On September 24, 2010, former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Aroldis Chapman delivered a 105.1-mph fastball in a game against the San Diego Padres, which is recognized as the Guinness World Record for fastest pitch ever.

A 100-mph fastball reaches home plate in under 400 milliseconds. The swing itself takes about 150 milliseconds. As popular as they’ve become, 100-mph fastballs are still pretty rare—rare enough that you’re not going to face off against them regularly at batting practice.

Aroldis Chapman

1. Hitting In the Major Leagues Is Really Hard. One of the most obvious reasons pitchers appear to be such horrible hitters comes down to simple statistical probability. To make it into the Major Leagues you have to be one of the best in the world and possess rare talent.

The best-hitting pitchers of all time

• 1 of 30. Brandon Backe. Icon Sports Wire / Contributor.
• 2 of 30. Ken Brett. Focus On Sport / Contributor.
• 3 of 30. Bullet Joe Bush. Bettmann / Contributor.
• 4 of 30. Madison Bumgarner. Neville E.
• 5 of 30. Don Drysdale. Transcendental Graphics / Contributor.
• 6 of 30. Wes Ferrell.
• 7 of 30. Yovani Gallardo.
• 8 of 30. Bob Gibson.

If you take a look at the big league statistics, MLB pitchers throw an average of 62% to 65% strikes, or roughly 2:1 strikes to balls, according to 2014 stats. First-pitch strike percentage is around 59% to 60%.

Pitching mechanics are harder than hitting mechanics. In order to throw hard, you need to have elite pitching mechanics. In order to become an elite level baseball player, you need to throw hard.

Top 7: Hardest Things to do in Modern Day Baseball

• Throw at someone. At the slightest inclination that there may be some retaliation, today’s umpires will do the old “warn both benches” deal that leads to suspensions and mass fines if anyone is hit at all.
• Balk.
• Not strike out.
• Hit a bunch of triples.
• Steal 100 bases.
• Throw 20+ complete games.
• Win 30 games.

344 batting average. That’s a 34 percent success rate, tied for seventh best in the sport’s history. But even he famously said that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports.

Pitching is as much about technique as strength. You need to use your legs, your core, your arms, your wrist and more with the proper timing. Someone who is simply a gifted athelite might be able to throw a ball with great velocity. But to do it with good control and without ruining your arm, athleticism is not enough.

If this requirement was not true then Olympic Lifters who have more power production than any athlete could throw way above 90 mph. The reason 99.9% of them cannot is because they do not have the motor coordination to convert their power production into ball velocity.

this is also why it isn’t at all advantageous for fastballs to be anything less than the max velocity a pitcher can throw (while accounting for endurance) because a faster pitch is much harder for the batter to hit, but also will not travel that much farther than a slower pitch if it is hit.

Meatball: An easy pitch to hit, usually right down the middle of the plate. Mendoza line: A batting average around .

60 to 70 miles per hour

Its erratic and unpredictable movement, however, isn’t just hard to hit and catch—scientists have long puzzled over how the throw is even possible. The trick to the knuckleball that makes it so hard to hit is that the ball doesn’t spin much as it flies through the air.

R.A. Dickey

Because the pitch travels at 60 mph to maybe 80 mph, throwing that “softly” puts far less stress on an arm than throwing 90 mph or above. So the knuckleball can be very effective. It can resurrect pitchers’ careers. It can keep guys in the majors who might otherwise have been out of baseball years earlier.

Young pitchers who throw breaking balls–including sliders–report more arm pain than those who do not. The right age to start throwing a slider or curveball is between 14 and 15, which gives a player enough time to develop the pitch (takes 1-3 years) so that it’s good by the time the college recruiting process heats up.