What Has Happened to the Fastball?

[Sea Ray]

Have any of you noticed that a lot of Reds pitchers have lost velocity on their fastballs from past years? Let's look at this:

Graves: Used to be at 96 when he came up. Now he's lucky to hit 90
Coffey: Reported to be in the 95-97 range last year. This year he's rarely above 92
Wagner: Used to get it up to 94. Now rarely hits 92
Wilson: His loss of velocity is well documented by Gullett himself
Milton: Ditto
Valentine: Used to hit 97 now rarely hits 93
Claussen: Supposedly was gaining velocity as he recovers from TJ surgery. Instead his velocity is less than it was last year. He's generally about 85 MPH now occasionally popping 88.

That's seven guys right off the top of my head. What's up with this? Any ideas?

I think it's either the fragile conditioning program they've got these guys on or it's this pitch to contact philosophy. Whatever, they need to realize this fact and then attempt to address it. I think O'Brien can't even decide to DL a pitcher who can't pitch (Claussen), much less make bigger decisions.

[Cincy]

Steriods?

[redsrbetter]

See, I am totally thinking the same thing here. Where is the velocity of these pitchers? Batters are teeing off on these guys to where they are afraid to throw strikes. Hence all the walks and all the big hits. Not one pitcher can get a pitch past any batter outside of perhaps Wagner's slider. So on a staff of 12 arms and about 36 different pitches, there is 1 that can sometimes get batters to swing and miss. Can anyone else think of another pitch? This is horrible fellas.

[volzok]

I cant think of any. There is maybe a few that can when the pitcher is "on" but that rarely happens. I dont have a problem not having lots of K, but obviously it helps if the pitches are effective. That needs to happen soon.

[Sea Ray]

I don't think it's steroids. Why is this only a problem with our pitchers? I don't see a velocity loss across the board and I refuse to think the Reds just happened to have a staff full of juicers.

And guys in the minors like Valentine and Coffey wouldn't have used in past years because I think they have been subject to testing for a long tome. That's why folks like McGwire came up skinny and then bulked up after reaching the majors.

[bipster]

Maybe the radar gun is broke

[BigRedMachine]

How about the pitching coach himself? Maybe they are trying so hard to get these guys to improve they are messing around with what helped them reach those previous velocities. Some maybe due to just struggling all the way around. I was just looking at some team stats and found that Harang is the leading ERA for the team at 3.45. The next "lowest" was Milton at 7.21. That was from Yahoo sports, I couldn't get the team's site to load up for some reason. Get some confidence back and maybe the speed will come back once they have faith in being able to control it.

[Sea Ray]

Get some confidence back and maybe the speed will come back once they have faith in being able to control it.

I wish it were that simple but I fear the problem is more complicated than confidence. I agree with you that the pitching coach should be accountable