Major League Baseball

Chapman's heater is off the charts

Published Aug. 30, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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Cincinnati has never seen anything like what it will see when Aroldis Chapman arrives from Louisville on Tuesday.

The hardest throwers in baseball have generally had something in common. From Bob Feller to Nolan Ryan to Joel Zumaya, the men who can crack triple digits are almost always right-handers. Chapman throws as hard as any of them, but he has the added advantage of being a lefty.

According to Pitch F/X data, Zumaya topped 100 mph more than 150 times last year. Righthanders as a whole topped 100 more than 260 times in 2009.

Not one lefty was clocked at 100 mph in 2008 or 2009.

This year two lefties (Phil Coke and Chris Sale) have reached 100 mph for a total of three pitches. Any time a pitcher reaches triple digits it's a special moment, but what Chapman did on Friday in a three-up, three-down, three-strikeout innings against the Columbus Clippers (in what proved to be his final Triple-A outing) enters into Sidd Finch territory.

The stadium gun as well as scouts clocked Chapman at 105 mph (a source told Baseball America that his radar gun had him at 104) at his fastest and consistently above 100 mph in his inning of work.

It will be hard for Chapman to retire the title of the hardest-throwing lefty of all time. Orioles prospect Steve Dalkowski is as much myth as legend — many who faced him believe he threw 105 or better. But he did all his work in the minors, and he did it before radar guns.

Former major-league pitcher Mel Queen saw Sandy Koufax (one of the hardest-throwing lefties of all time), but he says Koufax had nothing on Dalkowski.

"I faced Dalkowski; there was no comparison," Queen said. "It was the hardest I ever seen."

The kind of velocity Chapman showed last weekend almost breaks the 20-80 scouting scale. If grading purely on velocity, a 97-mph fastball is considered an 80, or the upper end of the scale. Subtract eight miles per hour from that down to 89 and you are looking at a 40-45 on the scouting scale. There's nothing in the scouting scale to really account for a pitch eight miles an hour faster than what's already considered an 80.

What was more important for the Reds was Chapman's command. He retired the side on 14 pitches — 11 of them strikes. Since July 10, Chapman has thrown 66 percent strikes. Over those 20 games, Chapman is 4-0, 0.83 with eight saves in eight opportunities. He's allowed 10 hits and seven walks over those 21 2/3 innings with 35 strikeouts. He's struck out 42 percent of the batters he's faced over the past month and a half.

And now we get to see what he can do on the big stage.