Hunt and Peck

Jordan Hicks throws 105 mph - A Hunt and Peck

Pretty good.

By lil_scooter93 May 21, 2018, 1:00pm EDT

MLB: Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals

On Sunday afternoon Jordan Hicks entered the 2018 record books. Hicks threw a fastball 105 miles per hour, the fastest pitch of the year.

1⃣0⃣4⃣ mph. 1⃣0⃣5⃣mph.@Jhicks007’s throwing GAS. pic.twitter.com/qPsTJqRh1Q
— MLB (@MLB) May 20, 2018

It was also one of the fastest pitches ever thrown. Since Statcast and Pitch F/X started tracking pitch speed, the fastest recorded pitch was thrown by Aroldis Chapman, who has long-owned the leaderboard in this category (so much so the filter by pitch speed is referred to as the “Chapman Filter”), at 105.1 mph.

Some things have changed so far in 2018, though.

Baseball has a new flamethrower, and yet Hicks and Chapman are two very different pitchers, even accounting for youth. Like Chapman, Hicks has some trouble controlling his pitches early on. Unlike Chapman, Hicks is just not striking anyone out. In 50 innings during his first full year in 2011, Chapman’s strikeout to walk ratio was 1.73 with a 3.29 FIP. He struck out 34.3% of batters and walked 19.8%. 22 innings into the 2018 season, Hicks has walked more than he has struck out. His strikeout to walk ratio is .56 and his FIP is 4.91. He has struck out 9.5% of batters and walked 16.8%. It is still early, but those numbers are... well, weird.