Rob,
Your observation is the heart of my reasoning for wanting to understand the math.
Here is why this information is so important to me.
I received a call from a parent of a Soph D-1 catcher in June. He had just finished his season and had shared the catching duties with another sophomore. During his end of season interview with his coach he was told that for this coming season he would need to make an improvement in his POP if he wanted to secure the starting role. He had been throwing game situation throws 2.05-2.10. The young man asked the coach for help in understanding what part of his throw needed the most work. The coach was clear that the player’s footwork and mechanics were just fine so his main area to improve was his arm strength. The young man left school figuring he had a summer of long toss ahead of him.
Understanding this math tells me he was going to have to try and add 7-9 MPH to get into the mid 1.9’s
When I spoke to the father he indicted that he questioned the coach’s evaluation of the problem area since his son had always been told he had great velocity. He then indicated to me he had 80+ velocity out of his crouch. While I still would need to confirm that MPH myself, I was sure from my understanding of the math involved in this post that this young man had to have a very slow release if he was throwing 80+ and was not going below 2.05-2.10
When the player and his dad came to be evaluated I was able to confirm that his MPH was indeed 80-81 at release from his crouch. I was also able to just visually confirm, forget the stopwatch, that he had the smoothest SLOW release I had seen in a player of his caliber. His ave release was between .89-.96 of a second. He had all kinds of things in his footwork and ball exchange that were eating time. Eating time smoothly, but eating time never the less.
We made some changes in his footwork and exchange mechanics and by the end of the weekend his release was under .80 seconds. His POP was under 1.95 in a training environment. The father has kept touch over the summer and fall and the player has had game situation throws now in the low 1.9 range.
TRhit : This story illustrates why it matters to me. As coaches we need to understand the physics completely to be sure we don’t misdiagnose a problem with a player and send him off working on areas that may not be the heart of the problem.
Fungo: 75mph right out of the crouch at release is very good velocity. I have timed nearly 100 College catchers in the past year in game situations and have found less then 20% throw 80+ from their crouch. I too would love to see a listing from the PG folks about what they see regularly across the country.