Do Radar Guns Register Different Speeds Baseball

David Goldman/AP Images

The veteran baseball man couldn't stop talking near what he had seen on his radar gun the night earlier. Just then he couldn't stop complaining that radar gun readings are overrated.

We love the radar gun. We hate the radar gun.

Start the rave: "You should have seen [him]. 101, 101, 100, 100, and and so he threw a changeup at 91—a 91 mph changeup!"

Then the rant: "If y'all've been in baseball long enough, you know a good fastball. The radar gun never tells you movement. To this mean solar day, I can watch a pitch, and tell you within 1 mph what a guy is throwing. But we go too caught upwards in what the guy is throwing."

We admire a pitcher who can toy with a lineup without throwing hard. But we pick up the phone to call our friends when we see one who tin can hit triple-digits on the gun with ease.

The radar gun has inverse how we watch baseball game. Only has the radar gun also changed how baseball is played?

One thing is sure: More pitchers are throwing harder than e'er, and more than of the states are paying attending to how difficult they throw.

Call information technology the radar gun revolution.

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The Bob Feller statue at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Getty Images

For as long as baseball has been played, difficult-throwing pitchers have been part of the lore and role of the lure. Nosotros cared about velocity even before we could measure it.

A pitcher named Leslie Ambrose Bush-league oftentimes walked more than batters than he struck out, only he threw so hard he earned the name Bullet Joe. A Negro League pitcher named Joe Rogan became Bullet Rogan and went all the way to the Hall of Fame.

Walter Johnson'due south fastball "hissed with danger," Ty Cobb said. Bob Feller was Rapid Robert.

A hundred years ago, Johnson'south fastball was timed against a speeding motorcycle and estimated at 97 mph. Xxx years later, Feller took the motorbike examination and his fastball (according to his memory) was estimated at 104 mph.

Photoelectric cells and something chosen a Lumiline Chronograph were also tried with Feller, but the estimates of his speed varied so wildly (98.half-dozen to 107.9) that information technology's hard to depict whatsoever real conclusions or make any comparisons to pitchers today.

Even with more modern flamethrowers, guys like J.R. Richard or Nolan Ryan, the numbers we have aren't all that useful.

The radar gun revolution didn't begin until about xl years ago, and information technology didn't really go going until the last decade.

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Danny Litwhiler on the 1943 St. Louis Cardinals. Bearding/Associated Press

Danny Litwhiler is by and large credited with adapting the modern radar gun to baseball game. Litwhiler was the charabanc at Michigan State in 1973, and when he saw campus police using radar to time speeding cars, he rapidly understood that the devices might be applied to baseball. Litwhiler saw it mostly every bit a teaching tool, one that would allow his pitchers to measure the velocity divergence betwixt their fastballs and changeups.

He contacted John Paulson, whose JUGS company made pitching machines that were already in regular utilize. Litwhiler paid the MSU police for 1 of their early guns, which he sent to Paulson to be adapted for use in timing baseball game pitches.

The original JUGS gun is at present on display at the Hall of Fame.

Litwhiler understood almost immediately that the radar gun could be revolutionary. He wrote to MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn in hopes of alerting all major league teams, and he traveled to spring preparation in 1975 to prove it off to big league managers, coaches and executives.

Orioles director Earl Weaver was an early on adopter, simply like Litwhiler, he saw the gun every bit about valuable for making certain there was a large plenty differential between a pitcher'south fastball and his changeup. He likewise saw it as a useful tool to assistance determine whether a pitcher was tiring.

Radar guns were expensive and so, as much every bit $one,500 each (while a professional model may still cost that much, cheaper versions are available online today for less than $100).

Earl Weaver Associated Press

In his volume Weaver on Strategy, the Orioles director wrote that it took him six years to convince the front office to provide them to the clubs' minor league teams. And in the days before velocities were listed on every scoreboard, he couldn't convince the Orioles to send someone on the route with the big league team to operate a gun and signal its reading to the dugout.

The early versions of the gun would as well offer wildly different readings. For many years, you had to specify whether a reading came from the "fast gun" made past JUGS or the "tedious gun" made past Decatur. Some teams and scouts used ane, some the other, with the difference in readings said to consequence from whether the pitch speed was measured correct out of the pitcher'south hand or when information technology crossed the plate.

Since the teams only cared nigh comparing one pitcher to another, the difference hardly mattered as long as each of their scouts used the aforementioned model.

But if you're trying to compare pitchers from different eras, those small-scale differences tin can make all the departure in the globe.

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There's a general consensus that major league pitchers are throwing harder than ever and that the aforementioned holds true for amateur pitchers. Fifty-fifty over the terminal seven years, data compiled from MLB.com'due south very accurate PitchFX organisation tells a story of more pitchers throwing harder each year.

In 2007, merely eight major league starters averaged 95 mph or better on their fastball, according to charts on Baseball Prospectus. The number jumped to xv by 2012 and to xx terminal twelvemonth.

The same goes for relievers, with 27 throwing 95 or ameliorate in 2007, and 54 at 95 or meliorate last year.

There's no consensus on why pitchers are throwing harder, merely there are plenty of theories. And one of them is that the radar gun itself has played a function.

Two major league pitching coaches mentioned it as a pregnant factor, saying that radar guns are more available to kids and their parents at younger ages, and radar gun readings are more available to pitchers at every level of baseball.

Pitchers are getting bigger and stronger, with improve deliveries learned and perfected at younger ages, and they're likewise able to set velocity goals for themselves and work to see them.

They likewise know that a few actress clicks on the gun can translate into thousands or even millions of dollars in draft bonuses or in college scholarships. Because whether we like information technology or not, the radar gun rules when it comes to evaluating pitchers.

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USA TODAY Sports

Every veteran scout moans about the tendency to classify pitchers simply past how hard they throw, but every team requires scouts to list velocity on every report. And velocity matters and then much at the height of the draft that information technology stands out when a team similar the Cincinnati Reds selects a pitcher like Mike Leake with one of the meridian-x picks.

Leake is hardly a soft tosser. But in a earth where even some high schoolhouse pitchers are throwing 100 mph, Reds scouting director Chris Buckley gets praise from colleagues for looking past the gun and realizing that Leake could be a successful big league pitcher without being the hardest thrower in the game.

"I have a very experienced scouting staff," Buckley explained. "When our group says this guy'southward an extremely polished pitcher that has all the intangibles, it means something. The radar gun readings are just a statistic, and what we endeavour to tell people is when yous just look at statistics, you don't get the full story."

Of course, a few months after the Reds drafted Leake eighth overall, they spent $30.25 million to sign Aroldis Chapman equally a free agent from Republic of cuba.

Fastest 4-seam fastballs, 2007-2014
Starters (200 pitch minimum)	Average velocity
Yordano Ventura	98.19
Carlos Martinez	97.73
Gerrit Cole	96.79
Matt Harvey	96.59
Nathan Eovaldi	96.36
Relievers (200 pitch minimum)	Boilerplate velocity
Bruce Rondon	100.34
Aroldis Chapman	99.45
Joel Zumaya	99.27
Kelvin Herrera	99.18
Henry Rodriguez	98.78
Baseball Prospectus

This flavor, Leake'southward average velocity for all pitches (88.66 mph) ranks him 105th among big league starters, according to Baseball Prospectus. Meanwhile, Chapman'south 97.45 average ranks him outset among big league relievers (and his fastball ranks first with a 101.21 mph average).

The Reds don't ignore velocity, either.

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No i can ignore velocity now. Information technology's on the scoreboard for every pitch in every big league ballpark. It's on the television set screen for every pitch on every big league telecast.

It'southward available on MLB.com and other websites. And there'due south a site chosen BrooksBaseball.internet that can give you game-past-game analysis of velocity and other key numbers for every bullpen in baseball for every game dating back to 2007.

BrooksBaseball.internet was developed past a baseball fan named Dan Brooks, who holds a daytime job as an experimental psychologist at Tufts University. Too compiling all the info from MLB.com'south PitchFx system, Brooks' site uses a organisation developed by Harry Pavlidis to normalize differences caused by slight variations in velocity readings from ballpark to ballpark.

The publicly available readings are considered accurate plenty that many major league scouts don't fifty-fifty carry radar guns to the ballpark. Gone are the days when a dwelling house squad might manipulate a scoreboard reading simply to get in the caput of a hard-throwing opposing pitcher (equally one one-time general director admits to doing with quondam Tigers reliever Joel Zumaya).

Then once more, some scouts never trusted radar guns at all.

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United states of america TODAY Sports

"The outset year I had it, I never used it," said Tom Giordano, who has spent 66 years in baseball game every bit a player, managing director, lodge executive and lookout man and still works for the Texas Rangers at age 88. "I wanted to watch pitchability, not the numbers on a gun. I'll tell you, [onetime A'southward, Orioles and Indians general director] Hank Peters never asked me how difficult someone threw."

Kansas City Royals scout Art Stewart, who has spent 7 decades in baseball, does carry a radar gun and said he finds it specially useful for judging amateur pitchers in night games in poorly lit ballparks. Stewart remembers that in the early years of the gun era, not all scouts had them, and those who didn't would effort to hang around and poach readings off those who did.

"Nelson Burbrink used to sentry for the Mets and Brewers," Stewart said. "At the autumn league in 1982, he got so upset that he took a baseball, ripped the encompass off it, and took one of the pieces and glued it to the elevation of the gun, with the flap downwards to hide the reading."

But even though Stewart trusts the gun, he trusts his own judgment more.

"To me, it's an added tool, simply it'due south not everything," he said. "Await at the guys who merely went in the Hall of Fame, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. In that location'due south no substitute for a trained eye, and a guy who knows how to pitch. Y'all similar to see an athletic guy on the mound. You wait for pitchability and location.

"I think any old-time scout would tell y'all that nosotros're caught in an age of just request, 'How hard does the guy throw?'"

And a lot of old scouts detest that.

"The radar gun has got a lot of scouts fired who can't evaluate," one veteran scout said. "The industry has forgotten virtually command and charade. Those hitters are going to tell me how a guy throws. But yous ask a immature [scout] what kind of pitcher a guy is, and they'll tell you lot, 'He throws 95.'

"That's not what I asked."

Only it's non merely veteran scouts.

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Ben Margo/Associated Press

The radar gun has been around long enough that nigh major league pitchers today never knew life without it. But even over the form of a career, the importance of velocity over everything else has grown.

"It's crazy how much emphasis is put on velocity today," said Giants bullpen Jake Peavy. "And I don't know how related it is to existence skillful."

Peavy, for the record, is even so averaging 91 mph on his fastball at 33 years onetime. That may be a tick beneath what he threw before in his career, but it's however at to the lowest degree average for a big league starter.

"There are and then many guys who throw and so stinking difficult," he said. "Some are good, some aren't."

Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

Peavy pointed to Koji Uehara, his teammate terminal year with the Scarlet Sox. Baseball Prospectus says that out of 142 relievers who have thrown at to the lowest degree 200 pitches this flavour, Uehara's average fastball velocity of 89.xvi mph ranks him 141st, ahead of but Baltimore's Darren O'Day (88.69).

"If he went to a tryout camp, no ane would even give him a second look," Peavy said. "But the hitters swing at his fastball like information technology's 99. They don't see it."

While Uehara hasn't been as unhittable equally he was last yr, he withal has a ii.64 ERA. O'Mean solar day, the one reliever behind him on the velocity listing, has been fifty-fifty better, with a ane.33 ERA.

For all our accent on velocity, it'southward obvious that throwing hard isn't everything.

"Information technology'south not close to everything," Peavy said. "Withal information technology's talked about like information technology's the most important thing."

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It's talked well-nigh all the time, and not just by fans.

I executive said that information technology's become far easier to brand a instance for drafting a pitcher than a hitter, because with a bullpen, you can apply the radar gun reading to heave your example.

As Reds scouting managing director Chris Buckley said, "There's no radar gun for bats."

Judging hitters is as difficult equally e'er.

"Ted Williams said hitting a baseball is the hardest affair to do in sports," another sentinel said. "Well, the second-hardest thing is figuring out who can hit a baseball."

And the easiest thing to practice in scouting is to estimate how hard someone is throwing. Point the gun, and read the event.

Or just look up at the scoreboard. Information technology won't exist hard to find the gun reading.

You won't be the just one looking.

Any pitching motorbus can tell you stories about pitchers who look up at the reading after every delivery (and many wish those readings weren't posted).

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

"And so many young guys throw to a radar gun instead of learning how to pitch," said Washington Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty. "I've seen dads with radar guns. I tell them, 'Don't get caught upwardly in that.' It'southward not the right way to teach."

Pitching coaches, doctors and athletic trainers who care for young pitchers worry that the emphasis on velocity has been a major factor in the increment in elbow injuries. They recommend that teenage pitchers stay away from pitching to radar guns, but at that place's no sign that recommendation is being followed.

Kids of whatever historic period—and their parents—beloved speed. And they love being able to put a number on it.

They also believe, with justification, that a few extra miles per 60 minutes will mean more dollars at draft fourth dimension or a better take chances at a valuable higher scholarship.

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McCatty was pitching in the major leagues when radar guns first came on the scene, early enough that his teammates could play a play a joke on on him.

"They had me looking up at the lath in Texas one day, and I said, 'I'm throwing 101,'" McCatty said. "So information technology was 103. And and then I realized information technology was the temperature."

It's unlike now. Every player tin can tell yous where the gun readings tin be institute in any big league park. I major league managing director said he now even notices hitters looking up after they take a pitch or swing and miss.

Managers and coaches look, besides, and not just to "Wow!" when they see a really big number. They utilise the gun readings equally an indication that their starting pitcher is tiring, or as a sign that a pitcher may exist injured.

They can also use it to help them find favorable matchups. Managers now go readouts of how their hitters and opposing hitters do against pitchers throwing their fastball at various velocities. Why send a pinch hitter who never hits annihilation over 95 mph to face a bullpen throwing 98 or 99?

Managers have e'er made decisions like that, but the difference at present is that they have numbers to support what they see or what they suspect.

And more than and more than, every squad has a pitcher in the bullpen who can light upwards the gun at 95 or above.

Aroldis Chapman. Alan Diaz/Associated Press

Not anybody is impressed.

"Guys do throw a piffling harder, but the more hitters see information technology, the more than they adjust," one scout said. "If [velocity] was the be-all, end-all, and so all those guys would be throwing no-hitters—and they don't. How the fastball plays is more important than the velocity.

"I can send my mother out to check a guy's velocity. To get a real good feel, y'all've got to watch a guy pitch."

My side by side question was whether he carries a radar gun with him.

"I e'er do," he admitted. "Because we have forms [for scouting reports], and nosotros accept boxes [for velocity]."

Of course they practise.

No thing how much anyone complains, the radar gun is hither to stay. No matter how much anyone thinks gun readings are overused, anybody still looks for them.

The gun has changed the game. And the game is never going back.

Danny Knobler has been covering baseball for more 30 years, including 18 seasons on the Detroit Tigers beat for Booth Newspapers and six seasons every bit a senior MLB writer for CBSSports.com. He has also written for Baseball game America, ESPNNewYork.com and MLB.com.