Pitchers are throwing harder

[navamind]

The Most Startling Trend in Baseball | FanGraphs Baseball

 

[Darkstone42]

I read that article a couple days ago. Interesting stuff. It'll be interesting to see if/how long that trend continues, and where it ends.

As a counter point:
Killing Them Softly: Slowest Swinging-Strikeout Pitches of 2013 | FanGraphs Baseball

That Yu Darvish slow curve showed up four times in the top ten. I saw him pitch against the Diamondbacks this year, and he threw one of those, and my friends and I were sitting down around field level and were just floored at how slow that ball looked. It was actually borderline absurd.

 

[navamind]

Yup. It's pretty funny that the guy who was arguably the most effective relief pitcher of 2013 (Uehara) doesn't throw hard at all.

Koji Uehara » PitchFx » Velocity Graphs » FA | FanGraphs Baseball

Four consecutive seasons with a strikeout rate of 10 per 9 IP or better.

 

[Darkstone42]

Yup. It's pretty funny that the guy who was arguably the most effective relief pitcher of 2013 (Uehara) doesn't throw hard at all.

Koji Uehara » PitchFx » Velocity Graphs » FA | FanGraphs Baseball

Four consecutive seasons with a strikeout rate of 10 per 9 IP or better.

That's how Moyer lasted so long. Velocity helps you get away with mistakes, but changing speeds and locating is still more important than velocity in terms of pitching success.

 

[da55bums]

The Most Startling Trend in Baseball | FanGraphs Baseball

makes sense why the Tommy John surguries are also rising.

 

[Bulldog]

Throughput baseball history there have always been pitchers who've thrown hard. But what most of them had come to realize it's not how hard you throw it's how you fool the batter that counts. Batters will catchup to a fastball not matter how hard it's thrown. The ability to throw hard does benefit you in throwing the offspeed pitches. If you can' hit the outer corners of the plate between the knees and letters throwing 110 MPH won't help you.

 

[pixburgher66]

makes sense why the Tommy John surguries are also rising.

I'm not 100% sure there's a correlation in velocity and injured UCLs. It's a factor, but it's really about mechanics and arm slot. A power thrower who keeps the arm slot up and throws predominantly fastballs is probably not as likely to have a UCL injury as a guy who throws curves/sliders, because the arm slot is naturally lower for those pitches (which is EXACTLY why you don't let kids pitch curve balls until they're much older).

 

[da55bums]

Yes their is correlation, they are also just "up" because of year round baseball...arms aren't designed to go above the shoulder with that velocity (softball pitchers pitch as fast and a ton less TJ).. there have been plenty of guys pitch without the "proper" arm slot that haven't had TJ. Everyone throws sliders/curves/knucklecurves in the majors, with velocity.

 

[Clayton]

You need to have world-class movement, placement and/or a very deceiving release point to avoid the power trend. Hanging a curveball or sinker in the strike zone while living to tell about it is very difficult thing to do so you need to be able to throw a fastball for a strike to set up the swing and miss stuff outside of the zone.

I have no doubt that there is a trend with Tommy John's surgeries and pitchers throwing harder with a more violent motion