No, You Aren't Good Enough To Hit .100 vs MLB Pitching

[KeefeCato]

I could've hit at or near .250 at one time against most major leaguer fastballs. I faced a few that went on to pitch in the majors and hit their fastballs.
I' would have had no chance against anything other than a fastball though. You also got to remember when I was young the average major league fastball was 85 mph. Huge huge difference in 85 and 98.

[Plus Plus]

Yep. We had a future NBA player at my HS and it’s just a different animal.

I saw Greg Oden and Mike Conley play basketball in high school. They could have been playing 2 on 5 and won those games, it was just surreal watching them.

[Redsfaithful]

I saw Greg Oden and Mike Conley play basketball in high school. They could have been playing 2 on 5 and won those games, it was just surreal watching them.

It looked that way in college sometimes!

[The Operator]

I saw Greg Oden and Mike Conley play basketball in high school. They could have been playing 2 on 5 and won those games, it was just surreal watching them.

I watched my high school team go up against North College Hill the year they had OJ Mayo, Bill Walker and Keenan Ellis.

I remember thinking “OMG call the game this isn’t fair” multiple times during that game. Our team wasn’t winning state or anything but they were fairly good and those guys might had well have been the mid-90s Chicago Bulls by comparison. It was wild seeing a bunch of guys I had grown up with and considered to be pretty good at basketball just get absolutely annihilated in every sense of the word.

[boxseat]

There is no way the bat speed of a fan (including me) could catch a 90 mph fastball. There would be a visible delay and it would be hilarious to see that.

[JCM11]

I could've hit at or near .250 at one time against most major leaguer fastballs. I faced a few that went on to pitch in the majors and hit their fastballs.
I' would have had no chance against anything other than a fastball though. You also got to remember when I was young the average major league fastball was 85 mph. Huge huge difference in 85 and 98.

There's a big difference in how pitch speed has been measured over the years. Those 85 mph pitches of the 70's were being gunned near the catcher glove. Now they measure out of the pitchers hand and those old 85 mph fastballs would register 90+ today.

[Shoeless Jeff]

There's a big difference in how pitch speed has been measured over the years. Those 85 mph pitches of the 70's were being gunned near the catcher glove. Now they measure out of the pitchers hand and those old 85 mph fastballs would register 90+ today.

I was fortunate enough a couple of years ago to take some batting practice at GAPB when the Reds were on the road. It was an event for big sponsors. They brought in a former college pitcher that occasionally throws BP to the Reds. He was throwing in the mid-60s. The swing and miss rate was very high at even that speed, although I have to admit most of the people participating probably had not played a lot of baseball in their lives. There were a couple of former high school and college players that asked the pitcher to ramp it up to the upper 70s (couldn't go higher due to liability issues) and mix in a few changeups and curveballs. That made for some real interesting swings and when the pitcher did that, I only saw one or two "hits". Ramp that up to pitches in the 90s and I'm pretty sure the hits would have been zero. The only way I would have gotten on base against even the BP pitcher is if I had pulled a "Dorn."

[KeefeCato]

One of my best friends growing up was basically Elly De La Cruz light.
He was the best athlete that wasn't a professional I've ever saw.
6 foot 6 about 180 pounds. He could absolutely destroy a baseball left handed or right handed. He hit many balls well over 400 feet. I saw it Dailey with my own eyes
He could take one step and cover more ground than most people could taking 3 steps.
He could throw upper 90s.
He was also very shy never had a bad word to say about anyone. Never once did I hear him brag on himself.
Zero and I mean zero doubt in my mind He could've been a MLB player.
Our team faced some future MLB pitchers. He homered off at least two of them that I can remember.
He never once went to a try out. Never even considered it. His parents were in their 40s when he was born. His mom had lots of health problems. He took a job with a local power company right out of high school so he could stay close to home and help take care of his mom and later his dad.
He is now the foreman at the power company and a pastor. Him and his wife were never able to have kids. So they adopted two girls. Who are now both in college.

[dubc47834]

Hardest thing to do in sports.

Meh...hitting a golf ball straight...but yes, super hard!

[dubc47834]

Machines that throw breaking balls are easier to find now, but the first place I saw them was in Cooperstown next to Doubleday Field. Had machines throwing 50 mph overhand curves, 65 mph screwballs, 70 mph sliders, that kind of thing. Each machine was labeled with the pitch it was throwing, so no surprises.

Even knowing exactly the pitch that was coming, those machines were devastating.

Hitting off machines is actually harder than hitting the real deal. With machines, you are guessing when the pitch is coming. Some of them, you may be able to time a little bit, but rarely. The real deal you generally know where the ball is. I'm saying this, knowing that hitting the real deal for most people is very difficult.

[TCURedleg34]

Hi Redzone fam! LONGGGG time lurker (going back to probably 2005? I would follow along the game threads in college while I had the ESPN game cast pulled up) first time poster.

This discussion was so fascinating I decided to join and post.

So I played on the same High School team that had Kyle Drabek (18th overall pick in 2006 and Dad was a CY Young winner), Brett Eibner who had 200+ career AB's over 4 seasons, and a guy named Paul Goldschmidt. Yes all on the same team, including 4 other Division 1 guys who may have actually been better football players than baseball players.

Kyle, who was also a STUD shortstop had a hell of a bat and was an all district WR in the Highest Classification of Texas High School football, was probably the only one who could have gotten a base hit off a Major leaguer in High School. And that's because he grew up with his dad tossing him BP.

I don't even think Goldie could have hit a Major leaguer when he was 18. And he's got an MVP lol. That's how good the guys in the show are.

So no, you're average fan could most certainly not hit .100. They couldn't even hit .100 in D2 baseball.

And no, you didn't run a sub 4.7 40 in High School either. lol

[SunDeck]

A regular schmo who was a good hitter in high school hitting .100 against MLB pitching is the equivalent of saying a bogey golfer could shoot a 100 on a PGA prepped course.

[GAC]

Right now, at my age, I'd swing about 5 minutes after the pitch hit the mitt. But in my younger days I lived in batting cages. Back then I might've got lucky on a few (lol).

[MikeS21]

Let’s just say that if I were to hit against a major league pitcher, it would be a complete waste of time to practice my home run trot!

I remember years ago on one of those Joe Nuxhall “Star of the Game” shows, he was talking to Johnny Bench, and Bench was talking about hitting against Tom Seaver. He said that Seaver had what appeared to be an “exploding” fastball. He said that the pitch was so fast and had so much movement that the hitter’s eye had trouble adjusting and it looked as if the baseball broke apart into several baseballs.

Bench caught Seaver several times in All-Star Games prior to Seaver coming to the Reds, and it was something of an adjustment to catch him. He said he would argue with the home plate umpire over those exploding fastballs because the umpires couldn’t see them any better than the hitters and catchers.

[moewan]

I used to be a pretty good hitter, until they started throwing curve balls. If I stepped in against a major leaguer I would have to be wearing "Depends" because I would wet myself