Baseball’s top flamethrowers search for a frontier beyond 100 MPH
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
By JOHNNY FLORES JR. / THE ATHLETIC
Mason Miller was fresh off the MLB draft, a newly minted third-round pick for the Athletics. Aroldis Chapman was still an unheralded teenager who had yet to defect from Cuba. Seth Hernández was a rising high school senior in California. And Jacob Misiorowski was pitching in the Junior College World Series.
Individually, they were at different points in their lives. Collectively in these moments, though, they all shared the same experience: their first time reaching 100 mph on a pitching mound.
“Whoa,” Hernández recalled thinking, as triple digits flashed across the board.
Reaching the 100-mph marker is no simple feat. It is a test of what the human body is capable of — arms rearing back then whipping forward, 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate. These days, though, modern pitchers continue to hit milestones that few before could ever achieve. They are throwing harder and harder, and what was once a rarity has become commonplace.
That first taste of 100 mph was merely a precursor, as each of them has continued to test their own limits, raising the question: Is there an undiscovered next level, a hidden third gear?
In 2008, the average velocity of a four-seam fastball sat at 91.9 mph. By 2022, that figure was up a full 2 miles to 93.9. In the first half of 2026, it was 94.6 mph, the highest it has been in the pitch-tracking era, which began in 2008.
In all of the 2025 season, 726 pitches of at least 100 mph were thrown by a starter. In just the first half of this season, there were 1,018.
“You can feel a nice little whiff,” Misiorowski, the Milwaukee Brewers ace, told The Athletic when asked what it’s like to throw 100 mph. “You can hear it. It kind of zings a little bit.”
The subject of velocity and its importance has gained traction recently, particularly as Paul Skenes, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, has seen his own flame-throwing capabilities diminish. What was once a 98.8 mph fastball on average has dipped to 96.8. In his most recent start, in 4 1/3 innings Wednesday, Skenes topped out at 97.9.
For his part, Skenes believes that velocity isn’t the be-all and end-all.
“I don’t think velocity is something I need to pitch well,” Skenes said at the All-Star media day in July. “I think it’s probably the first time in my career the velo has kind of dipped. It’s not something that I’m stressed over at all. I’m healthy. I’m feeling good and still pitching at a high level.”
The results don’t speak of someone pitching at a high level, though. Since July 1, Skenes has a 5.67 earned run average in nine starts.
In 2010, when Chapman, then a member of the Cincinnati Reds, hit 105.8 mph in a blowout relief appearance against the Pittsburgh Pirates, relievers were averaging just under 93 mph on their four-seam fastballs.
His feat was meant to represent a one-off kind of rarity. Instead, it foreshadowed the modern pitching experience.
“In that time, there weren’t that many, like there are now,” Chapman said of his fellow hurlers. “You need to be blessed with a good arm to do that.”
Consider the 82 pitchers who topped 100 mph in 2025 among those who have been blessed.
Chief among them is Misiorowski, the 6-foot-7 right-hander for the Brewers, who led the league in the first half of 2026 with 670 pitches faster than 100 mph, and whose own feat of 105.5 mph came 15 seasons after Chapman first turned heads.
“I think I slipped a little bit on that pitch,” Misiorowski told reporters in June, flashing a toothy grin as he contemplated the potential of a hidden third gear that would allow man to exceed 106 mph.
If there is, it likely will not come from the arm of Misiorowski, the favorite to win the National League Cy Young Award in his first full season in the majors.
“Honestly, I think that’s it,” Misiorowski admitted. “I think that’s right about where I’m sitting. If that’s all I get, that’s all I get.”
Perhaps, then, Hernández, whom the Pirates made the No. 6 pick in the 2025 draft, can find it. A 6-foot-4 right-hander, Hernández just turned 20 in June.
“What Misiorowski is doing is special,” Hernández said. “I’m still pretty young, so hopefully, as I grow into my body, get a little more physical, maybe there’s more velo in the tank.”
A year and a half after first touching 100 mph, Hernández reached 102.4 mph in a spring training game against the Detroit Tigers.
“It was quite a while ago, so I almost forgot the feeling of it a little bit,” Hernández said in mid-July. “You could feel the hum off your fingers a little bit.”
A little over an hour after making those comments, Hernández, pitching in the MLB Futures Game, hit triple digits three times and topped out at 101 mph, the feeling of elite velocity returning, even if for a moment.
One flamethrower who likely will not challenge for the velocity crown is Cincinnati’s Chase Burns, a 6-foot-3 righty who hit 102 mph as a 20-year-old sophomore for the University of Tennessee.
“I think that might be the top for me,” Burns admitted. “As I get older and maybe get stronger and push the limits on my body, I might be able to get more. But it’s kind of hard when you throw so many innings in a year, so many pitches. I think right now, though, that’s the top for me.”
As a rookie in 2025, Burns averaged 98.7 mph on his heater, and this season, it sits at 97.6, right around what Cam Schlittler, Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki all average. He has reached 101 as a big leaguer and has exceeded 100 mph at different points this campaign.
It’s not just the innings that players have to account for, particularly starters such as Burns, Misiorowski and Hernández. It’s also how their bodies respond.
“I think those guys, they’re so in tune with their body and their mechanics that it’s easier,” Burns said. “You definitely feel it the next day — you’re pretty sore.”
Just because something is physically possible does not mean it is free of pain, and what is physically possible also does not necessarily lend itself easily to repetition, arguably the most difficult aspect of being able to maintain elite levels of velocity.
“Flexibility,” said Misiorowski when asked what it takes to throw 100-plus consistently. “A motion that you can repeat day in and day out, and just being strong.”
That is why players like Chapman put a high emphasis on strength and conditioning.
“Consistency, consistency and all the things that everybody doesn’t get to see,” Miller said. “Weight room, training room, everything that prepares you to be able to go out and compete at your best each night.”
Therein lies the biggest obstacle: No matter how much work it does, the human body is only capable of so much.
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