Did Pitchers of Yesteryear Throw With "Much Less" Velocity Than They Do Today?

[hellborn]

Let me throw this point for discussion. On another forum I posted a short film clip of Mel Ott batting. It shows him batting and there is a slow motion of his swing as well. I made an off-the-cuff comment as to how could Mel Ott be so successful with such a "complex" swing? Someone else commented that he was able to get away with it because the pitcher's of Ott's era didn't throw as hard collectively as today's pitchers. That got me thinking. Is that true? Could a Mel Ott swing even work in today's game? I suspect that if some young prospect came along with a Mel Ott swing his coaches would try to "fix" his swing. Is the fact that the real Mel Ott did succeed with such a swing one piece of evidence that the pitcher's of his era didn't throw as hard collectively as pitchers today? Ott is one of my absolute favorite old time ballplayers by the way.

Ott was only 17 when McGraw got ahold of him...story was that Muggsy saw how well Mel hit the ball with that swing and told the coaches to not mess with the kid.
A lot of the old timers had very complicated swings...Hornsby, Foxx, and Greenberg had absolutely immense hitches. It may be that lower pitch speeds, and less variety of pitches, let them get away with it...but, I suspect that things like hitches really don't matter a lot as long as a good launch position is achieved at the right time.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Ott was only 17 when McGraw got ahold of him...story was that Muggsy saw how well Mel hit the ball with that swing and told the coaches to not mess with the kid.
A lot of the old timers had very complicated swings...Hornsby, Foxx, and Greenberg had absolutely immense hitches. It may be that lower pitch speeds, and less variety of pitches, let them get away with it...but, I suspect that things like hitches really don't matter a lot as long as a good launch position is achieved at the right time.

In Ott's would it matter when facing a lefty like Billy Wagner who can jam Ott inside with a 98 mph fastball? I would be an interesting research project to find out how Ott did against hard throwing lefties.

[leewileyfan]

Let me throw this point for discussion. On another forum I posted a short film clip of Mel Ott batting. It shows him batting and there is a slow motion of his swing as well. I made an off-the-cuff comment as to how could Mel Ott be so successful with such a "complex" swing? Someone else commented that he was able to get away with it because the pitcher's of Ott's era didn't throw as hard collectively as today's pitchers. That got me thinking. Is that true? Could a Mel Ott swing even work in today's game?]

I recall watching Ott for the first time [I'm guessing it was 1943] at the Polo Grounds against the Pirates, with Ott homering and Vince DiMaggio displaying his great arm all in the same game. [It was an off year for Ott but a great year for Vince DiMaggio in CF. Of the three DiMaggio brothers, Joe was the "complete" player all-around the best; but Dom was the best defensive CF, and Vince had the best arm - a rifle.

I wish I had taken note of it; but, during the 2010 and 2011 seasons, watching some ball games on tv, I noted at least 2 modern players who have an Ott-type kick windup in their swings [less pronounced than Ott, but there]. I can't recall their names now; but I'm sure somebody her might be able to name them.

I believe that Ott may have been onto something good: a batter motion that puts him in some parasympathetic phsican rhythm with the pitcher. It may sound crazy; but a physical-muscle-nervous system "link" into a rhythm MIGHT make batter mechanics better attuned to pitcher mechanics.

It may not be pretty; but it very nearly forces a hitter to launch off the back leg [much as the pitcher does]; delay a premature swing, yet start a push-off that puts a turbo charge into the initial forward momentum of the bat; and enable the batter to have a "late bat" into the ball ... all helping to judge the pitch, maybe even lay-off the pitch, and still be quick and late at the same time. It LOOKS like bad hitting; but think of how Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer looked on the tee.

[csh19792001]

? Could a Mel Ott swing even work in today's game? I suspect that if some young prospect came along with a Mel Ott swing his coaches would try to "fix" his swing. Is the fact that the real Mel Ott did succeed with such a swing one piece of evidence that the pitcher's of his era didn't throw as hard collectively as pitchers today? Ott is one of my absolute favorite old time ballplayers by the way.

"Ad-Rock",
Re: Ott's leg kick/hitch....remember Dave Winfield's hitch? His mechanics were so horrendous and contorted that he'd lose the bat during many check swings, and often the ump couldn't even tell if he had gone around on check swings. Who was more unorthodox than that? Dave got around fine with that ridiculous batting style.

How about Sheffield? Like Ott, brought the bat almost down to parallel as the pitcher was releasing the ball.

Winfield was a lock for the HOF, Sheffield would be, if he wasn't a juicer. Steroids or not, he was a hell of a hitter for years, with that (mad whack) style. Nobody coached it out of those two.

[csh19792001]

In Ott's would it matter when facing a lefty like Billy Wagner who can jam Ott inside with a 98 mph fastball? I would be an interesting research project to find out how Ott did against hard throwing lefties.

Can't speak to the speed portion, but Ott did quite well against lefties (esp. for a LH hitter). Only about 7% less productive against left handed pitching in his career.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=ottme01&year=Career&t=b#plato::none

Consider Ted Williams, by comparison:
Carrer: (1939-1960)
Against RHP: .389/.527/.731
Against LHP: .333/.458/.521

About 29% less effective against left handed pitching.

[Bench 5]

My theory on why most old-timers had such big hitches is that it is because they used such heavy bats. One point though is that I think that a lot of the footage of old-time players hitting is from BP. From what I have seen, they did not hitch quite as much during the actual games. I have seen some footage of Ott during games (e.g. 1937 WS) when his hitch was much less exaggerated.

[Ubiquitous]

Dave Winfield

[Ubiquitous]

Mel Ott:

Vs Righties: .298/.410/.518 in over 6,600 PA
Vs Lefties: .208/.273/.328 in around 900 PA

About 3,600 PA of unknown hand.

In Mel's day Lefty NL'er that were not playing for the Giants completed about 40% of the games they started.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Dave Winfield

Super athlete and all the size to boot. If not for that level swing, which worked fine for him, he would have hit some of the longest homers in his time. Most of his home runs were "quick", gone.

With that level swing, a wonder he never really hurt any infilelders.... or did he, I don't think so.

[Joltin' Joe]

Super athlete and all the size to boot. If not for that level swing, which worked fine for him, he would have hit some of the longest homers in his time. Most of his home runs were "quick", gone.

Yeah you're right. I always wondered why Winfield didn't hit more homeruns, or Dave Parker as well for that matter.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Yeah you're right. I always wondered why Winfield didn't hit more homeruns, or Dave Parker as well for that matter.

Looked to me that Dave with that level swing hit many low drives and some hard gounders, hit so hard they skipped past infileders.
His swing was something like Frank Howard's, both giants hitting some bullet line drives. I wouldn't want to be playing third base when these two came to bat.

[csh19792001]

Dave Winfield

Re: Big Dave...

Should be replayed for all those that think he was just a big, lumbering HR hitter.

Thanks for sharing this, Ubi.

[csh19792001]

On the league quality issue:

Retrosheet recently posted the 1918 box scores and game logs...I was looking at Walter Johnson's 1918, and realized that he really was either A) Simply the greatest that ever lived, or B) That hitters just weren't nearly as good, on average, back then. Or perhaps, C) both??

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=johnswa01&t=p&year=1918#below

How did baseball bear any resemblance to today's baseball (or pitching of that era to today's pitching, when, for example):

1. Clark Griffith left their franchise player (Walter Johnson) in for 18 innings on May 15th? Did anyone know ANYTHING about shoulder and elbow injuries? Forget MRI's and scientific inquiry...didn't they intuitively know they would usually ruin a guy for months, maybe forever, making him endure these workloads? Was their really THAT much of a scarcity of very good or great pitchers on the roster that could have relieved him?

2. He pitched more than 9 innings 10 times.

3. Johnson threw 29 complete games. He ALSO relieved 10 games. Earlier in the decade he was completing 40 games and pitching 50.

So, how was STILL able to put up a 1.27 ERA?

My line of thinking is.....there's just no way that guys like Johnson were averaging over 30 complete games per season- AND relieving/finishing 5-10 games per year- for over a decade, if they were exerting nearly as much effort per pitch (i.e., throwing nearly as hard) as guys do today. They couldn't have been! It's just not physically possible. When these guys knew they would be pitching on either no rest, or maybe 2-3 days rest, AND would have to complete nearly every game they started, shoulder and elbow injuries must have been far more common than rested arms. AND guys must have pitched injured all the time. Hitters were often teeing off against an exhausted starter for the 4th and 5th time most games, sometimes even more often.

That never, ever happens today.

Back then the top starters had to have been throwing 200 pitches regularly...in the past 20 years only a knuckleballer has been over 160 in any single game.

What also doesn't make sense is how Johnson could have had ERA's like that, despite that workload...unless he was very rarely throwing his 100mph fastball, didn't have to worry about home runs (ever), and just threw 80-90% on most pitches against most hitters. The only logical conclusion I can come up with, given the incredibly low ERA's people put up despite this impossible workload is that there must have been far more "easy outs", with almost no power hitters, most of the action in the infield, and much weaker bottom half of the order hitters. It must have often looked like more like batting practice than what we're used to.

The other conclusion is that Big Train and others like Pete Alexander were simply bionic men, and he could throw with almost max velocity/effort like Koufax did, 45 games and 340 innings a year, almost always on short rest and often on almost no rest.............and still never suffer a significant arm injury. Which, from what I read in the biographies of both pitchers, neither did until 1919 (Alexander) and 1920 (Big Train).....

Walter Johnson won 297 games before 1920 even rolled around. 4100 innings, 388 complete games. He allowed 31 home runs, total. That's one (poor) season for a starting pitcher these days....

[csh19792001]

1. A study on the evolution of pitching staff usage

2. Another interesting article on this subject

[leewileyfan]

The mentality back in the late 1930s and into the '40s was much different from what it is today. Overpowering speed was an eye-opening novelty that made onlookers "oohhhh and aahhhh"; but the key for successful pitchers was MASTERY.

Mastery meant control and control over the pitches one considered to be in his repertoire. Infield chatter pretty much summed up the psychology: "Make 'im a hitta, babe!" "Ya can't hit it with the bat on yer shoulder, man!" 'Gotcha covered, babe!" The fielders kept the pitcher well-informed why they were out there wearing gloves.

For batters, contact was crucial. A strike out was frowned upon as a wasted at bat. Of course, anybody with a strong arms and a powerful fastball [as a young guy] loved to pile up the K's [like a gunslinger with notches]. However, if one was lucky enough to have a strong coach or mentor of any kind, he was reminded that strikeouts require multiple pitches [as do walks]; so the non-batted ball at-bats can wear you out.

Bottom line: Pitchers back in Johnson's day were perfectly capable of bringing it. Those who mastered pitching knew when, how, and in what situations to bring the heat.

The physical aspect on pitching work loads was: Use it or lose it. Of course, that brought abuses; but the basic concept [IMO] was better tan coddling arms; making specialists out of kids' and limiting endurance expectations to the point that more than half a game per start makes one a workhorse.