Pitching Limits

[Vaydoe]

I was at our Travel Team practice the other day and one of the parents was talking about a 7th grade pitcher at a local Middle School (12 years old I believe) that was pitching 65 mph. I've been around log enough to be instantly skeptical about such claims. It reminds me of fisherman telling stories about the giant fish that got away lol. I can't tell you how many times I have heard people say so and so pitches 60 mph but when I clock them during a game they are throwing low 50's or even sometimes high 40's. Anyway, the parent continued talking and said something to the affect of "If she is pitching 65 mph now, can you imagine how fast she will be pitching when she graduates high school? She will probably be in the 80s or 90s". I didn't say anything but considering the best D1 pitchers in the country usually top out around 74 or 75 mph, I seriously doubt this girl will end up anywhere near the speed they mentioned. My guess is she may make incremental growth over her high school years and top out in the low 70s. But this did get me thinking, there has to be human limitations on how fast an athlete can pitch a softball. It's the same reason a baseball player can't pitch a 300 mph fastball. Based on physics and physiology, there are limits to humans. So my question is, if you had the absolute perfect female athlete, what would be the limit in terms of velocity that a softball could be pitched by that human?

 

[GunnerShotgun]

If I recall correctly, the UCL can only take so much stress when throwing (a baseball), so there is a limit on how fast someone can theoretically throw. If I recall it's between 110MPH and 125MPH.

Let's assume it's 115MPH and the fastest pitch is Chapmans @ 105MPH (sorry Nolan). The difference is roughly 10%.

Let's assume that Monica Abbot's fastest pitch of 77MPH is the fastest for a female. Bumping that by 10% gets us to 84MPH roughly...

So mid-80s sounds like a reasonable theoretical ceiling unless something changes.

 

[Chilixa]

Some people lie and some people are just misinformed. I overheard another coach from a different team telling people my DD could pitch mid 60’s. My DD has never even hit 60. She is in the high 50’s. Some people just have a poor understanding of how fast certain speeds really are.

Also have run into dads that swear some pitchers throw harder than they do because they claim their DD throws a certain speed but there is a noticeable difference between their DD and the pitcher they are referencing.

No reason to lie probably a dozen pocket radars or more at every tourney I go to now. Doesn’t take long to figure out.


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