The radar gun on the Phillies’ broadcast had one of Heath Bell’s fastballs to Howard at 101 mph. I thought that was interesting, as I knew Bell’s velocity had been down this year.

Josh Kalk has his ‘07 fastball velocity at 96.3 and his curve at 84.6. This year they’re at 93.5 and 81.8, respectively (with a slider at 84 and a few changes and cutters). Fan Graphs goes back to ‘05 (with a different data source, mind you):

Fastball … slider
05: 92 …. 83
06: 94 …. 82.8
07: 94.7 .. 83.5
08: 91.9 .. 81.5

Clearly, his velocity is down. Now, a few questions pop into my mind right away. What if he — or all pitchers — is a slow starter, in terms of velocity? What if it’s just randomness or something (although, I assume there’s less of that with something like pitch speed)? What significance does it have?

All of those question are probably answerable, but I don’t have them at this point. Anyway, how ’bout his pitch speeds last night vs. the Phils? I downloaded the PITCHf/x data and took a quick look:

Fastball: 92.2 (16 of ‘em)
Slider: 81.5 (2)
Curve: 80.6 (5)

Here’s a graph of his fastballs in order (i.e., his first pitch is one, last pitch is 16):

Click for a larger image …

Interesting how his velocity went up as the inning went on, not that I wouldn’t expect that. Anyway, the radar gun the Phils’ broadcast was using was way off. Bell’s velocity appears to be down a good 2-3 mph this year. The results are still there, at least to a degree, although the decrease in k rate may be a bit troubling. Are ya worried?