Moving Violations

The Athletic had an interesting baseball story today, “Can we determine which teams are best and worst at developing fastball velocity?” According to the authors, the answer is Yes, and the White Sox come in dead last. A couple of observations here. First, baseball continues its fascination with—or addiction to—speed. At no time do writers Eno Sarris and Brittany Ghiroli question the underlying premise that speed is the basis upon which all pitching is based. They did note that some organizations emphasize vertical movement over just speed and concede that kind-of fast could have advantages over way-fast in terms of maximizing inning-after-inning performance, but that’s it. What about control, the lack of which renders speed meaningless, at least against disciplined hitters? Not a word. Or injuries? Again, nothing. It’s as if everyone in and around baseball has bought into Darwin. The strong throw heat, the weak get injured and try to get strong again with Tommy John surgery. Sarris and Ghiroli end with an ironic—at least to me—observation that baseball is a “sport where stagnation is the enemy.” Really? Then why is everybody, including those slow-to-figure-it-out White Sox, so enamored with pitchers who throw hard? And hitters who swing hard? It seems to me this phase of the game has been going on way too long.