When you look at pitchers velocity on PG it can vary sometimes 5-7mph(sometimes more) from one event to another over the course of a season. I understand a mph or two, but does a high school pitchers velocity vary this much, or is this more an issue of different radar guns used at different events?
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wareagle,
5-7 sometimes more?
This would be very isolated.
Maybe you are looking at the player profile and seeing different events in different years. There is where you are likely to see velocity increases over a long span of time. Topping out at 85 one year and then 90-91 a year later.
The same guns are used at every event. Rarely we see a pitcher's peak velocity drop 5 mph or more in the same year. In fact, when we do see this it is a big warning sign of possible injury. However seeing 1-3 mph drops are common from one event to another.
Maybe my math isn't so good? LOL
I guess my specific question is that You may see a kid that throws 87 in May, and then throw 83-84 in a few tournaments afterwards but not hit 86-87 again the rest of the year. Or a kid that is consistently mid-high seventies, then a month later hit 84. Is it more in the kids or can there be a variation in guns? I don't know much about radar guns, I assume they are factory set and one should read the same as another within a certain tolerance?
Just curiuos because my kids have been fairly consistent, but I see some others with more fluctuation.
It looks like you are saying that it is usually the kid rather than the gun.
On the topic of velocity, I have always been curios as to the FB range (for instance a 3 mph range versus a 6 mph range). While this difference may not sound like much, it would be much more telling if this were compared to some type of average (whereas two pitchers could have different max mph but very similar average mph). Am also interested in how velocity holds up over several innings or into the later pitch counts. Do see occasional comments about velocity holding up in later innings but the basic profile of max mph and mph range could be over 9 pitches or 90 pitches.
This data is available at the MLB level but I get the impression that PG or other similar organizations are not in the business of building out a pitching database for every single pitcher that happens to set foot on the rubber. I guess my question would be is whether a high max mph gets tempered with the mph range, mph average as well as average as pitch counts move past 40-50.
As for wide swings between events - assuming same summer - I have seen a very few of these and it usually looks like the outlier is a "bad" outing for whatever reason (i.e. naggin injury). Have not seen any yet where a kid has a sizable single pop up in mph and drops back down. You might see the max pop up as though he gets off his "best pitch ever" but I like to look to see how the low end is changing over time.
2017LHPscrewball,
Part of the problem with getting good answers to questions such as yours is correctly identifying what pitch was thrown. I don’t know about the skills of the people who track the velocities at PG events or what information gets tracked, but for most pitchers there’s a significant difference between a straight 4SFB and a 2SFB or cutter. So if you see 88 for a pitcher on 1 pitch then see 91 for the same pitcher 2 pitches later, it might be the 1st pitch was a 2 seamer and the last was a 4 seamer.
Sometimes PG enters an incorrect number (had my son at 82 FB 
and he was 92 but that is an outlier. I have seen kids have lower velocity in the fall but havent correlated it to anything specific. I know my son varied at times due to fatigue from summer and then again sometimes he felt great and when he was done after the game he said his arm just have it, consequently his velo was down. I recall one tournament he was amped for, just knew he was gonna put a 6 or 7 and i think he put up a 93....he just knew he felt great and would do it but didnt. I cant explain that as a non pitcher but i guess most who have pitched will understand that.
On the player profiles the peak velocity is the major number. In our database we usually have every pitch listed. Also Trackman has every pitch filed.
Sometimes the big diferences in fastball velocity is based on a pitcher throwing two or even three types of fastballs. Some that throw only four seam fastballs will have the least amount of varience. Usually two seamers are a little less velocity or even 5 mph or less.
There are also pitchers that throw spot fastballs or sinkers in certain counts. Mike Boddiker made a living out of throwing Batting Practice fastballs with a little sink in 2-0 or 3-1 counts and get a ground ball out in a hitters count. So sometimes the large varience can be a good sign that the pitcher is truley pitching. His peak velocity tells us what he is capable of. BTW, almost always the peak velocity shows up in the first inning or two.
It's also important to know who can sustain their velocity. You could see a box that shows 88-94 and not be sure what that means. But if those numbers show 15 fastballs at 93-94 and 15 at 88-89 and that is evenly spread out over several innings with all other fastballs being 90-92, it really shows you something.
Sometimes you might see 88-91, with a peak of 92. This usually mean only one or two pitches were 92.
Bottom line... we have every pitch at every event available on file. So that means pitch counts with pitch type and velocity at each pitch count. There are guys that maintain their velocity for a long time. There are guys that lose velocity after one inning. This sometimes ends up profiling reliever or starter for the future. Then again, one pitch at 95 is enough to tell us that pitcher is capable of throwing 95.
So our information is available to MLB organizations and many colleges use it, but it is not set up for public usage. Maybe we will do that at some point in time. To be honest, there already are things on our website that I don't even know how to access. We need to overhaul it and make it much easier for people to find things. If you do enough clicking you will run into things that will totally surprise you. Sometimes they are in an area where you would least expect them.
I'd be interested to know if anyone has gotten any valuable information on a pitcher's abilities though analyzing TrackMan data. Not sure where/when this is collected but have visited the website and the data captured seems impressive - almost too much information for folks like me that are just getting educated on some basics. I would think TrackMan would easily identify the difference between 2-seam and 4-seam (at the individual pitcher level) based on RPM differences. Probably is not really what the OP was asking about.
So far from comments above it looks like a standard range of 5 mph might be perfectly fine - 3 mph assigned to pitch type and 2 mph (1 mph up 1 mph down) assigned to mechanics between individual pitches. This is a little larger than I had originally thought was normal. However, once that range is set, it should be easier to identify true mph changes by looking at changes to both top and bottom speeds and see if they move together.
Guys with big peak velocity outliers, especially in a single event, are, in both my opinion and experience, data errors, whether due to hardware or human error. Example, a guy who goes 74-83 in one event, while going 70-75 in every other event that season and the previous one. My assumption is the 83 is a single erroneous reading for some reason (my pet theory is spuriously collected batted ball velocities).
That's a real example of a player I'm familiar enough with to know the 83 isn't real (and the player's aware of it, too, and finds it amusing). I know of two other similar examples from this past season, plus a few more that are suspicious but not literally impossible. Small sample and all, but that's 5-10% of the pitchers I follow closely enough to be certain on.
I'm not sure any of it really matters, though. For guys at the level I tend to follow, they're probably not getting recruited off one reading anyway. For the real superstars, I assume the occasional bad reading gets filtered out better and/or the data collection is better monitored in those types of events.
Eric Cressey wrote an article on this a few years back. High School pitchers usually have more variation that older levels for a few reasons. They may play different sports so there arms are not always fully ready. They also often times will be eating out if they are on the road for showcases. Also, high school kids often times miss sleep.
On the player profiles the peak velocity is the major number. In our database we usually have every pitch listed. Also Trackman has every pitch filed.
Sometimes the big diferences in fastball velocity is based on a pitcher throwing two or even three types of fastballs. Some that throw only four seam fastballs will have the least amount of varience. Usually two seamers are a little less velocity or even 5 mph or less.
There are also pitchers that throw spot fastballs or sinkers in certain counts. Mike Boddiker made a living out of throwing Batting Practice fastballs with a little sink in 2-0 or 3-1 counts and get a ground ball out in a hitters count. So sometimes the large varience can be a good sign that the pitcher is truley pitching. His peak velocity tells us what he is capable of. BTW, almost always the peak velocity shows up in the first inning or two.
It's also important to know who can sustain their velocity. You could see a box that shows 88-94 and not be sure what that means. But if those numbers show 15 fastballs at 93-94 and 15 at 88-89 and that is evenly spread out over several innings with all other fastballs being 90-92, it really shows you something.
Sometimes you might see 88-91, with a peak of 92. This usually mean only one or two pitches were 92.
Bottom line... we have every pitch at every event available on file. So that means pitch counts with pitch type and velocity at each pitch count. There are guys that maintain their velocity for a long time. There are guys that lose velocity after one inning. This sometimes ends up profiling reliever or starter for the future. Then again, one pitch at 95 is enough to tell us that pitcher is capable of throwing 95.
So our information is available to MLB organizations and many colleges use it, but it is not set up for public usage. Maybe we will do that at some point in time. To be honest, there already are things on our website that I don't even know how to access. We need to overhaul it and make it much easier for people to find things. If you do enough clicking you will run into things that will totally surprise you. Sometimes they are in an area where you would least expect them.
PG Staff, I know you guys do a great job of keeping the velocities. On the Trackman data, how can someone look at that info after the fact? I know it can be seen as the game is going on, but I have tried to find it after the fact on the Trackman website. Sent them a message asking about be able to access a certain pitcher on a certain date but got no response. Do you guys have that somewhere that can be accessed by the public?
Thanks
