Bretman help me out here...her actual release point is about 34 feet at 40 feet so would that not be around .35 if you factor the .24 to .28 plus the .11 to .17 or less than .40?
The study will be detailed in the July issue of Vision Research.
A 90-mph fastball can reach home plate in 400 milliseconds ? or four-tenths of a second. But a batter has just a quarter-second to identify the pitch, decide whether to swing, and start the process. ?Once the pitch is in flight, it?s the snap of your fingers,? Zimmer-man says. What happens next is ?pretty much just instinct.? A batter takes 100 milliseconds to see the 3-in. ball, and 75 milliseconds to identify spin, speed and pitch location. The batter has another 50 milliseconds to decide whether to swing, and where, before he must act. It can take nearly 25 milliseconds for the brain?s signals to pulse through the hitter?s body and start his legs moving. The swing itself takes 150 milliseconds.
That example is, of course, for a baseball pitched at 90 m.p.h. at a distance of (approximately) 60 feet. Assuming a pitching distance of 40 feet for softball (2/3 the baseball distance) a pitch would need to be traveling at 60 m.p.h. (2/3 of 90 m.p.h.) to give the same .400 second time from release (when the ball leaves the pitcher's hand) to popping the catchers mitt.
The distance the pitch travels will always be a rough estimate that is off a foot or two. The pitcher strides forward before releasing the ball (a tall pitcher like Finch can have a stride and drag of over six feet), but she releases the ball a couple of feet behind the forward point where her stride foot lands. And, remember that Jennie starts from the college/olympic distance of 43 feet!
Some more variables to consider when taking into account the distance a pitch travels, the speed of the pitch or the batter's reaction time: The pitching distance is marked from the front of the pitcher's plate to the back corner of home plate and the catcher is a couple of feet behind that point; The batter might be up in the box, moved back or even with the plate; Any pitched ball will be slowing down the further it travels away from the pitcher.
A foot or two in either direction doesn't have that big of a difference one way or the other in calculating the time it takes for the pitch to reach the plate or the catcher, calculating the speed of the pitch or the reaction time available to the hitter. Since there are a lot of variables that can throw the distance off a foot or two, for comparative purposes and general calculations using the actual pitching distance as the distance traveled provides a very close estimate.
But, let's say that Jennie does release the pitch 34 feet from the plate. And let's say from that point it takes the ball .26 seconds to travel those 34 feet. That still calculates out to a pitch speed of 89 miles per hour! Jennie's a good pitcher, but she isn't throwing anywhere near that fast.
The .400 second travel time (from the time the ball leaves the pitcher's hand until it reaches the plate, batter or catcher) is a fairly close constant that relates well to a 90 m.p.h. pitch in baseball or a 60 m.p.h. pitch in softball.
I think that the .24-.28 second time you stated for the ball leaving Jennie's hand to reaching the plate is a bit on the quick side. I wouldn't add the .150 or so it takes for the pitcher's arm to go from the top of her arm circle to her release point as part of the equation in determining the pitch speed. Pitch speed is distance traveled divided by the time it takes to travel that far and what the pitcher's arm was doing before the ball was released doesn't have any bearing on that calculation.
None of which disputes that a batter must get to the loaded position before the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. With that, I agree 100%.
The concept of the "five frame swing" is based on video analysis at 30 frames-per-second (ie: each frame takes 1/30 of a second, or .033 seconds). A "five frame swing" relates to the batter initiating the forward component of the swing from the loaded position to the point of contacting the ball. At a 30 f.p.s video speed, it means that portion of the swing takes about .165 seconds, which is right inline with the figures stated in the example quoted above (the actual swing plus the mind's reaction time to decide to swing).
This relates to bat "quickness" (which is an altogether different concept than "bat speed"). It measures a batter's ability to get from point "A" (load) to point "B" (contact) in the shortest possible amount of time. If a batter can do that, it it let's her start her swing a few precious milliseconds later into the pitch, which helps ensure that she will not be fooled by any late ball movement.
The world's top elite hitters in Major League Baseball take about .150 seconds to get from point "A" to point "B". Our daughters playing softball at the higher levels probably are closer to .200 seconds.
In the roughest of terms, a pitch will take about .400 seconds to reach the plate. A batter will take about .200 seconds to go from the loaded position to the contact point. This is where the "dance with the pitcher comes in". If you're not loaded back before the ball ever leaves the pitcher's hand, you have robbed yourself of about 1/4 the reaction time you will need to read the pitch and initiate your swing.
