Reddit mentions of Fastball

He was the exception of several generations of pitchers. Odds are you'll never see anything like him again. There's just too much money on the line now and no manager/owner will risk a hundred million dollar contract on a pitcher throwing that fast for more than 100 pitches. If you haven't seen Fastball yet it's on Amazon Prime and it really speaks to how fast Nolan Ryan consistently threw. When they first started using radar it was measured at the plate and Ryan was throwing 104/105, I think Aroldis Chapman hit 106 or 107 as a closer but they were measuring at the release. They did some math figured Ryan would have been clocked at 108 or 108 by today's guns. And this is a guy that would go 9 innings doing that whereas chapman might throw 10 pitches. It's fucking insane.

You should check out the documentary that Kevin Costner did about pitching and the evolution of the fastball in baseball. Don't know if you can call it a 'scientific' measurement or comparison, but it's definitely interesting to see how things have changed and the mechanics involved in hitting a baseball.


I believe it's available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video