Suprisingly, the answer is that there are significantly more
hard-throwing righties than lefties. Not just in total, but
percentage-wise as well.
Baseball Info Solutions has been
tracking the speed of pitchers for the last few years. Overall,
about half of all pitchers (54% in the last two years) average
90 or more miles per hour on their fastball. It's nice to know
that the rule-of-thumb we've been using is a good one. If a
pitcher throws 90, he throws hard (in the top 50% of pitchers in
baseball).
But amazingly, the hard-throwing lefty is not common. Over
70% of lefties are of the soft-toss variety. Only 37% of
righties are soft-tossers.
Here are the details:
| Number of pitchers
who throw 90 or more MPH when throwing a fastball
|
| |
Average Fastball
90+ MPH |
Average Fastball
Less Than 90 MPH |
| Right-Handed Pitchers |
270 (63%) |
160 (37%) |
| Left-Handed Pitchers |
47 (29%) |
114 (71%) |
| Total |
317 (54%) |
274 (46%) |
Note: Includes pitchers with 100+ fastballs thrown in
2005/2006.