A couple weeks ago, I was watching college softball where one of the top ranked schools in the country—Alabama—has a 6’1 pitcher named Montana Fouts. She’s one of the most decorated and dominate college softball players of all time and I want to believe part of the reason is because she’s really freakin tall and has long arms.
Does having long arms create a longer leaver, creating more momentum, thus making the ball go faster or am I confusing something?
In: 8
Imagine a ball attached to a 1m long lever and another ball attached to a 2m lever. Now let’s assume both of these levers need to complete 1 rotation/360 degrees at the same time. The ball on the 2m lever has to travel a further distance in the same time so it has to be travelling faster for that to happen. So yes longer arms help in being able to throw a ball faster.
Strength and technique also play a part so it is not a guarantee that someone with longer arms can throw the ball faster, but it certainly helps.
There’s another factor to pitchers being tall and having long arms that’s simpler than the mechanics of throwing: they just get to release the ball closer to the plate. Over the history of baseball, pitchers have both [gotten taller and started throwing faster](https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2021/3/15/22331075/pitching-mound-move-distance), which combine to give a batter meaningfully less time to make a good swing.
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