Yankees, Mets pitchers bring big-time heat
Aroldis Chapman averaged 100 miles per hour with his four-seam fastball and threw the 77 fastest pitches in the major leagues last season. Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara
Speed thrills!
The hard-throwing pitching staffs of the Mets and Yankees are proof of that. Many fans this summer may be tuning in to Mets games in the early innings to watch their young stud starters and then switching over to the Yankees in the late innings to see the relief trio of Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances light up the radar gun.
It may not be much help in your fantasy league, but there are some cool new statistical pitching velocity benchmarks that could be worth keeping track of during the season.
In 2015, MLB.com introduced “Statcast,” a tracking technology that, according to the website, “collects data using a series of high-resolution optical cameras along with radar equipment that has been installed in all 30 major league ballparks. The technology precisely tracks the location and movements of the ball and every player on the field at any given time.”
Now, you might not have known you wanted all that information, but MLB.com is going to give it to you anyway. And if you love fastballs, the new system led to some fun results from 2015, including many featuring current Yankees and Mets:
* Aroldis Chapman — then of the Reds and now of the Yankees — led MLB by averaging 100 miles per hour with his four-seam fastball. Yankees catcher Brian McCann, who is 1-for-5 with only one strikeout lifetime against Chapman, said in February: “You don’t see it. You’ve got to swing right when the ball is about to be released.”
* Chapman threw the 77 fastest pitches in MLB last season. No. 1 was a 103.9 mph fastball on June 29 that Brian Dozier of the Twins fouled off. No. 78 — the fastest pitch thrown by anyone other than Chapman — was a 101.6 mph fastball throw by Nathan Eovaldi of the Yankees.
Chapman threw 336 pitches of 100 mph or better. The rest of baseball combined for 225.
* Eovaldi and Noah Syndergaard of the Mets tied for the MLB lead among starting pitchers with an average velocity of 97.3 mph with their four-seam fastballs. Syndergaard also averaged 97.1 mph with his sinker.
* The Mets combined to throw 5,346 pitches of 95 mph or better. The Indians were next at 4,455. The Yankees, helped by Eovaldi, Betances and Miller, were third with just more than 4,000. The Mets’ total was more than double that of 14 teams.
In February, Syndergaard posted a link on Twitter to an article about those numbers with a cartoon image that said, “Kill It With Fire” and a character from “The Simpsons” shooting a flamethrower.
* Overall, the number of pitches of more than 95 mph in MLB increased from 6.87 percent in 2014 to 9.14 percent in 2015. In December, Syndergaard retweeted that stat and added a comment: “My bad.”
* If actual velocity is not enough, Statcast also spits out something called “perceived velocity,” which is how fast a pitch appears to a batter when you factor in the pitcher’s release point (the taller he is and/or more arm extension a pitcher gets in his delivery, the closer to home plate his release point will be, and the faster his pitches will appear to the batter).
According to Statcast, the 6-6 Syndergaard and the 6-4 Jacob deGrom both saw increases in their perceived over actual velocities. But the 6-4 Matt Harvey’s perceived fastball velocity was lower than his actual velocity in his first season back from Tommy John surgery.
This may or may not be related, but Harvey in March said he felt stronger than in 2015 because he was getting more “extension” with his forearm. That should help both his actual and perceived velocity on the fastball and well as the bite on his slider. He also was working on getting a more consistent release point.
“I’m just able to get out in front a little bit more,” Harvey said. “Have that extra snap on the ball.”
Snap, crackle, pop of the catcher’s mitt. Coming soon to a New York ballpark near you.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
