From Worst to Best: The Twins Have Slain Their Strikeout Demons

[Riverbrian]

8 minutes ago, RpR said:

What that you have no proof of your poiing, LOL.

For proof... Ask him if he has ever been to Hawaii or anywhere in Polynesia. If he hasn't been to Hawaii... or the South Pacific.... You got him. To my knowledge... Hawaii is the only place where "poiing" is happening. For example... Nobody is poiing is Hibbing or or Brookings. 

[Fatbat]

Sandy Koufax probably threw 100mph 🤷🏻‍♂️. Not many guys did on a regular basis tho.

[RpR]

6 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

That's ironic given you were asked to provide a basis for your opinion.  You are making a claim while providing no evidence.  It seems perfectly reasonable to ask you to support your position with a few names.  

How fast did pitchers throw in the 1960s?

 

 

The estimates I've seen indicate that most successful pitchers fastball ranged from the high 80s to mid 90s. Steve Dalkowski was the hardest thrower in the 60s. He threw a fastball at 100 mph or better in his prime.

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How fast did Sandy Koufax throw?

 

 

100-mph

 

Koufax was an American baseball legend. He possessed a 100-mph fastball and what announcer Vin Scully called “a twelve-to-six curveball” that started at 12 o'clock then dropped to 6 o'clock. From 1963–1966, he had the best four-year span of any pitcher in baseball history.

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How fast was Bob Feller's fastball?

 

 

 

Best estimates are at least 98 mph and quite possibly several miles an hour over 100 mph. Among them is footage of a Feller fastball being clocked by Army ordnance equipment (used to measure artillery shell velocity) and registering at 98.6 mph (158.7 km/h).

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It’s impossible to know, so when you hear someone making pronouncements like, “They threw 85 mph,” you can be sure they are full of ****. They cannot possibly know at all.

What we do know is that Bob Feller’s fastball was timed at a widely reported 98.6 mph when tested against a speeding motorcycle. People who have seen the film of that demonstration unanimously agree that the speeding cycle had a head start on Feller’s delivery, yet Bob’s fastball still beat the cycle to the target. (See John Finn’s post to this question.) Some people claim that Feller’s fastball may have reached 107 mph. Additionally, Feller threw that pitch in street clothes and from a flat surface, not a mound. It’s certainly reasonable to say that his fastball easily exceeded 100 mph.

Now Babe Ruth played his last game in 1935. Bob Feller pitched his first game one year later, 1936. In fact, Lou Gehrig played his last game in 1939, three years after Feller started. That’s all the confirmation you need that there were pitchers in Ruth’s day who could throw at speeds equal to today’s pitchers. So we know that there was a pitcher in Ruth and Gehrig’s time who was at least as fast as Koufax and Gibson in the 1960s, and at least as fast as Clemens in the 1980s, and at least as fast as Aroldis Chapman today. And all Aroldis ever pitches is one, occasionally two, innings.

But Feller wasn’t the only one. There were hitters who said that Lefty Grove was faster than Bob Feller, guys who’d batted against both. And Grove was at his peak during the same time that Ruth was at his peak. He led the league in strikeouts seven years in a row.

In the National League, Dazzy Vance may have been as fast as Grove. Dazzy led the league in Ks seven years in a row, as well. Also in the 1930s was Dizzy Dean with the Cardinals. Diz was known for his speed and for two great phrases: “I’m gonna fog it in there,” and the phrase he used for firing his fastball, “Let’s play some good old country hard ball.” He was the last 30-game winner in the NL.

So that’s four guys that come quickly to mind when I think of past pitchers who threw 100 mph. But there are more. People like Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker who saw all these pitchers up through about the 1960s say none of them could throw as hard as Walter Johnson. All I had to see was a photo of Johnson in a baggy uniform to tell how powerfully built and how immensely strong he was. Also, watching film of his easy windup and almost sidearm throw you can see how smooth his delivery was and how easily he zipped the ball. Similar delivery to the fire-balling Don Drysdale of the 1960s, but obviously smoother and faster.

And yet there are others, including Rube Waddell, who had the most incredible strikeout records of anyone ever, considering the time he played in when all batters choked up on the bat and despised striking out. It took 60 years for someone (Koufax) to finally beat Rube’s single-season record of 349 Ks in one year. How many other major seasonal records can you think of that lasted 60 years?

So, for old-time pitchers who were as fast as anyone today, there’s Feller, Grove, Vance, Dean, W. Johnson, and Waddell, just for starters. There were others, not as great as these six but maybe just as fast, like Rex Barney and Van Lingle Mungo (both of the Dodgers), and Herb Score (1950s) of the Indians. And I’m sure other guys I don’t even know about. These men didn’t lift weights. They got strong the old-fashioned way, through hard work. Many were rawboned farm boys, like Feller and Johnson, some worked in factories or mines. And they could throw the hell out of a baseball.

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There is no way to prove it was not possible but without the radar guns used now you believe it or you do not for ones reason, no proof it is not true.    Some where in this menagerie of baseball posts last year I pasted a site that listed all the pitcher from the get-go that were fireball pitchers, look it up .

 

[Riverbrian]

16 hours ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

Nolan Ryan was the only guy who definitely threw 100 before the steroid era. Maybe Bob Feller did, but that's pretty much it.

I'd guarantee it's fewer than you think. There's a reason Bob Feller's fastball is legendary - he was one of extremely few guys who could throw that before the recent pitching revolution. 

Agreed.

Fastball's in the 100's with movement, breaking pitches in the 90's. Babe Ruth didn't have to face this stuff from the 5th guy in a bullpen. They would have sang songs about Ben Joyce if he was doing what he is doing today in 1984. It's a whole new world. Hitters need to be better because the pitching is better. 

I'm not going to spend a lot of research time on it because... C'mon... no one should have to because what you are saying is obvious.

I'll just attach the link to an article that states:

69 Pitches total were thrown over 100 MPH in 2008

8 Years later

1,419 Pitches thrown over 100 MPH in 2016  

I don't have numbers for 2024 but I'm going to assume it's higher than 2016. 

Here's the link in need of a fresher link

https://medium.com/@douns2/mlb-100-mph-plus-pitches-from-2008-2016-40354616024e

[Fatbat]

Welp, Margo struck out to end tonight’s game so its not like all the demons are gone.

[WinTwins162]

None of this really gives any info why Ks are down beyond roster changes. Buxton and Castro “tweaked” their approach. What does that mean? I am not sure Bucks changes are meaningful, he’s just streaky. 2 whiffs again last night. Larnach is still getting more experience. Beyond that, I don’t understand what they are doing differently. 

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

On 7/5/2024 at 1:23 PM, RpR said:

How fast did pitchers throw in the 1960s?

 

The estimates I've seen indicate that most successful pitchers fastball ranged from the high 80s to mid 90s. Steve Dalkowski was the hardest thrower in the 60s. He threw a fastball at 100 mph or better in his prime.

----

How fast did Sandy Koufax throw?

 

100-mph

 

Koufax was an American baseball legend. He possessed a 100-mph fastball and what announcer Vin Scully called “a twelve-to-six curveball” that started at 12 o'clock then dropped to 6 o'clock. From 1963–1966, he had the best four-year span of any pitcher in baseball history.

--------

How fast was Bob Feller's fastball?

 

Best estimates are at least 98 mph and quite possibly several miles an hour over 100 mph. Among them is footage of a Feller fastball being clocked by Army ordnance equipment (used to measure artillery shell velocity) and registering at 98.6 mph (158.7 km/h).

------------------

It’s impossible to know, so when you hear someone making pronouncements like, “They threw 85 mph,” you can be sure they are full of ****. They cannot possibly know at all.

------------------

There is no way to prove it was not possible but without the radar guns used now you believe it or you do not for ones reason, no proof it is not true. Some where in this menagerie of baseball posts last year I pasted a site that listed all the pitcher from the get-go that were fireball pitchers, look it up.

Using apocryphal tales such as the Feller motorcycle experiment (just watch the clip, you can clearly see that the video is spliced together - and the motorcycle is "going" 86 mph) to say that he threw 107 is extraordinarily silly.

There is zero proof that any of these guys threw 100. They threw hard for their day, that's not in question. Buy saying "they threw as fast as anyone today" without even a smidgen of actual proof is laughable, honestly, when the "proof" you're citing estimates that Feller was throwing 107.

There's a zero percent chance Bob Feller threw harder than Aroldis Chapman as a starter. It's just obvious.

Koufax did not throw 100, he was never timed above 93.

 

Like I said before, there have been pitchers throughout baseball history with legendary fastballs. Johnson, Feller, Paige, Dalkowski, Ryan, etc etc. Absolutely legendary fastballs. But save for Ryan, none of them were ever timed at 100 mph or higher. We don't have to fabricate numbers out of thin air for them to be legends of the game. 

[RpR]

2 hours ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

Using apocryphal tales such as the Feller motorcycle experiment (just watch the clip, you can clearly see that the video is spliced together - and the motorcycle is "going" 86 mph) to say that he threw 107 is extraordinarily silly.

There is zero proof that any of these guys threw 100. They threw hard for their day, that's not in question. Buy saying "they threw as fast as anyone today" without even a smidgen of actual proof is laughable, honestly, when the "proof" you're citing estimates that Feller was throwing 107.

There's a zero percent chance Bob Feller threw harder than Aroldis Chapman as a starter. It's just obvious.

Koufax did not throw 100, he was never timed above 93.

 

Like I said before, there have been pitchers throughout baseball history with legendary fastballs. Johnson, Feller, Paige, Dalkowski, Ryan, etc etc. Absolutely legendary fastballs. But save for Ryan, none of them were ever timed at 100 mph or higher. We don't have to fabricate numbers out of thin air for them to be legends of the game. 

Gents who wrote this know more about baseball than either of us so I take their words at face value.

[yeahyabetcha]

On 7/4/2024 at 7:36 AM, JD-TWINS said:

LET’s FIRE THE WORTHLESS HITTING COACH!! Let’s DFA 4-5 guys!! …….,etc.,etc. Can’t believe they don’t sign Blake Snell!!!

I think you forgot about the greedy owners and inept front office.

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

53 minutes ago, RpR said:

Gents who wrote this know more about baseball than either of us so I take their words at face value.

Knowing the game, again, is not any kind of proof that those guys threw 100 mph. There has been zero such proof, just like I stated a couple days ago.