Did Greg Maddux Ever Throw Hard?
Image credit: Greg Maddux (Photo by Ron Vesely/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
As fastball velocity has continued to rise year after year in the major leagues, there has been a countervailing nostalgia for an earlier, simpler time.
And no pitcher is wrapped more in that nostalgia than Greg Maddux. The four-time Cy Young winner and eight-time all-star dominated hitters for more than a decade despite a fastball with fringe-average and eventually below-average velocity.
The argument is that baseball used to encourage pitching in a way that doesn’t exist anymore with the present focus on velocity. A pitcher like Maddux, a first-round pick in 1984, couldn’t be appreciated now and would be unlikely to get a chance to succeed. Back then, scouts would draft a pure pitcher and watch him develop. Now teams just chase velocity.
Or so it’s argued. But there’s one problem with this supposition: Greg Maddux once threw really hard, which is what made him a top draft pick.
Here’s Baseball America’s draft report from 1984, when Maddux ranked as the 11th-best draft prospect. He ended up going 34th overall in the 1984 draft to the Cubs.
Another slightly built young pitcher who can throw extremely hard . . . his fastball has been clocked at 91 and is consistently in the high 80s . . . also throws a split finger, curve and slider . . . “he’s a small kid who can really throw hard,” confirmed one major league scouting director . . . in his first seven appearances of the season, he was 6-1 with a 2.13 ERA and had struck out 61 while walking 12 and allowing 15 hits in his first 38 innings . . . in his first three outings, he did not allow an earned run, walked just two, gave up four hits and stuck out 37–in 21 innings . . . younger brother of Mike Maddux, another hard-throwing righthander the Philadelphia Phillies drafted in the fifth round out of Texas-El Paso in 1982 . . . Greg’s better than Mike at the same age,” says a scout.
Baseball America magazine, 1984
Understandably, some may read that and wonder how a pitcher clocked in the high 80s who touches 91 mph can be described as throwing “extremely hard.” But that’s worth it’s own explanation. The radar guns of the early 1980s were much different from what’s used now. In the early 1980s, there was the SpeedGun and there was the JUGS gun. The first generation of Stalker guns hadn’t arrived yet, and the Stalker IIs weren’t going to become prevalent for nearly two decades.
As we explained in a story a couple of years ago, each generation of radar guns improved on the generation before that, which also meant they kept picking up the ball closer to release point. The SpeedGun, despite its name, was viewed as the “slow gun” of the time. It picked up the ball closer to the plate than the JUGS, so the same pitch would have a 1-2 mph slower reading on the SpeedGun than the JUGS.
But the JUGS itself was slower than the Stalker Is that arrived later, and the Stalker IIs had an extra mph on the Stalker Is. And the Statcast numbers used now are calibrated to when the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand, which adds another mph or so.
The best guess is that the high-80s/touching 91 mph report is on a JUGS. Years later, scout Doug Mapson told Baseball America founder Allan Simpson for the Ultimate Draft Book that Maddux was 85-87 on the slow gun and could touch 91. With a JUGS gun, that’s a reading that is 3-4 mph slower than a Statcast reading. So think of that 91 as 95 mph in modern measures.
Another report from his junior year, as told to Baseball America’s Allan Schwartz in 1996, described Maddux’s fastball velocity as a high school junior this way:
“He was throwing an average major league fastball right then as a junior. He was an impressive athlete. He could run, throw and field his position very well. He lacked size, but they don’t have a size requirement in the major leagues, thank goodness.”
Cubs scout Gene Hadley
For younger baseball fans, 95 mph does still sound rather routine for a starting pitcher, but in 1984, that was exceptional velocity. The overall velocity in the game is something that’s changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. The average fastball velocity for a starting pitcher in 2008 (the first year of Statcast pitch tracking) was 91.2 mph. Now it’s 93.4 mph. For all MLB pitchers, it’s increased from 91.4 mph in 2008 to 93.7 in 2024. And that’s all on the exact same scale, comparing apples to apples.
It’s completely accurate to say that Maddux’s success in the majors came from changing speeds, exceptional command and some of the best movement the game has ever seen. But it’s not accurate to say that Maddux never threw hard. Early in his career, he had one of the best arms in baseball.
