Can you rephrase that? It sounds like you’re saying that the faster the pitch is, the less influence this initial speed has on final ball speed, which isn’t true.
So are you saying that if a major league power hitter tries to hit a ball off of a little league ““T-ball”” thingie, he will not be able to hit home runs like the little kids can do since the ball is not moving at all?
Also, why in the home run derbys, where the pitchers are trying to get the batter to hit a home run each time, are the balls thrown to them so “slow”?
No. There are saying the ball might go a bit further if it was moving rapidly when they hit it.
Because it’s easier to hit a slow moving pitch. How much fun would a home run derby be if the batters were striking out? It’s probably also easier to get the ball on the sweet spot of the bat as well.
No, not at all. The speed of the bat is much more important in determining final ball velocity than the initial ball speed is. Presumably, the major leaguer can swing the bat quite a bit harder than the little leaguer, so you’d expect the big brawny guy to smack it farther, even if he’s got to use a T-ball tee.
Because a slow pitch is easier to hit, I presume. First of all, final ball velocity depends not only on initial ball speed and bat speed, but also on where along the bat the collision occurs (the bat’s got a narrow sweet spot, in other words). Secondly, as both David Simmons and Jeff Lichtman allude to above, the distance the ball flies is not only a function of velocity off the bat. It also depends on the angle the ball is hit and its spin. With a slow pitch, the batter has more time to line up exactly where to swing the bat, giving the best overall ball lift.
I haven’t seen any mention yet of conservation of angular momentum. I recall reading once that this explains why an infield hit comes up faster after the first bounce than it was initially travelling. (Short version: the ball is spinning when it leaves the bat, but after bouncing off the ground, that spin is converted into forward momentum) Does the difference in the spin on a fastball versus the spin on a curveball come into it at all?
No you haven’t. You’ve seen infielders fall over from twisting themselves around trying to catch a very hard line drive. To say the force of the ball itself knocked someone over is absurd.
Tell me you’ve played kickball. If you have, you’ll know that you can belt one of those springy red balls about twice as far when it’s rolling towards you than when it’s still. The ball has momentum and compressed on your foot, so you get some spring that adds to the effect of your kick. Same thing with a baseball, though they’re much more solid, so the effect isn’t as great.
This is only anecdotal, but I was watching baseball game replays on ESPN last night and I paid particular attention to the batters’ swings.
Those balls hit solidly that were pitched up around the letters usually resulted in ground balls, flyball outs or soft liners to the outfield.
The balls that were waist level or below where the bat came down into the ball giving it a lot of spin, if hit solidly, really took off on a rising trajectory that took them deep.
I think maybe this is why the “high hard one” is effective. Not only is it hard to hit but it doesn’t get much lift because backspin is minimal so it doesn’t get much carry and often results in just a “loud out.”