is half way to the plate in softball.

The idea swing starts early with weight shifting to the rear foot. Next comes the step forward a little or a lot. About the time, or just before, the front foot is planted the upper body rotation and the arm movement begin. Some pros move their arms with the front foot but that movement is mostly to position the bat to the right location to actually start bring the bat toward the pitcher.

One 'finds,' the ball while the bat is moving toward the front of the plate.

I'm not a soft ball guy but I imagine the biggest difference is when a batter starts his/her swing due to a softball being easier to find. A softball will break but not like a baseball. Seam height in relation to mass size and diameter are factors, I imagine but the biggest difference is the pitching being that one can twist a ball excessively when the delivery is underhanded. That's not to say some softball pitchers don't spin a ball but in order for a pitch to have a hard break it must lose velocity from the drag created by the spin near the plate.

Randy Johnson had a slider which was thrown in the high eighties/low nineties and would break so hard it crossed the plate then threaten a righties' rear foot. It wasn't that bad but the batters lost the ball after it started its break.

I offer no insult to anyone who can his a 74mph softball thrown from 46 feet. There's no way it comparable to a 104mph fastball from a pitcher who can throw a changeup and a slider/nickle curve or a curve ball. You can't get ready for all his pitches if he's throwing that hard. All you can do is guess. It don't matter who you are. That's why they lowered the mound.

Before anyone jumps me about teaching my son to throw a curve ball at 12 yo, I taught him to throw one right, not some halfask guess like most coaches. 10 years I was a student of the game and revered it as a good life lesson for the boys on my teams.

Message was edited by: ClemsonTiger1988®

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Distance = rate * time - this is just math (with a little fancy-math unit conversion, but I cheated and let MathCAD do that for me).

For a 73MPH pitch thrown from a 43-foot distance, the ball will take 0.402 seconds to travel that distance.

The average speed of the top 100 "average 4-seam fastball speed" (according to Statcast Pitcher Arsenal Leaderboard) is 94.919MPH. When thrown 60 feet, 6 inches, the ball will reach the plate in 0.435 seconds.

Even for Jacob deGrom (or deGOAT, if you will), who lead the Majors last year at an average 99.2 MPH on his four-seamer last year, the ball would take 0.416 seconds to reach home plate.

So...the batter has less time to react to the 73MPH softball pitch, even compared to the "best of the best" fastball from the majors last year. If you're only considering that metric, there's less time to react in fast-pitch softball, so it could be argued that it's harder to hit.

Now, that does not at all take into account pitch movement or the ability to throw off-speed pitches (curves, sliders to an extent and pure change-ups which keep hitters off-balance on timing) as ClemsonTiger1988® already mentioned in his reply.

Pitch movement is a function of seam height relative to the diameter and mass of the ball (baseball has the advantage here) and spin rate - which is why spin rate is one of the hot, new "sabermetrics" type stats that teams look at. It's part of why pitchers tend to get hit later in the games. Yes, their velocity goes down, but so does their spin rate and there's less movement on the pitches. As Pedro Cerrano said, "Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid."

I simply don't know enough about fast-pitch softball to compare spin rates and I don't know if anyone else smarter than me (a low bar) has studied it enough to understand whether there's salient differences between the two sports.

One a you softball genieses check this for me.

slow pitch is where it's at.***

To drink beer before and after, it's the only way to go.***

Re: One a you softball genieses check this for me.

The ball is twice as large…..make sense now? ??

Maybe. Step in the box and show me. :)***

You're fair at math.

It gets there really fast. She's pretty good, I think.

74 mph is exceptional, I think.

If you only consider time to reach the plate...

Interesting. I was just trying to find a fun way to say,

Sounds like a good PhD dissertation study***

One of those proposed - and I am not making this up - that

I thought that was already proven

The curve was differen at origin.

That horse hockey. Wanna read a funny baseball story?

Hey, I think you misplaced a denominator.

I'll blame PTC. I'm too lazy to do that by hand.

The difference in velocity also greatly changes the...

One thing I learned from Michael Landon on Little House

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