Baseball is a tough game and a lot of competitiveness is involved in it as well. Pitching is one of the key activities involved in this game. An honest fact is that anyone cannot be a pitcher. An individual needs to develop certain skills including arm speed, momentum, velocity and direction to become a good pitcher. Most professional pitchers start at a young age and get the speeds monitored. It is recommended that pitchers should have a good speed so that they can perform well against the striker.
- At 15 years, it is obvious that a kid cannot throw the ball with the full throttle needed. However, in as per the opinion of professional sports experts, a pitcher of 15 years has a speed of 70mph on an average. This is obviously the minimum you need to become an average pitcher. However, if you are looking to become a high standard pitcher, the speed should be 75mph or more. Having more arm strength means that you would be able to pitch the ball at a greater speed.
Key factors affecting the pitching speed
There are few factors which have an impact on the speed of pitching. Some of them are mentioned below.
Arm strength
It is obvious that you cannot throw something at good pace if you do not have appropriate arm strength. According to fitness experts, individuals who are interested in becoming pitchers should be cautious about their exercising sessions. Having more arm strength means that you would be able to pitch the ball at a greater speed.
Aim and velocity
The arm needs to be aimed in the correct direction with the right posture. These factors hold importance if you want to pitch the ball at a greater speed. At times, pitchers have good arm strength but they are unable to pitch at a good speed. This is mainly because they do not have the correct aim.
Level of Practice
Practice is a sole principle for excelling in a sport. If you don’t practice pitching, it would be quite hard to perform in a game. This does happen with most professional pitchers as well. They face injuries because they do not practice enough.
The use of an ERA calculator and its pros
Technology is advancing at a very fast rate and today, we have quality online calculators for all kinds of calculations. For instance, if you need to calculate the ERA of a baseball player, no need to sit down with the score sheet and perform calculations. A quality ERA calculator would do the job for you.
- What is ERA? ERA (Earned Runs Average) is average or mean number of runs that are leaked / given by a pitcher in 9 innings. There is a particular formula for this calculation. This formula is given below.
ERA = 9 X (Earned Runs Allowed / Innings Pitched)
- If you have a look at the formula above, the first step is dividing the “Earned Runs Allowed” by “Innings Pitched”. The result is multiplied by 9 to determine ERA.
Why using a calculator is the key?
It is not easy to calculate complex results when you are not using an online calculator. The first benefit of an online calculator is that no installations need to be completed. Unlike a lot of software calculations, these tools are used online so the user only has to open the link.
- Do you need to go through long learning steps to use the ERA calculator? The answer to this question is no. The user does not have to perform any long steps to calculate ERA. This calculator is easy to use and you only have to enter the input values. No other effort has to be made by the user.
- As humans, we tend to make mistakes while performing calculations. Even the smartest human beings make mistakes and this is the reason why they recheck things when the calculations have been completed. With the ERA calculator, no rechecking is needed because no mistakes are made. For any user, this is a big relief because the calculations are completed at a faster pace and no time has to be used for rechecking. In a nutshell, you can be sure that the calculated results are correct.
- If you are a professional coach and you need to select the best pitchers for your team, you would compare the available profiles on the basis of ERA. Pitchers with smaller ERA are termed better because they do not give away a lot of runs. If the coach has to look at the profiles of 10 pitchers on the basis of ERA, he would not have the time to perform so many calculations manually. An ERA calculator would come in handy for such sports professionals. They would be able to determine multiple results in a short while.
- ERA calculators are free of cost without any usage limitations. When users are searching for a software or technological tool on the internet, they most have concerns about whether the tool would be free or not. These tools are free and no conditions are applied as well. In other words, you can perform as many calculations as you want without paying any kind of charges.
Conclusion
The pitching speed is an important parameter if you want to become a successful pitcher. The speed depends on age as well as other parameters. For instance, if you talk about a 15 year old pitcher, his speed would be around the 70mph mark on average. Some teenagers fall in the “good” and “exceptional” categories. If a pitcher can pitch at a speed of more than 75mph, he would be termed as exceptional.
With an ERA calculator, it is possible to perform related calculations and determine the performance of a pitcher. For professional coaches, these tools work well because they have to determine the performance of players. These calculators can be used online so you do not need to download applications or get restricted to a particular device. These tools are fast and reduce the calculation stress.