Stephen Strasburg signs with the Nationals ($15m deal)

It sucks cause in today's age power pitchers like this kid always end up on the surgery table. When it comes to sport medicine, i think sports has regressed. I mean Bob Gibson probably hit 95+ consistently back in the day and yet never had surgery and pitched about 470 games. Nowadays you'll be lucky if a power pitcher gets you 150 games in his career. I mean either today's pitchers are such girls when it comes to injuries or modern sports medicine has messed with genetics to the point where we're more fragile. I mean before Tommy John, how many pitchers actually had surgery, were forced to retired because of injury, switched to reliever because of arm trouble, or experience DL time because of shoulder or elbow soreness.

There are a huge number of factors at play here. For example, even the guys like Gibson that could throw 95 were able to pace themselves throughout a game because teams put guys at ss, 2b, c and often cf that couldn't hit the ball out of the park if you put it on a tee. In today's game, if you can throw 95, you are doing so to pretty much every hitter because just about every hitter can hurt you.

It may be my memory, but I believe the average pitcher in mlb now throws a heck of a lot harder than they used to. Even in the '80's there weren't a lot of guys that hit 90 on the fb all the time, now there are few rhp in baseball that don't average 90. The extra velocity takes its toll. The improvement in sports medicine is helping these guys achieve the extra mph and stay in the game longer than they used to, which makes their failures all the more visible.

There are other factors, too, but I don't often hear about the above being talked about all that much in comparison.

It may be my memory, but I believe the average pitcher in mlb now throws a heck of a lot harder than they used to. Even in the '80's there weren't a lot of guys that hit 90 on the fb all the time, now there are few rhp in baseball that don't average 90. The extra velocity takes its toll. The improvement in sports medicine is helping these guys achieve the extra mph and stay in the game longer than they used to, which makes their failures all the more visible.

 

There are other factors, too, but I don't often hear about the above being talked about all that much in comparison.

 

Tim I want to respectfully disagree with you. In the 80s, yes, there may have been fewer pitchers hitting 90 with the FB, but that was part of the ear of the reduced windup. If you look at footage of Spahn or Gibson pitching they get their whole body into the windup and have a lot more forward momentum going when they release the ball due to the movement of legs and torso. Try it yourself sometime and you realize how much more energy you can get into the ball.

 

That said, people are stronger and better conditioned today than ever thanks to modern training and sports medicine. It is likely that more people do probably throw above 90 than at any time in the past, but people like Feller and Koufax and Gibson were almost certainly well over 90 with the FB.

I wasn't arguing that nobody hit 90 consistently back then. I am a firm believer that the top of the talent pyramid is pretty equivalent across eras. However, I'm pretty confident in my statement that there were nowhere near as many guys throwing hard (ave 90+) in the past as there are now.