Is Softball Harder Than Baseball?
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#baseball #softball #mlb
When I said a Softball is 12 inches in diameter I meant circumference... Sorry for being dumb. It will definitely happen again.
Big brain
You’re good. It could happen to anyone.
Dumb as I would never
I wanna know why a softball hitter seems to have never faced a baseball pitcher, maybe it’s because they already know it would be harder
Being dumb? It totally changes the point you were making. Neither sports use basketball sized balls
People argue about baseball or softball being harder to hit...
Meanwhile im watching a wiffleball take a 90 degree cut, twice, stop in mid air, make the batter a milkshake, then hit the strikezone.
i hate whiffle balls
@@charlieworley3 I love wiffleball
We made a rule at my house that we can only use the practice wiffle balls, as in the ones with circles on the whole ball, and the soft ones so the batter cant hit it as far. So far I have made it curve two different directions on one pitch only a few times. I could use some of the other wiffle balls but whats the fun in that? I usually mix in sidearm and normal pitching which makes it a little harder to hit. Ive struck out on a few nasty ones, but I hate the normal wiffle balls, and like blitzballs because they all break too damn much without any effort, as in anyone can throw one and make it break. No skill needed for those...
Wiffelball doesn't exist
Wiffleballs can do a 360 no scope if it wanted to
Alright, now take the best softball hitters, hand them a mlb bat, and face them off against the best baseball pitchers in the world. It’s the same results, it’s based on what you’ve practiced against your whole life and what you’re used to seeing
Well said
no let them keep there bat just like they men did, i know a few men that could hit those pitchers with the bats the women use but not the ones MLB uses.
@Meme Frog good job memefrog
Lol that’s literally what the man in this video said
I had that exact same thought
All this video proved to me is that these two sports are completely different
Almost as if they are different sports lol
Amen
@@InTrancedState yeah it’s almost as if it’s a completely original sport just that the rules are almost exactly the same as baseball with the exception of a few tweaks. Must be coincidence tho
@@antoniomolina3612 🤦♂️
no, they’re not, they’re still very similar sports with minor differences
I love that you casually threw in there that a Wiffleball is harder to hit that both 🤣
If it were traveling the same speed. Realistically, no one can throw a whiffleball as fast as a baseball
Mark Rober recently made a video about wiffleball that helps explain why they could be so hard to hit.
th-cam.com/video/T9xsTO6ujqM/w-d-xo.html
@@obviouslyanonymous yes but the curves that a wiffleball pitcher throws are much harder.
@@obviouslyanonymous MAW pitchers throw up to 95 mph in wiffle ball, all of the 90+ do come on risers tho
@@obviouslyanonymous have you never seen the wiffleball World Series?
The fact that the softball dude was able to pitch between his legs and behind his back and still manage to not only hit the strike zone, but just annihilate entire teams while doing it, is insane.
It's like pulling off globe trotter shit in a real NBA game.
Don’t forget blindfolded lol
My father's team played and beat Eddie feiners team Twice. My dad's team won 3 national championships and finished top 10 around 10 times. They were very good.
As another commenter mentioned its like playing the globe trotters. They run their little skits and tricks and expect you to play along. Even telling you as much before and during games.
That being said my father said Eddie was a very good pitcher. He threw hard but wasn't the hardest they faced. Def not near 100 mph. One of their skits and claims to fame was the 100mps pitch. The pitcher would not actually throw the ball.. The catcher would have a ball in his glove already and act like he just caught a pitch so fast you couldn't see it. This was always done with 2 outs and 2 strikes on the batter so the pitcher can just walk off the field while the catchers rolls the ball out to the mound.
Softball DUDE. That is what it comes down to
@@tuddyrex45 thank you for sharing those memories tuddy, what a perspective. Do you remember any other stories about your father's games vs Eddie or any insights?
Now we need a good softball hitter with a wood bat against Chapman😂😂😂
Ya
I mean they’d still get their bat. Bonds got his normal bat
@@bradonloyd1521 true. But that was a disadvantage. Because it’s heavier and the pitcher is closer. I say Mike trout should go against a softball pitcher using a softball bat
@@cash6958 yeah but in today’s day in age that’s offensive for a man to beat a woman in anything so
Exactly
Love how nobody ever talks about a softball batter facing a professional baseball pitcher. Can you imagine Randy Johnson in his prime standing on a mound facing the best D-1softball batters
Lmao 2000 Padro Martinez against any softball hitter 💀💀💀
And that's the problem with no major pro Fastpitch leagues
There are men's softball ISC Level 1 and 2 ... we throw we even harder and faster
I have played baseball and I had no problem changing over ... more time to see the pitch and no raise ball either
I swear Sport McAllister from the Cleveland spiders would dominate them
One of the biggest issues I have with the methodologies shown is that they always take one player out of their element. Trajectory might not sound like THAT big a deal, but when you've spent your life perfecting the art of hitting a ball from a different trajectory, of COURSE you'll struggle. I think you'd see the same thing if the best softball hitters tried to hit baseball pitches, which doesn't appear to have even been attempted. A better experiment might be to get groups of people who've never played either one and see which skill is harder to train: hitting a baseball, or hitting a softball.
exactly.which is why the Jennie finch vs mlb baseball hitters wasn't fair for them, because they had trained all their lives with a completely different swing than one that would succeed against her pitching. and vice versa. good idea for the experiment. I'd like to see that attempted in the future.
Because they're biased and they know it and we know it.
@Lighthouse in the Storm Yeah this is some stupid bullshit. Always trying to shed women in the same light as men when there's something for them to gain. I'm tired of it, frankly.
Yup, it's almost like imagine taking the best basketball players and have them shoot on a hoop that's an extra couple feet higher, they'll have to retrain their muscle memory that they w developed their whole life
They already have that experiment. It’s called rec league softball and same for baseball. There’s a reason that you only see men in those baseball leagues. and on the other side see both men and woman playing the softball leagues. everybody is smoking the ball men and woman, opposed to the baseball side where that is not the case at all, also note the fact that you won’t see any woman playing
So are we not gonna talk about how that guy could throw a 90+ mph softball pitch behind his back in his 60’s
Nobody said he threw 90+ behind his back.
@@IIDEADBIRDII Brody jsut did.
haha, ya that's kinda nuts
@@AJ-iu6nw is Brody a qualified sorce?? Brody didn't even pay attention to the video.
@@IIDEADBIRDII Brody is more of a man than you ever will be
Truthfully both are impressive as hell with the amount of training going into it. I use to play softball and sometimes I legitimately felt like those pitches were gonna snap my bat in half (that's just me though). Playing a competitive game of baseball with my cousins though yeah it definitely took huge batting adjustments. It would be interesting to see some of best softball batters going up against mlb pitchers to see how they adjust as well who knows maybe will get surprised. Both sports are hard and it's truly impressive seeing people build their crafts.
Yes/no softball is easier but I respect their grind
@@justvibing2497 any sport is "easier" if you have the proper skills. I think hurdles and high jumps are the easiest thing to do in the world, but I repeatedly watched teammates fail on jumps I had made with no effort. Those same people, would shotput 50-60 ft, while I could barely get mine to go 10. It's all specialized, the real pros are the people who are mvps in two or more sports, they're the only ones I'd actually listen to about the scaling difficulty level of any two sports.
They wouldn't get close to hitting pro baseball pitching...
Fence rider
@@justvibing2497it’s not easier
Does softball exist? We know baseball doesn't.
nope
I am not sure Foolish Softball
Foolish Baseball? More like Foolish Ball!
They need to put softball hitters against mlb pitchers
@@calebcutler7832 They really should do that but I have a feeling softball players won’t have much trouble adjusting to the pitch the only thing I think will hold them back is the fact baseball fields are huge most hits will be caught.
Are we not gonna talk about the fact that a professional softball field is the same size as a little league field for 11-12 year olds.
Nope. MLB players have a hard time hitting balls pitched in a manner that is completely alien to them, so it's _OBVIOUSLY_ harder to hit a softball. Just accept it and move on. And don't ask why none of the softball players ever had to try to hit a MLB pitcher.
@@frocat5163 wtf are you smoking
@@shanemcgrath2809 Apparently sarcasm is lost on you...
Basic physics tells you why a softball does not travel as far as a baseball when hit with the same amount of force, not including basic biology.
An MLB hitter will not be able to hit a softball further than a baseball even pitched like a baseball.
@@frocat5163 the second part didn't sound like sarcasm tho mb
Now I would like to see a soft baller hit a Chapman 100 MPH pitch.
Exactly!
I would like you to hit one too
@@Addi13158 even the best mlb hitters struggle to hit a chapman pitch I don't think either of the two could hit one
I would also like to see a Chapman 100 MPH pitch hit a soft baller.
@@Clorox39 😂😂😂
I played baseball my entire youth. We had separate leagues for softball and hardball obviously. I being in a small community and within the same age group, had the opportunity to play for both teams in my graduating year. I can confidently say that hitting the softball was much easier than a baseball. However, the ball coming off the bat is much different. Didn’t have the same flight and harder to place hits. Essentially my strikeouts were way down but fielded outs were up.
so it was easier to contact the ball but not to get more runs?
@@dynad00d15as someone who plays softball, yes
If a baseball was pitched from 43 feet, the average MLB era would be 0.004
Fax
true as soon as he said they pitched from differnet spots i was like you can compare these at all. if baseball moved up it would be 10x harder if softball moved back it would be 10x easier.
Little Leage pitches at 46 feet, but travel baseball moves to 50 foot mound at 11u.
And distances to fence increase. Bat weight is another issue, most kids stop using drop 10 at 11u as well going drop 8 or drop 5 after.
Men throw from 46 ft in softball. But yeah it would be impossible because you read time is gone.
No one would want to catch
I always wonder why sports center didn't bring in a softball hitter to try and hit a baseball with a heavier wooden bat at 97-99 mph. There was definitely a narrative the producers wanted to push with that episode lol.
Definitely.
We tried that at the high school level. The boys struggled to through strikes to the smaller targets and the girls at first bunted on. The girls struggled with the long base distsnce and used the smaller lighter softball bats. Girls scored 8 in three innings, boys didnt reach base, but they refused to use the lighter bats or take contacts swings
@Tyler but isn't pride a huge part of baseball? I mean when people think about great hitters in baseball most think about home run hitters. But when you think about just a couple of the greats, Ichiro and Gwynn both used very light bats, Ichiro the lightest bat. Both didn't care about home runs and both have many major league recirds. But with that said I can still hit a 70mph softball fastpitch from 37 feet (all good softball pitchers are at a minimum 6 feet off the mound when they release the ball) but I struggle hitting against 95 mph over hand pitcher....even with a lighter bat.
@@owenjohnson5333 Are you sure their bats were that light? im finding 32 and 32.5 oz for their bats, which really isnt that light. Gwynn used a fairly short bat, but didn't really weight much less than average. That seems like kind of a stretch to call their bats 'light' when fastpitch bats are -10 drops.
Idk about a narrative. I’ve never heard anyone say “softball hitters would crush DeGrom”. It’s pretty much always been softball pitchers can’t face mlb hitters.
As a softball player who played baseball during a fall ball season while also playing travel softball, baseballs are harder to hit if you’re not use to it. I only got one hit that season (I was walked a lot tho cause it was fall ball and the pitchers sucked.) but I was by far the best first baseman. However my entire team was scared to be my batter, my fastest pitch at 13/14 was 52/53 but could throw 49-51 consistently with the old standard windmill snap. I could only imagine if I changed the spin and used the newer snap
Yea well, let’s do a session where Chapman faces 30 of the best softball players.
Yes sir go yanks they would be scared to death
Exactly
They wouldn’t even step in the box
You think Chapman can throw a softball?
@@RunForPeace-hk1cu they have baseball hitters hitting softballs so they would obviously be hitting baseballs
We always bring the baseball players to the softball field, but never the softball players to the baseball field
I’m assuming it’s because of the argument “Baseball is much tougher then softball”. So you get this video..... They should of took a female batter and pit them against the male baseball pitcher. Of course that’s not the argument here, it’s just pitching. With the way things are going. We will see more “males” playing in the female softball league 😂. Js.
A baseball is much more dense and moves faster than a soft ball and a baseball bat is a lot heavier than a softball bat so girls would have a major disadvantage and it would also be more dangerous baseball is made to be played by someone much stronger so softball was made where they speed up the game to make up for it not being as physically demanding what I’m trying to say is baseball is made for a man and softball was made for a woman because women couldn’t play baseball and a man is not allowed to play softball I think they are of the same difficulty when a GIRL played softball and a MAN plays baseball the only way to figure it out would be to allow men to play fast pitch softball as women are already allowed to play in the MLB but very few have ever made it
@@kalphite8673 men are not allowed? you do realize there are slow pitch and fast pitch softball leagues for men?
@@kalphite8673 have you ever heard of a camma or a period? Do a quick Google search. I'm sure you'll find them helpful 😉
@@gregorydalton3106 damn didnt know there are people like you around here
The issue with "which is harder to hit" Softball vs Baseball, really comes done to familiarity. There was a college that "replayed" the sports science test, pitted the best female Softball pitcher on their schools team, who was ranked top 5 in the US, versus the best Baseball hitter on their schools team, rated in the top 50. The difference is the hitter was allowed to "prepare" for how Softballs are pitched. He visited batting cages for 1 day, & spent am additional day with another Softball pitcher. When the match up came, the hitter struck out the first, took 2 strikes next, a foul, then another strike. On the third set he fouled, then line drive. Fourth set line drive, followed by deep hit, lastly he hammered the last pitch for a homerun. He had essentially figured out the angle, & speed difference, add in the ball being a larger size, & the Baseball player now has an advantage. This is the key to this argument, facing an unseen style of "pitching" can obviously cause any hitter to fail, but adapting to Softball seems to be a simpler task then adapting to a Baseball
Not refuting you but the sample size for your conclusion that all it comes down to is “preparation” is pretty much 0 so your conclusion makes 0 sense.
@@biorgoanylchem it does make sense, your only point is that the sample size could be bigger
@@biorgoanylchem Jon V is right. If you play minor league baseball and face a MLB pitcher, the only thing to do is to prepare by watching and facing it. If you see the pitches for some time, you eventually can hit it. This may not be the best analogy, but I hope you get the idea.
100%. I’ve been playing softball for 13 years now, went an entire season without striking out, yet I can’t imagine trying to hit a ball that’s coming down at a downwards angle like that
Hell just the motion of the pitcher can throw you off too due to unfamiliarity.
At high levels a lot of it comes down to muscle memory. Your muscles have no memory for such a different pitching motion and subconscious processes fault out.
Hey man. I gotta say that you have a great channel with terrific production value going on here. Editing, commentary and the pacing is perfect, these are a joy to watch.
And this is coming from a Finn who knows nothing about baseball - the drama, spectacle, inner workings of the culture is awesomely ridiculous.
Being tested in head to head conditions, the pitcher from either sport has the advantage over the hitter from the other as long as the softball pitcher doesn't have to throw from the mound 60 ft away. The change in angle would force the hitter to change their swing, while the pitcher can just do what they do best.
exactly, baseball players have devoted their lives to hitting baseballs, not softballs, the test doesnt work
There are a few things wrong with this in my opinion. The first is they didn't let softball hitters go up against some like chapman or any mlb pitcher. The other thing that I thought was wrong was that the batters that faced the softball pitchers had never had the chance to adapt to that kinda pitch while softball players have their whole career to be able to adapt to it.
That was exactly what I was thinking
Mens high level fastpitch throw 80-90mph at 47' distance.
Having a women vs man is not very accurate either.
Also swinging a 34 oz bat doesn’t help. I think softball it’s like 24 oz
thinking the exact same thing lol
Exactly. They are two different sports. This is like asking a farmer, "can you cook?"
I don’t understand why “the only way” to prove softball is harder than baseball is a softball pitcher and baseball hitter. Wouldn’t you also do baseball pitcher with softball hitter.
Exactly
that’s what i was saying like put degrom or chapman against of one of the best softball hitters
I think its because most people automatically assume MLB hitters are better than softball hitters, so a softball pitcher striking out the “better” hitters proves it. I personally think both styles of hitting are different enough that neither sports hitters could do well against the other sports pitcher
There is no way to prove it, there is no comparisons.
It's impossible to prove because if a baseball player plays his whole life hitting baseballs the fact he has trouble hitting softballs that move completely differently does not mean it's harder to hit a softball. Part of the issue is just that it's really hard to get your timing right on a softball when you're used to the way baseballs move after 20 years of playing
I've played both and it takes me more time to adjust to batting for softball, but once I've made the adjustment it feels very easy to pop a hit. Casual picnic softball might skew opinions here.
Actually, a lot of big and strong guys struggle in softball. They cannot get over the mentality "it's lobbed so I can hit it real far and it's really easy to do." Therefore, I am going to hit a lot of homeruns. Cannot tell you how many of these guys I saw popping the ball up over and over and over again. If you put your ego in check and learn to hit line drives and make solid contact, you can hit well over.500 for a season, but it takes a lot of practice.
This guy became the greatest softball pitcher all for a meme😂😂
What a true legend
So they never tested a softball player hitting an mlb pitcher?
Cuz they would lose look these are clearly put up to get people to watch soft ball even do its boring af so its rigged
How come baseball players are using 34ounce wood bats instead of a 22ounce aluminum bat.
@@donadams5507 Because that’s extremely dangerous. With a softball, they need that light weight to hit it as far(well at least compared to the size of the field). Also men generally have more arm strength. If someone who can hit a ball with an exit velo of 115, had an aluminum bat it would fly off the bat too fast for reflexes
@@donadams5507 Only noobs and kids use a 22 ounce bat. I use a 34 inch 30 ounce alloy bat. I don't even think they make just aluminum bats anymore. I don't use composite either and young people think my bat must be cheap because it's not composite. They're idiots. Never in my life used composite and had the highest batting average every year.
@@ebogar42 Only noobs and girls use non wood bats. I use a 33ounce 34inch wood bat as any man should.
Well how about a softball player tries to hit off a baseball player
That Bonds and Finch banter reeks of a certain kind of tension
I know! I was just waiting for that clip from The Office: "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"
Yes bonds wanting it bad, but she just wants to strike him out.
@@Zraknul They were both feeling each other
Gross
I played baseball for well over 18 years, up into college, and by far the hardest sport I've ever played is golf.
Gay
PLS
Trueee
Have you been playing the show or Something because baseball is way harder than golf. Why do you even think golf is a sport compared to baseball
@@Ihitnukes11267 I want you too try it it’s harder than you think
I’m just playing neutral here. A softball is one of the hardest things to hit but the best softball player ever wouldn’t stand a chance against deGrom or Chapman
Hey! Sorry to tell you but this isn't a neutral opinion imo :)
i mean even a majority of baseball hitters don't stand a chance against those two so..
Fax
it's stupid to compare them by whether or not one could strike out the other. Only one will be in their comfort zone, and the bats they use and the ball being pitched aren't the same. it's just a big piss race
Correct! Vice versa would be true as well.
Barry Bonds voice sounds so much different than I expected it to be.
Yes! I thought the exact same thing!
You mean very high pitched? Like the thing that is a side effect of doing lots and lots of steroids?
@@LancasterResponding yep lol
maybe its the roids haha
@@LancasterResponding other way round, taking male hormone makes your voice deeper
Ranking a sport the "hardest" seems completely silly to me. I mean it might be harder to hit the ball in Baseball but you have probably a higher chance of dying in... I dunno, boxing, horse racing, american football. Wouldn't that make them harder? If we're talking about hitting things, what about golf? Getting that tiny ball to go exactly where you want has to be pretty hard, how about darts? hitting a like 2cmx5cm box with a dart while also avoiding the darts you already threw, that's gotta be pretty hard right?
I got my popcorn ready for the comment section
I have mine ready as well 🍿
I get my popcorn ready once I see a new upload from our main mans
Y’all got some salt?
Also I propose a news game called hard ball. It’s essentially a regular game but has two mounds. A baseball mound in the back and a soft ball mound in the front. If a pitcher chooses to pitch on the soft ball mound the batter gets a softball bat and vise versa. The bases are soft ball distance and the outfield is baseball distance. We should just see what happens because it would be ridiculous
Yup
I think you've got the wrong diameter measurements, there's no way Jose Altuve is only 5.5 softballs tall
Diameter of a softball: 3.5 in.
So 5.5 softballs =19.25 in, or 1 foot 7 inches. That’s about 4 feet away from Altuve’s height, lol.
maybe he's just that short lol
I'm pretty sure he meant circumference and not diameter but it did sound funny
@@rhark25 yeah he must've otherwise he was saying a softball was 1 foot across. Major fuck up
@@rhark25 yeah ik lol
Let me just ask why there wasn't a test of the best baseball pitcher against best softball hitter, we need this to really prove anything
There it is.
They can't find a pitcher willing to give up their limited bullets.
@@Zraknul there is the offseason
Because all softball refuse to conduct that experiment as a result of them knowing they’d get owned. The argument ends when you get a baseball pitcher against a fastpitch hitter.
I remember struggling to hit a slow pitch softball when I joined a local men's league. I played baseball for 15 years. Couldn't hit that ball at all in our first practice. Moral is that the pitches are different so the trying to see if a pro can hit the ball is really dumb.
Also, the more pitches a professional hitter sees, the more locked in they will get. I'd love to see the best softball hitter get in the box against Gerrit Cole, Jacob DeGrom or Walker Buehler and try and get a hit. Very different skillsets.
when it’s slow, you think too much about hitting the ball and you get the yips. In baseball, you swing essentially on instinct and repetition. it’s like going from facing the Vandy commit throwing 95, to facing the backup center fielder throwing 65.
Yeah I recently played slow pitch softball for the first time after not playing baseball for 6 years... struck out 3 times lol... pretty sure I'm not waiting on it enough. It's a strange adjustment.
If pitchers in the MLB threw from 43 feet nobody is hitting it😂
Facs
And if hitters in the mlb had a 200 foot home run wall everyone would be batting 500
@@hoppingh907 you realize the ball weighs weigh more and as he said in the vido men are geneticly stronger dosent mean our sport isnt hard
@@lilabear9968 Have you held a softball? Just because it is bigger than a baseball doesn't mean it is heavier than a baseball. Softballs are way lighter. Also a bigger target for the hitters. Softball players don't have to hit as far, don't have to run as far, and don't have to work as hard as a baseball player.
Why comparing this! They are not the same sports it like comparing powerlifting with weight lifting or judo with karate, that they are in the same sport discipline doesn't mean they are the same as he is saying. Softball and baseball both have their challenges.
From all the clips of strikeouts that you showed, just about every single pitch was beyond off the plate. Larger strike zone, more ball to hit the zone, smaller physical builds to a same size strike zone, all equals more strikeouts. Also try inverting the roles
You trained for something and is expected to excel at another role in 30 minutes? Let's see if softball players can hit Jacob deGrom
Major leaguers have a hard time so I can only imagine
Agreed! I was a college baseball player, after college I played slow pitch rec baseball, it was totally different! I swear it took me 3 or 4 games just to be able to hit the softball out of the infield. Totally different, so yes you train all your life for 1 thing then try something different your not going to be great at it……… long winded way of saying I agree that’s all
@@idolnash13 lol
sAME FOR MEN BUT THEN THEY ARE LIKE WOWOWOW OMG WOMEN STRIKES OUT THE WORST PLAYER EVER WOWOWOW SHES INSANE BEST IN THE WORLD
Jacob degrom can picth to them it would be easy
The funny thing is this is proving that pitching for baseball is harder than pitching for softball
thats what i was thinking the entire time watching this lol
@@bryanputman1582 and when did a girl try to hit a baseball with a wood bat
@@garrettkucera1264 lol softball is somewhat harder and this is coming from a baseball player
Ok go pitch a softball
im just saying they could have added that to help with the study
I played against my schools softball team. It was the first time I had ever faced a softball pitcher. I went 2 for 3 with a home run
funny how i’ve never seen a softball player try to hit 100 mph
Fr tho
Facts
But that doesn't fit the model of setting up the man in a no win situation which is clearly not apples to apples, so it'll never happen
It’s underhand
Probably because no one has ever thrown a softball 100mph…
The use of AVG (batting average) as a means of comparing the difficulty of hitting softball pitching versus baseball pitching is misleading. The contact rate in softball is far lower than in baseball. This should make sense to everyone since the strikeout rate in softball is so high and so much higher than in baseball. HOWEVER … once the ball is in play far more batted balls result in hits in softball than in baseball due to the proximity of the infielders to the batter. You should really be comparing the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) statistics in softball compared to baseball. What you should see is that that the BABIP in softball is considerably higher in softball than in baseball, probably due to the fact the infield is tiny compared to baseball infield and the chance of fielding and throwing out a hard hit ball in softball is much lower than that in baseball; baseball infielders have much more time to get to, field, and throw (although the throws do have further to travel, but this only adds fractions of a second at best on the throw to first base) than their softball infielder counterparts. This also helps explain why the absolute best hitters in softball regularly have batting averages over .400, but we never see this in baseball anymore. If you compare the contact rate of the best of the best softball hitters it’s close to that in baseball, but far more of those struck balls result in hits in softball due to the small infield. I’m not sure what effect this has, but drag bunting for a hit is a viable softball strategy due to the short base distances, but it has all but disappeared in baseball, thus contributing to the overall higher batting averages among the best hitters in softball.
I’m any case, the statistics to be checking regarding the difficulty of hitting for average in softball versus baseball are Contact Rate, Ball in Play Rate and BABIP … not AVG.
The idea that Finch could prove hitting in softball is harder than hitting in baseball, when the demonstration includes exactly zero hitting of baseballs, is ludicrous. You'd have to have softball hitters try to hit baseball pitching as well, which they would fail at very badly, because that's not what they've trained to do.
Excellent point
That’s a great point
I'm just going to add this, and I'm sure it won't help anything: when I was coaching rec-league softball (10-year-olds), I realized in the first few practices they had no idea how to hit the softball, even off the tee.
So, I went and got a baseball tee and a pile of baseballs, sprayed them with yellow spraypaint, and setup the tee, spending a whole practice JUST coaching them batting these baseballs off the tee.
If memory serves correctly, the girls were smacking the softballs in the next practice without much trouble at all. It could be argued that just teaching them how to think about how to hit in general made them better, but I can tell you anecdotally, going from learning to hit the smaller ball to the bigger one made them the best team in our rec league, hands down. It wasn't about the wins, but the confidence, and the girls gained that in spades.
I don't know that a softball player could rock a baseball the same way, though.
EXACTLY! They're just different sports!
A baseball player told me he struggled in softball with the upward trajectory of the softball pitch. But when he did occasionally hit a softball, it stayed hit.
it stayed hit 😂facts
They should put pro pitcher vs softball hiter
Finer was basically if a top 5 draft pick decided he wanted to be a Harlem Globe Trotter instead of going to the NBA, and I love it.
A competitive sport can never truly be harder or easier than another competitive sport. Easier to score or hit home runs? Definitely possible. Easier to pitch? Also possible. But a sport can never be harder than another similar sport because any advantage you gain is also gained by your opponent. If mlb was to allow metal bats, it would become much easier to score runs, but you would also need to score more runs to keep up with the other team.
That's a good point
But that’s not the same if you have football players a a rugby ball they’d struggle cause it’s different so no some sports are definitely harder in certain areas
@@sl1mreapa398 I think the main point is all sports have their own difficulties and easier aspects but its just a different sport that takes different players
@@sl1mreapa398 A football player would not be able to deal with the aerobic workload of a rugby, but IMO a big hit by an unpadded football player could probably kill the typical rugby player
@@atomicgiraffe250 Rugby players are trained to hit without pads while NFL players are trained to hit with pads. If unpadded, rugby players would murder NFL players. Remember, rugby players are all BUILT and they have been train to hit without pads ever since they're young. There's no debate.
The problem with a softball picture going as an MLB hitter is the hitter already has a disadvantage. It would be same if you swap the rolls. For instance, Barry Bonds is not built to hit up softball pitch; he's built to hit a baseball pitch just like how a softball player is built to hit a softball pitch not a baseball pitch.
I feel like Bonds and Finch never truly faced each other so that people can still argue about this today
They faced each other in the bedroom
I got to 11:50 and was pulling my hair out until you came around haha glad I was patient
I did not expect to see you here. Love your videos!
@@kvltman782 LOL! the only friends The
I am at 19:43 and am still pulling my hair out. Hitting is only one part of the game I think the title does not fit. Also this is some of the worst science ive ever seen and thats excusing the human variable factor
Haha man I was thinking the same thing! Sports Science conveniently leaves out those facts. But after all it's an ESPN show and really how much integrity does ESPN have...?
yeah, the title doesn't fit because the sports can't really compare as to which is "harder" cuz some aspects of one sport are much harder and some are much easier (pitching and hitting). I think the adequate title should be "comparing hitting and pitching in softball and baseball" or a shortened title that means the same thing.
The fairest way to judge is to eliminate as many variables as possible
So
A) do set amount of pitches with both balls in their normal pitch style from 48 feet and from 60 feet.
B) create a special wooden softball bat that adheres to the standard softball bat size and then let the batter swing at both softball and baseball using both wooden and aluminum bats.
Then measure the averages of contacts, fair hits, and strikes using both bats and distances from the plate.
Watched this entire video when I’m running out of time until school
Just so I could get a
“Both difficult in their own ways”....
what did u expect
theyre different sports with a lot of different mechanics lol
@@evangross5481 anything else😂
@@evangross5481 Idk, sometimes you hope that these kind of videos would rise above the "everyone is special" bullshit.
It’s baseball lol. If you want me to explain more reasoning I can. But I kinda figured he would’ve made the video like that to not get hate
This is all very interesting but i'm curious as to why side arm and submarine pitchers aren't mentioned for the baseball side. Those two pitching types effect the angle of trajectory from the pitcher to the batter. With the submarine style getting pretty close to the softball angles of a rising fastball.
Exactly I was thinking the same thing
I think the conclusion you state is 100% spot on. Both sports are challenging in unique ways. So basing the which one is harder off of can softball pitchers strike out MLB hitters ( which still hadn't been done accurately because every video showed hitters using baseball bats not softball bats)... it's like saying can MLB hitters get a hit off cricket bowlers with a baseball bat and using that to decide which sport is harder
I know nothing about baseball and literally watched a video because of the channel name. Now I watch every damn one as soon as it comes out
That’s amazing!!
Lol same. Don’t even watch baseball but that A rod video and this one were so interesting I subscribed.
same this channel made me watch baseball
great video!!!! I just know one thing my father and grandfather couldn't play baseball with us cuz it was so hard for them..... the baseball that we played hitting a 70 mph baseball was normal in this video to make it sound like a huge deal,sorry Dad keep playing softball (love you grandpa)
Softball Doesn’t Exist
best comment lol
hit the nail on the head. very different sports that are hard in their own way. softball players struggle to play baseball and baseball players struggle to play softball. very good video my man
The most famous softball i pitcher ever Jenny finch... yup never heard of her
thats unironically sad
i saw her on a baseball talk show and she she couldn’t hit a wiffle ball that everyone else could hit that’s how i know her
Young
Never heard of the baseball guy either ngl
well you might young asf then
if anything, your videos are thought provoking and absolutely spark conversation. i'll say this, having played competitively into D1 baseball: i'd rather face a 12-6 than a riser all day. Women's fast pitch is an incredibly dope sport that has always lived in the shadow of Men's baseball. it's a shame.
I seem to remember an episode of sports science where they did a similar thing with a baseball player hitting against a cricket pitcher. At first the mlb player couldn’t touch it UNTIL he was able to adjust for the rise after the bounce once he got used to it he lit it up
@Jacobite Jones dream on limey
@Jacobite Jones what you don’t know is baseball and how well baseball players adjust to all kinds of pitching especially the pros.
@Jacobite Jones TOP TIER mlb player? It was a player named Mark Reynolds , a 16th round pick , when he was a Rookie or 2nd year player as a major leaguer he was basically a journeyman player with some power with a lifetime batting average of .236 hardly a TOP TIER PLAYER
I'm going to tell my future family that this is the documentary that we will traditionally watch during Easter supper.
Wtf
As odd as that statement is, it makes complete sense to me. Softball reminds me of Easter with the family.
My dad played softball when he was in his 20s and said it was better to hit than a baseball. The first point he brought up was that the ball goes a lot farther then in baseball, so when you hit it goes really far. However though it does hang a little more than a baseball in the air. So in general a major league softball player would not be able to hit a baseball player, and a major baseball player would not be able to hit of the softball pro.
That’s not true, there are pro softball players who played professional hardball at some level. Pretty sure they could hit a pro hardball pitcher and vice versa. Major difference between sports is technique, stance in box, timing for hitting pitch and equipment.
@@mrlapp7916 adjustment time switching between leages
Some considerations:
Softball pitchers get to do that forward prance which also makes it harder to judge when/where the release is. Depending on how you time your stride/hop your hand at bottom arc could be at normal standing height or a good foot lower in a deep lunge. Oh and this just occurred to me: height. Women are often shorter than men. Making someone like Bonds even more foreign to the pitch angle.
You did point out making them use MLB equipment to hit a softball pitch. I would have had them use sport-correct equipment.
Another consideration: I noticed they didn't make softball's best batter take up against Randy Johnson.
There’s numerous videos of college athletes on both sides facing each other, and usually they end the same way, in favor of the baseball player. Of course it is going to be hard on both sides at first, THEY ARE DIFFERENT SPORTS. there would be a similar outcome if it was cricket vs. baseball.
Finally somebody with brain cells in the comment section
I think the real takeaway here is that tweaking a few parameters (ball size, shorter distances, mandatory underarm pitching ...) changes the game fundamentally. While softball obviously started as a variation of baseball, it has become its own game, with its own unique strategies.
Only time I've ever been pissed about being here too early to see the comments
underrated comment
10:35 nobody gon talk about the fact that UNM committed SEVEN ERRORS
Lol
Lol
standing closer to the batter does require quicker reaction time; bobbling a ball is still somewhat common even in college softball (ik that doesn't excuse all the errors I'm just putting it out there)
Lol
I played both, gotta say fastball (aka softball) the bases & pitcher are closer ie. less reaction time & softball has 1 pitch I never saw in hardball, the rise ball. I’ve seen a softball rise about 2 feet, they don’t really have an equivalent pitch in hardball.
Ok, so there have been tons of softball pitchers vs. baseball hitters.
But, what if we tried putting Kershaw vs. whoever's the best softball hitter is?
I feel like this would settle the debate.
if you get used to hitting a baseball it will be hard to hit a softball if you are used to hitting a softball it would hard to hit a baseball they are completely different
Exactly
I feel like familiarity matters a lot in the equation as well. Throughout the video, it was all about a softball being pitched to a baseball player, and never vice versa. I’d just think that if you’ve played one sport most of your life, then it would be extremely difficult to do an entirely different way, and that goes for anyone batting.
“Is basketball harder than football?”
“Well steph curry can hit 10 3’s in warm ups in a row. I bet no offensive lineman can do that” lmfao.
All this talk about can a baseball player hit a softball, but can a softball player hit a baseball from a major league pitcher or even a college or Minor league pitcher?
Y'all are debating whether baseball or softball is harder meanwhile I'm sitting in the batters box getting thrown a blitz ball and its doin 4 curves going to the movies and back and going right into the strike zone.
I think we can all agree that hitting a round ball with a round bat is hard.
Agreed both sports are hard
Like I said below yesterday's poll, I've played both.
Softball is hard on its own and has some hard aspects to it, but when compared to baseball directly, baseball is a bit harder.
At one point he talked about Softball players being smaller than baseball players and I faced a like 4 ft 11 year old picture who threw 54mph
At 5:23 that pitch was just to perfect to not talk about
I played fastball growing up in Ontario Canada (OASA). Then I moved to upstate NY and played baseball in late high school and D3 college. Hitting is easier in softball.....infield fielding is harder in softball. Playing shortstop in softball growing up made me a wicked baseball infielder. It also made me want to swing at every high fastball (baseball) that I saw.
This is the right opinion! Lol as an retired college pitcher, this makes the most sense. You’re able to form a non biased opinion after you were acclimated to both sports.
Okay so the equation to figure out what the equivalent pitch velocity is is the 60.5 feet (61.5 now) divided by the 43 foot softball distance and then multiply by the pitch velocity and since the average mlb pitcher strides out to 55.2 feet when pitching from 61.5 feet with a fastball velocity of 95 mph (the mlb average) takes the same time to the plate as a 105 mph ball launched from a pitching machine at 61.5 feet while the softball pitching distance is 43 feet and a WPF pitcher usually releases at 40.75 feet so the average pitch at 62 mph being released from there is equivalent to 93 mph making a 12 mph pitch difference on the movement idea a baseball can appear to physically rise as it has an average of 2400 rpm’s of pure backspin so while the baseball is released at a downward angle it moves back up because it resists gravity and even a standard fastball change up curveball combo is much harder to see than a softball pitch I’m not saying softball isn’t hard because it is but baseball is harder
But why is the video comparing women to men? Men softball pitchers throw 85 mph fastballs! (from 46 feet)
I don’t play baseball or softball, but I keep coming back to your amazing content
Glaringly obvious thing is that we all know if you took the best baseball pitcher of all time and put a legendary softball hitter in the box, you’re asking for trouble.
Feiner!! Joan Joyce!! thanks for giving props to these legends. hard to compare what-ifs, kinda like boxing vs mma… but good job making your case (this was really well researched tbh)
That was the most satisfying conclusion I could have hoped for. They are different sports. While similar, they are still very unique where it counts.
I would honestly say that they are equally as difficult. Why yes mlb pitches are coming in at up to 100 miles an hour, Softballs are a good 20 closer and still hitting 70's with more movement. I think fielding in softball is a lot harder, but hitting in baseball is harder. I think they both are pretty equal in terms of difficulty
People who say softball is harder havent seen a baseball curve lmao. And to solve this, have the college World Series champ from baseball and softball play each other. Wouldn’t be close
I thought keeping Aaron Rodgers on your team was the hardest thing in sports
@@SlamTheSlammer nah given how much Green Bay pissed him off seems to be pretty easen as he stayed for like 15 years and is only now fed up
@@SlamTheSlammer ouch lmao
@@SlamTheSlammer not really seeing as we kept him for longer than just about any player on whatever dogshit team you like lmao
@@itsnghtmre4363 Ooh buddy you must be thinking of someone who isn’t a pats fan
so when we doing major pitcher on softball hitter?
If i had to guess why barry did not want to try, he probably knew he could not hit it without adjusting his swing and timing, and the risk of going into a slump because of that.
This perhaps the best video i've seen on this. Especially when you break down the fact that making contact is harder for softball but you don't need the same level of contact for success. Realistically when softball players pitch to baseball players & vice versa the main reason hitters struggle is the different release point & not being used to picking the ball up from there. Given a reasonable amount of time & practice to get used to the different release point it is highly likely that you would come out to a draw with the best MLB players & NCAA Players getting similar numbers to what is normal in that code, with the only real difference probably being slugging, but that would probably be gender related & would even out if the field size were adjusted accordingly.
Making contact is not harder in softball. Way bigger ball. Some girls are hitting with an average of .500 which is unheard of in MLB baseball.
It’s only because of different pitch planes. Give an MLB guy a month of practice and he’d rock Jennie finch. Do the opposite and the girl would still look silly.
@@evskiicf3998 Thankyou. The only reason MLB batters struggled initially is because they aren’t experienced with softball pitching, give ‘em some practice and any Schmuck benchwarmer MLB player would be the best womens softball batter in history. People forget that softball is relegated to women for sexist reasons. Yeah they love to tell you that softball was actually created by men as an indoor form of baseball for play during the winter, but what they don’t tell you is that during the 60s and 70s colleges started banning women from playing baseball and relegated them to softball, and while this was happening many of the rules we see now that make softball easier were implemented. Like the ball being brighter, the bats being bigger, etc. All of this happened of course because people thought women couldn’t play baseball and needed an easier sport.
@@macgobhann8712 for sure, take the worlds best womens softball team and give them a month of baseball training then do the same for the baseball team. Then have them play a game against each other in their respective sports (still allowing the actual pitchers of each sport to pitch). The men would obliterate the women in both. It wouldn’t even be close. Almost every at bat would be a home run for the men. The women wouldn’t hit the ball.
What people also forget are softball and baseball players train for different kinds of pitching so of course they are going to struggle against each other
Exactly. Like they focused on MLB hitters against the BEST softball pitcher of all time. I guarantee the BEST softball hitter of all time wouldn’t touch a fastball from Chapman, Ryan or Randy Johnson. This video is fuckin useless😂.
I dont know what is aluminum but it must be some sort of a Light material like aluminium.
I remember seeing The King and his court in N.C. when I was younger. Absolutely entertaining
so the moral of the story, as I understand it, is that baseball and softball are two very different sports and should not be compared with one another
If they can't be compared, then which two can? They're the most alike of any ball sport I can think of.
Finch might be able to strike out bonds, but the real challenge would be to strike out David Fletcher XD
Agreed
The thing is that baseball players have never seen softball pitching before as well as softball players not seeing baseball pitching. The greats in baseball were there because of repetition.
OK we’re not gonna talk about how softball pitches rise baseball players aren’t used to a rising ball
the enthusiasm in his narration is why i stay
What this proves to me is that the two sports look really similar but when you get down to the numbers they're far too different to actually arrive at a proper comparison. When you've been trained to do something specific, an impromptu challenge where the conditions are suddenly changed doesn't constitute a scientific result.