It’s difficult to imagine a league worse at promoting its game than Major League Baseball. We’re talking about a league that is full of exciting young players — like Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ronald Acuña (before his injury) — doing things that deserve praise.
And yet, time and time again, MLB’s own network personalities really go out of their way to discredit the incredible skill in today’s game.
That couldn’t have been more clear than what we saw in a Sunday segment on MLB Network.
In front of a big screen, Cal Ripken Jr. and Ron Darling had the production team edit together side-by-side videos of 90s/2000s star pitchers with star pitchers of today all in an attempt to disprove the notion that today’s pitchers are throwing harder than ever before.
There was so much wrong with this:
Are pitchers really throwing harder than ever?
Ron Darling & @RipkenBaseball took a closer look on #MLBCentral.
Full -youtu.be/rk6Pqew-3nY pic.twitter.com/2ztPwHEzJq
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) July 26, 2021
The premise of the segment was that pitchers like Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina threw just as hard as today’s pitchers because the side-by-side videos showed their catchers catching the ball first (while ignoring the radar-gun readings).
When it comes to syncing videos of pitchers, there are so many variables that come to play. The release points are different. The catcher is catching the ball at a different spot. The frame rates of videos across decades also vary. The video quality isn’t good enough to see exactly when the ball gets released. The list goes on.
And even with all that in mind, the MLB Network crew blatantly gave the older pitchers a head start. Like, Johnson’s pitch is already on the way to the mound when Gerrit Cole still had the ball in his hand. Not to mention that Johnson is six inches taller and far longer than Cole.
It’s such an unnecessary argument to make, and it was odd to see MLB Network do so in such an unscientific way. What was even the point besides proving that MLB Network has a contingent of old baseball dudes who can’t accept that today’s players are better?
Giants pitcher Alex Wood had to call out the segment because it was so bad.
This is literally the worst take @MLBNetwork has ever had lol. They synced their deliveries up at completely different times. Even an 8 year old could watch this video and see that. How does this make the air? https://t.co/FiAIfZwGgc
— Alex Wood (@Awood45) July 26, 2021
Today’s pitchers throw harder and with more movement than ever before. It’s a fact proven by actual analytics and metrics rather than questionable video editing. It’s OK to admit that, Cal and Ron.
