Hitters Reaction Time
Fastpitch vs Baseball
by Dave Paetkau
I have read with great interest the banter back and forth about the comparison of baseball and fastpitch reaction times. There have been some overstatements and understating that are both comical and disturbing.
In my younger years I wrote a few papers on the subjects relating to all areas of fastpitch including hitters reaction time, bat speed and hitting efficiency, throwing velocity training and base stealing techniques.
In these papers I dealt with the biomechanical principals, the physics of the actions and the mental aspects behind these actions. These papers do not make me an expert but I hope to enlighten, entertain and engage you while you read this. The numbers that I use will be explained and hopefully you will understand why I use them.
The distance for a fastpitch pitcher delivery point will be 40ft due to the fact that the release point is at the hip. Most pitchers hips are at about 6ft in front of the rubber on release, the distance for a baseball pitcher will be at 53ft since the release point is ahead of the front foot. You could argue this with me a bit but I will try to be on the side of caution.
A world class female pitcher who throws a 68mph pitch released at 38 ft would allow the hitter .381 of a second to react, which equates to a 95 MPH pitch in baseball.
A world class male windmill pitcher who throws an 80mph pitch released at 40 feet would allow the hitter . 341 of a second, which relates to a 106mph pitch in baseball.
In the major leagues the top fastballers (Randy Johnson, Clemons) will throw 93-98mph consistently. Now the baseball pitchers speed is not so important for reaction time as it is a comparison for what a fastpitch batter must face when he hits.
An 80mph pitch in the men's fastpitch game is 117.33 ft/second which gives the batter standing 40ft from the release point .341 of a second to hit the ball.
A 95mph pitch is 139.33 ft/sec, which gives the batter standing 53ft from the release point .380 of a second to hit the ball. A baseball pitcher would have to throw the ball 155.42 ft/sec to accomplish the .341 reaction time for the baseball batter. This equates to a 106 mph fastball.
These are the pure comparison numbers and do not take in to account; the size of the ball, ball movement, etc. Fastpitch batters never have a 6 11" Randy Johnson releasing the ball about 3-4 ft behind a left handed batter and have it curve into the strike zone.
The multitude of release points that a baseball pitcher can throw at you (side arm, ¾ arm, over the top, etc) or the huge speed changes from one pitch to the next. All these things work into the reaction time formula.
The baseball batter of course very rarely sees a ball rise thru the strike zone. Top pitchers will throw faster than the examples given which then requires even less time to react.
These are the reasons why batters spend hours trying to "pick a pitcher" since you can eliminate either a direction of movement or speed of pitch so that the batter can focus on a smaller hitting zone.
Of course hitting is not all reaction time and mental aspects of hitting are as important as ones' ability to react to a pitch. I think the comparison of baseball to fastpitch hitting is complex but as a pure degree of difficulty in reacting to a top quality fastpitch pitcher I personally think that us "chest thumping" fastpitch hitters can be proud of our accomplishments.
I hope this enlightens and entertains, as it was meant to.
Dave Paetkau
Power Zone Academy
