In today's baseball, throwing in the upper 90s is much more commonplace than it was even just a decade ago. Bullpens are stacked with fireballers and starters don't throw nearly as many innings as they used to, so there's no need to hold back on the mound.
Add in better training programs, breakthroughs in surgeries and recovery and new nutrition habits and it's no surprise that pitchers are throwing harder than ever.
That's not to say that there weren't incredibly powerful hurlers throughout the years. Nolan Ryan was clocked at 100 mph but was subject the old standard of radar tracking (at home plate). Many believe that if Ryan was clocked using today's standard (about 10 feet before home plate), his fastest pitches would come in somewhere around 108 mph.
And of course Randy Johnson exploded a bird while on the mound. We're not entirely sure how fast that ball was moving, but Johnson and his Diamondbacks catcher at the time (Rod Barajas) estimated it was around 100 mph.
Bob Feller participated in an early speed test where he threw a baseball against a racing motorcycle going 86 mph. Feller didn't release the ball until the motorcycle was already 10 feet or so ahead of him, but his pitch still crossed the finish line first. Early estimates suggested that ball was going over 100 mph. No wonder they called him 'Rapid Robert.'
Then there's Roger Clemens, who earned the nickname "The Rocket" for his 98 mph heater. Clemens maintained his high velocity well into his late 30s and won seven Cy Young awards.
However, these players were anomalies. Not the norm. Go back to just 2007 and you'll see a stark contrast on the mound. For example, in that 2007 season, the fastest average fastball speed was 97.6 mph (it belonged to Jonathan Broxton).
In 2025, Broxton and his 97.6 mph heater would be tied for 28th in MLB. Eight different pitchers currently average at least 99 mph on their fastballs. Three of them (Mason Miller, Jhoan Duran and Seth Halvorsen) average more than 100 mph.
So let's take a look back at the fastest pitches in MLB history, or perhaps more accurately, the fastest pitches of the statcast era.
The Fastest Pitches Ever Thrown in MLB History
Player
Speed (MPH)
Year
Aroldis Chapman
105.8
2010
Aroldis Chapman
105.7
2016
Ben Joyce
105.5
2024
Aroldis Chapman
105.4
2016
Aroldis Chapman
105.2
2016
Aroldis Chapman
105.1
2024
Aroldis Chapman
105.1
2016
Aroldis Chapman
105.1
2016
Aroldis Chapman
105.1
2016
Jordan Hicks
105
2018
Aroldis Chapman
105
2016
Jordan Hicks
105
2018
Aroldis Chapman: Bringing the Heat Since 2010
Nicknamed the "Cuban Missile," Chapman made his MLB debut with the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 31, 2010. Just one month later, on Sept. 24, 2010, he threw the fastest recorded pitch in MLB history: a 105.8 mph fastball.
Since then, he's thrown nothing but gas for the Reds, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox. Chapman is an eight-time All-Star, a two-time World Series winner and a Mariano Rivera American League Reliever of the Year award winner.
And he doesn't appear to be slowing down (or losing any velocity) with age. Despite now being 37-years-old, Chapman still routinely throws 100+ mph and is currently the Red Sox's closer.
How Pitch Velocity Is Measured
In the 1940s, there were some efforts to clock pitch speed, mainly due to Feller's incredible fastball. His motorcycle-radar test was a pioneering effort at the time, but it doesn't really hold up today.
This is because the ball speed was measured by timing the ball as it hit a barrier 60 feet away, but this severely underreported velocity as the ball will lose anywhere between five and 10% of its speed from the time it leaves the pitcher's hand to when it crosses the plate.
By the 1970s, radar guns were pretty commonplace in baseball. They provided much more consistent readings of speed, but it all depended on where the ball was being tracked. More often than not, it was at home plate, where the pitch was at its slowest.
MLB implemented PITCHf/x in all ballparks by 2008, which used triangulation to track both pitch speed and break. At this point, all pitch speeds were normalized to the 50-foot release point as well, making all of them comparable.
Now, MLB uses Statcast. Statcast uses Doppler radar and Hawk-Eye to track pitches' speed, exit velocity, spin rate and more.
Every pitch is now measured at release, making Chapman's 105.8 mph pitch truly the fastest verified throw in MLB history.