Baseball used to romanticize finesse — the art of movement, deception, and command. Today, it still does, but only after acknowledging a hard truth: velocity rules.
Codify’s latest data paints the starkest picture yet. In 2008, MLB pitchers threw just over eleven thousand pitches at 98 mph or harder. This season, that number eclipsed fifty-one thousand. That’s not a trend line. That’s a seismic shift.
What changed?
Player development did. Biomechanics labs became industry staples. Weighted ball programs graduated from fringe to mainstream. Teams hired velocity specialists the same way tech firms hire engineers — aggressively.
Pitchers aren’t born throwing 98. Today, they are built for it.
The sport has evolved around that reality. Front offices chase arm speed. Analytics departments reward spin efficiency that plays at higher velocity windows. Hitters are trained to handle velocity, which ironically pressures pitchers to throw harder just to stay ahead.
But the question hanging over the league is not whether velocity has won — it undeniably has. It’s whether baseball is prepared for the cost.
Injury rates have climbed. Elbows and shoulders absorb stress that modern training amplifies. Frontline arms increasingly visit operating rooms. The game is faster and louder, but also more fragile.
This era is thrilling for fans. Ninety-eight doesn’t shock anyone anymore — one hundred does, but even that shock is fading. College arms routinely touch triple digits. High school showcases advertise velocity like carnival attractions. Young pitchers chase radar numbers because the system teaches them that velocity is their ticket in.
Team executives quietly wonder whether this trajectory is sustainable. They love the strikeout impact — hitters whiff at elite velocity. But they fear the attrition. It’s difficult to build rotation stability when arms break before reaching their primes.
The counterpoint is already emerging: pitching labs are now working backward — developing ways to protect bodies, not just extract velocity. Teams are investing in movement screens, tendon load monitoring, and mechanical efficiency models to keep throwers from blowing out. Whether science can keep pace with the speed race remains uncertain.
Still, there is a conviction within baseball circles — this velocity era is not slowing. The league has crossed a threshold. Pitchers don’t want to go back, and organizations don’t want them to.
Somewhere, Greg Maddux would be intrigued — he lived at 86 mph and dominated the world. Today, he might wonder whether his game could exist without the radar. Maybe that’s why some clubs are also training a different type of pitcher — one who wins with shape, not speed, mirroring Maddux in the modern lab setting.
But right now?
Velocity is king.
Codify’s chart doesn’t just show growth. It shows acceleration — the steepest climb coming in the last five years. Forty thousand 98+ mph pitches last season looked wild. Fifty-one thousand this season suggests we haven’t reached peak yet.
Fans can only buckle in — because baseball is faster than it has ever been. And it’s still gaining speed.
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