Are today’s hitters actually better?

[Shawn]

I will add this, In Rod Carew’s book he repeatedly talks about the difficulties hitting a 90 mph fastball. So, that has definitely changed to how to hit 100 mph fastballs.

edit: now some breaking balls are 90 mph.

 

[chinamigarden]

Heard they measure pitch speed out of the hand now instead of at the plate. Imo strikeouts are up more because of the hitters approach than because of the pitchers, minus the spider tac

I’m sure partly why strike outs are up because of how pitchers are used. Rarely does a batter see a reliever a second time. Rarely does a late inning pitcher go more then one inning. Heck starters are only expected to go 6 innings. If a batter sees a pitcher a 3rd or 4th time the batter has a better chance of getting a hit. In the 80s and earlier that happened all the time. Now not so much.

 

[efastball]

Heard they measure pitch speed out of the hand now instead of at the plate. Imo strikeouts are up more because of the hitters approach than because of the pitchers, minus the spider tac

I invented the 'world famous' 50 ft equivalent in 2008 to compare pitchers of old and determine the fastest pitchers of all time See https://www.efastball.com/baseball/stats/fastest-pitch-speed-in-major-leagues/

Speed was previously measured with police motorcycles, bullet chronographs at the plate, laser 20 ft in ft of plate, slowest radar, and average radar.

Pitchers are generally much, much faster today.



Bob Feller 1946

 

[Nimrod]

I will add this, In Rod Carew’s book he repeatedly talks about the difficulties hitting a 90 mph fastball. So, that has definitely changed to how to hit 100 mph fastballs.

edit: now some breaking balls are 90 mph.

Rod Carew had 93 at-bats vs. Nolan Ryan. He struck out 29 times. He hit .301 with a good number of walks, so was productive. But if you prorate Carew's numbers vs. Ryan to 558 at-bats, and he's on pace for 174 strikeouts.

Perhaps I'm cherry picking, but it makes me think that once a pitcher reaches a certain level of speed and command, it's pretty hard to just choke up and put the ball in play or go with the pitch or do all those things modern critics say that today's hitters lack. I don't think Rod Carew was swinging for the fences. And keep in mind that Carew was in Ryan's division, and so Carew was very familiar w/ Ryan. Today, you're lucky to see the same pitcher twice in a game.

Now, I'm not trying to say that today's pitchers are routinely as good as Ryan. But today's hitters aren't routinely as good as Carew either. My theory is that pitchers today are just plain nasty, and I don't care who you are, you're going to take some k's.

 

[Shawn]

Good stuff Nimrod.

 

[Bonesaw]

It's kind of hard to argue that theyre worse. More money than ever is on the line. Way more people to choose from. Video, scouting, analytics... I think that overall, this is the best baseball that has ever been played. Sorry nostalgia.

 

[CoachJD]

I was watching the 95 World Series, and they gave the stats of the Indians in 95. They batted .290 as a team, lead in stolen bases and had 8 starting players hitting .300+.

Yes, probably, but today's pitchers are so, so much better than the pitchers from 1995 you wouldn't know it.

 

[efastball]

Today's hitters have better technique and hit harder.

Today's mlb pitchers are faster, but probably not better.

Discuss.

 

[Orange Socks]

In the 90's they were busy hitting down on the ball.

 

[soonerfan1966]

Today's hitters are so much better that a pitcher with a broke leg struck two of them out