Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
Greg Maddux topped out at about 90mph and he was one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Walter Johnson was timed as high as 99mph. I don't think pitchers throw that much harder, even though that is really irrelevant. It is just easy for people to dismiss pitchers of that era because they didn't have speed guns timing every pitch.
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Yeah, but Maddux, while one of the greatest pitchers, was never considered one of the hardest throwers of his generation. Johnson was, and by a wide margin at that. According to his Wikipedia entry, Johnson was clocked at 91mph (not sure if that is accurate, but its where I got my info).
I'm not saying that pitching speed is a suitable means of measuring a pitcher, tons of great pitchers didn't throw particularly hard while a lot of hard throwers weren't particularly great. It is however one of the few things where you can put a number on how things have changed over the years - I don't think its controversial to state that the top speeds of pitchers today is higher than it was in the early 20th century (correct me if I am wrong on this). For all the other factors that make a pitcher good - control, finesse, ability to read a batter, movement on a breaking ball, etc - they are pretty much impossible to measure and thus impossible to compare in a meaningful way. We might infer however that given all the other ways in which all sports have progressed, probably there have been incremental increases in these areas as well.