Is Softball Harder Than Baseball? 

When I said a Softball is 12 inches in diameter I meant circumference... Sorry for being dumb. It will definitely happen again.

People argue about baseball or softball being harder to hit... Meanwhile im watching a wiffleball take a 90 degree cut, twice, stop in mid air, make the batter a milkshake, then hit the strikezone.

Does softball exist? We know baseball doesn't.

Having a baseball player try and hit softball pitches is sort of like taking a pro road cyclist and having them try mountain biking, then using that as justification for why mountain biking is harder. High level athletes are extremely specialized and their skills aren't going to immediately be transferred over to something similar without practicing it.

I love that you casually threw in there that a Wiffleball is harder to hit that both 🤣

Now we need a good softball hitter with a wood bat against Chapman😂😂😂

Alright, now take the best softball hitters, hand them a mlb bat, and face them off against the best baseball pitchers in the world. It’s the same results, it’s based on what you’ve practiced against your whole life and what you’re used to seeing

I have played both sports. Neither at professional or even near professional level but at a comparable level. As soon as baseball batters realise that the actual game is "tap and run" softball becomes quite easy. As you note at the end, you do not need solid contact, you simply need ANY contact and you get on base.

Truthfully both are impressive as hell with the amount of training going into it. I use to play softball and sometimes I legitimately felt like those pitches were gonna snap my bat in half (that's just me though). Playing a competitive game of baseball with my cousins though yeah it definitely took huge batting adjustments. It would be interesting to see some of best softball batters going up against mlb pitchers to see how they adjust as well who knows maybe will get surprised. Both sports are hard and it's truly impressive seeing people build their crafts.

If a baseball was pitched from 43 feet, the average MLB era would be 0.004

Now I would like to see a soft baller hit a Chapman 100 MPH pitch.

I played baseball my entire youth. We had separate leagues for softball and hardball obviously. I being in a small community and within the same age group, had the opportunity to play for both teams in my graduating year. I can confidently say that hitting the softball was much easier than a baseball. However, the ball coming off the bat is much different. Didn’t have the same flight and harder to place hits. Essentially my strikeouts were way down but fielded outs were up.

As a softball player who played baseball during a fall ball season while also playing travel softball, baseballs are harder to hit if you’re not use to it. I only got one hit that season (I was walked a lot tho cause it was fall ball and the pitchers sucked.) but I was by far the best first baseman. However my entire team was scared to be my batter, my fastest pitch at 13/14 was 52/53 but could throw 49-51 consistently with the old standard windmill snap. I could only imagine if I changed the spin and used the newer snap

The fact that the softball dude was able to pitch between his legs and behind his back and still manage to not only hit the strike zone, but just annihilate entire teams while doing it, is insane.

All this video proved to me is that these two sports are completely different

Hey man. I gotta say that you have a great channel with terrific production value going on here. Editing, commentary and the pacing is perfect, these are a joy to watch. And this is coming from a Finn who knows nothing about baseball - the drama, spectacle, inner workings of the culture is awesomely ridiculous.

I've played both and it takes me more time to adjust to batting for softball, but once I've made the adjustment it feels very easy to pop a hit. Casual picnic softball might skew opinions here.

Are we not gonna talk about the fact that a professional softball field is the same size as a little league field for 11-12 year olds.

So are we not gonna talk about how that guy could throw a 90+ mph softball pitch behind his back in his 60’s

thank you so much for clarifying that both sports are hard in their own unique ways! if only everyone knew that

great video!!!! I just know one thing my father and grandfather couldn't play baseball with us cuz it was so hard for them..... the baseball that we played hitting a 70 mph baseball was normal in this video to make it sound like a huge deal,sorry Dad keep playing softball (love you grandpa)

Love how nobody ever talks about a softball batter facing a professional baseball pitcher. Can you imagine Randy Johnson in his prime standing on a mound facing the best D-1softball batters

The reason MLB players struggle against softball pitchers is because the practiced their whole lives to hit against a BASEBALL pitcher and vice versa

Okay so the equation to figure out what the equivalent pitch velocity is is the 60.5 feet (61.5 now) divided by the 43 foot softball distance and then multiply by the pitch velocity and since the average mlb pitcher strides out to 55.2 feet when pitching from 61.5 feet with a fastball velocity of 95 mph (the mlb average) takes the same time to the plate as a 105 mph ball launched from a pitching machine at 61.5 feet while the softball pitching distance is 43 feet and a WPF pitcher usually releases at 40.75 feet so the average pitch at 62 mph being released from there is equivalent to 93 mph making a 12 mph pitch difference on the movement idea a baseball can appear to physically rise as it has an average of 2400 rpm’s of pure backspin so while the baseball is released at a downward angle it moves back up because it resists gravity and even a standard fastball change up curveball combo is much harder to see than a softball pitch I’m not saying softball isn’t hard because it is but baseball is harder

13:30 These stats indicate that the pool of talent in Softball is much more variable than the talent in baseball. Major league baseball may be the 1% best baseball players all playing against each other. But the softball players may only be the 10% best players. Meaning that the best pitchers and best hitters are those 1% players in softball and can dominate most of the competition. Harder for the major league baseball players to stand out. This would explain why there are so many all star pitchers and hitters that dominate.

Yea well, let’s do a session where Chapman faces 30 of the best softball players.

We need Jacob DeGrom facing the best softball hitter from 60 feet and she has to use a wood baseball bat. And then the best softball pitcher vs Mike Trout from 43 feet and Trout gets a softball bat

Feiner!! Joan Joyce!! thanks for giving props to these legends. hard to compare what-ifs, kinda like boxing vs mma… but good job making your case (this was really well researched tbh)

From all the clips of strikeouts that you showed, just about every single pitch was beyond off the plate. Larger strike zone, more ball to hit the zone, smaller physical builds to a same size strike zone, all equals more strikeouts. Also try inverting the roles

It seems like just the other day BDE only had 20k subs. Now he's well over 100k and deserves every single one

All this talk about can a baseball player hit a softball, but can a softball player hit a baseball from a major league pitcher or even a college or Minor league pitcher?

I don't even like sports but you manage to make interesting videos about them regardless well done.

We always bring the baseball players to the softball field, but never the softball players to the baseball field

One of the biggest issues I have with the methodologies shown is that they always take one player out of their element. Trajectory might not sound like THAT big a deal, but when you've spent your life perfecting the art of hitting a ball from a different trajectory, of COURSE you'll struggle. I think you'd see the same thing if the best softball hitters tried to hit baseball pitches, which doesn't appear to have even been attempted. A better experiment might be to get groups of people who've never played either one and see which skill is harder to train: hitting a baseball, or hitting a softball.

if anything, your videos are thought provoking and absolutely spark conversation. i'll say this, having played competitively into D1 baseball: i'd rather face a 12-6 than a riser all day. Women's fast pitch is an incredibly dope sport that has always lived in the shadow of Men's baseball. it's a shame.

I played both, gotta say fastball (aka softball) the bases & pitcher are closer ie. less reaction time & softball has 1 pitch I never saw in hardball, the rise ball. I’ve seen a softball rise about 2 feet, they don’t really have an equivalent pitch in hardball.

I always wonder why sports center didn't bring in a softball hitter to try and hit a baseball with a heavier wooden bat at 97-99 mph. There was definitely a narrative the producers wanted to push with that episode lol.

This guy became the greatest softball pitcher all for a meme😂😂 What a true legend

Some considerations: Softball pitchers get to do that forward prance which also makes it harder to judge when/where the release is. Depending on how you time your stride/hop your hand at bottom arc could be at normal standing height or a good foot lower in a deep lunge. Oh and this just occurred to me: height. Women are often shorter than men. Making someone like Bonds even more foreign to the pitch angle. You did point out making them use MLB equipment to hit a softball pitch. I would have had them use sport-correct equipment. Another consideration: I noticed they didn't make softball's best batter take up against Randy Johnson.

I don't know how the show calculated energy but I ran the weight and speeds for a baseball and softball through a ballistics calculater and got 99 ft/lbs for the baseball and 76 ft/lbs for a softball. A KE value of 2400 ft/lbs would make the impact energy 2X greater than a 5.56 NATO round out of 20" barrel.

Trever Bauer knows how too add 100rpm to your softball pitching

That Bonds and Finch banter reeks of a certain kind of tension

Normal people: "Submarine pitching is so hard!!!!" Softball players "hold my beer"

Anyone with a softball playing daughter or sister knows how absolutely important pitching is. Im talking about middle school to high school. If they stink, you’re gonna witness the slowest version of the game where the batting teams get walked after walk. On the other hand, i great softball pitcher is usually un-hittable! Both versions of the game are difficult for different reasons, but the eye test, along with stats, tells me softball pitchers have a better advantage then baseball pitchers.

I don’t understand why “the only way” to prove softball is harder than baseball is a softball pitcher and baseball hitter. Wouldn’t you also do baseball pitcher with softball hitter.

So they never tested a softball player hitting an mlb pitcher?

I dont know what is aluminum but it must be some sort of a Light material like aluminium.

This is a great video. I'd love to see the best softball hitters face the best baseball pitchers. Has that ever happened? If not, I wonder why.

The issue with "which is harder to hit" Softball vs Baseball, really comes done to familiarity. There was a college that "replayed" the sports science test, pitted the best female Softball pitcher on their schools team, who was ranked top 5 in the US, versus the best Baseball hitter on their schools team, rated in the top 50. The difference is the hitter was allowed to "prepare" for how Softballs are pitched. He visited batting cages for 1 day, & spent am additional day with another Softball pitcher. When the match up came, the hitter struck out the first, took 2 strikes next, a foul, then another strike. On the third set he fouled, then line drive. Fourth set line drive, followed by deep hit, lastly he hammered the last pitch for a homerun. He had essentially figured out the angle, & speed difference, add in the ball being a larger size, & the Baseball player now has an advantage. This is the key to this argument, facing an unseen style of "pitching" can obviously cause any hitter to fail, but adapting to Softball seems to be a simpler task then adapting to a Baseball

There are a few things wrong with this in my opinion. The first is they didn't let softball hitters go up against some like chapman or any mlb pitcher. The other thing that I thought was wrong was that the batters that faced the softball pitchers had never had the chance to adapt to that kinda pitch while softball players have their whole career to be able to adapt to it.

The fairest way to judge is to eliminate as many variables as possible So A) do set amount of pitches with both balls in their normal pitch style from 48 feet and from 60 feet. B) create a special wooden softball bat that adheres to the standard softball bat size and then let the batter swing at both softball and baseball using both wooden and aluminum bats. Then measure the averages of contacts, fair hits, and strikes using both bats and distances from the plate.

Well how about a softball player tries to hit off a baseball player

Umm why was it never measured as a baseball pitcher against a softball hitter?

I played baseball for well over 18 years, up into college, and by far the hardest sport I've ever played is golf.

In Canada we call it Fast Ball, Soft Ball is when you just lob it in underhand and can be mixed with 4 women and 6 men

I was always under the impression that both the baseball and softball mounds were the same distance .. Why haven’t we tried softball hitters hitting a professional 100 mph pitcher using a softball mound and vice versa

I’m just playing neutral here. A softball is one of the hardest things to hit but the best softball player ever wouldn’t stand a chance against deGrom or Chapman

Being tested in head to head conditions, the pitcher from either sport has the advantage over the hitter from the other as long as the softball pitcher doesn't have to throw from the mound 60 ft away. The change in angle would force the hitter to change their swing, while the pitcher can just do what they do best.

Yo I’m a huge fan, your knowledge is insane dude.

My baseball team played the softball team in softball and with zero practice beat them 27-3

Barry Bonds voice sounds so much different than I expected it to be.

I got my popcorn ready for the comment section

My brother Tom faced Eddie Feigner, Rod Lanagis and Stan Kern . Hit home runs off two of them in baseball fields . He told me Eddie was the trickiest, Langis the best and Stan Kern the fastest at 130 mph he wacked two from Stan out of baseball parks and became all star second baseman for Canada because of it . BTW he was a shortstop and this was the first time he played second base . My dad was his coach .

@1:52 - 2:05 Ohhhhh myyyyy 😏thought I was watching a scene from blacked lol

I will say this. I was batting right around 500 my senior year in high school. I struck out a few times going against a female softball pitcher. I did some practicing and I was able to adjust to the different style and could hit. It really is just adjusting to a completely different style of pitching and ball travel.

It should be a war crime that there is an ad right before the beat drops in the intro

as somebody whose officiated both at the HS level, it really comes down to preparation. Both are hard to hit and any display before the pitching change which moved the softball rubber back to 43ft really is null and void today. When the rubber was at 40 ft.. scary.. but 43.. even mathmatically they are pretty evenly matched now. It's not that one's tougher than the other.. it's really.. if you're used to baseball.. that will be easier.. velocity is not the problem... movement in baseball is bigger.. softball.. even 43 ft, you don't have much time for adjustments. But as someone who has both officated and played both... hitting the pitches just takes a little practice... but both are pretty equal today.. now, once the ball is in play.. the IF for softball can't misplay the ball or they are safe at first.. baseball.. they can misplay it a bit and still get the runner at first.

Harrold felt confident that nobody would ever suspect his spy pigeon.

The funny thing is this is proving that pitching for baseball is harder than pitching for softball

I think you've got the wrong diameter measurements, there's no way Jose Altuve is only 5.5 softballs tall

Are we just not gonna talk about the fact that a baseball moves a ton because the mlb curveball drops like 5 feet between when it reaches the plate and is caught by the catcher

They should put pro pitcher vs softball hiter

Let me just ask why there wasn't a test of the best baseball pitcher against best softball hitter, we need this to really prove anything

Just imagine the MLB pitching mound was moved to 43 foot.

The use of AVG (batting average) as a means of comparing the difficulty of hitting softball pitching versus baseball pitching is misleading. The contact rate in softball is far lower than in baseball. This should make sense to everyone since the strikeout rate in softball is so high and so much higher than in baseball. HOWEVER … once the ball is in play far more batted balls result in hits in softball than in baseball due to the proximity of the infielders to the batter. You should really be comparing the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) statistics in softball compared to baseball. What you should see is that that the BABIP in softball is considerably higher in softball than in baseball, probably due to the fact the infield is tiny compared to baseball infield and the chance of fielding and throwing out a hard hit ball in softball is much lower than that in baseball; baseball infielders have much more time to get to, field, and throw (although the throws do have further to travel, but this only adds fractions of a second at best on the throw to first base) than their softball infielder counterparts. This also helps explain why the absolute best hitters in softball regularly have batting averages over .400, but we never see this in baseball anymore. If you compare the contact rate of the best of the best softball hitters it’s close to that in baseball, but far more of those struck balls result in hits in softball due to the small infield. I’m not sure what effect this has, but drag bunting for a hit is a viable softball strategy due to the short base distances, but it has all but disappeared in baseball, thus contributing to the overall higher batting averages among the best hitters in softball. I’m any case, the statistics to be checking regarding the difficulty of hitting for average in softball versus baseball are Contact Rate, Ball in Play Rate and BABIP … not AVG.

Then softball players should try hitting off the best baseball pitcher then because we are not used to hitting under hand pitching

I remember struggling to hit a slow pitch softball when I joined a local men's league. I played baseball for 15 years. Couldn't hit that ball at all in our first practice. Moral is that the pitches are different so the trying to see if a pro can hit the ball is really dumb.

The reason why it’s hard for mlb players to hit a softball is because there used to hitting a baseball

OK we’re not gonna talk about how softball pitches rise baseball players aren’t used to a rising ball

i wish baseball existed :(

If pitchers in the MLB threw from 43 feet nobody is hitting it😂

You trained for something and is expected to excel at another role in 30 minutes? Let's see if softball players can hit Jacob deGrom

There should be a video where baseball pitchers pitch to a softball player from the Softball mound. The distance plays a role in the speed of the pitch by the time it gets to the hitter. Something with a softball player. Have a softball pitcher throw from a baseball mound and have someone hit that.

Wow, it's almost like they're different games, and the knowledge and skill in one doesn't translate to the other

Yeah okay there’s obviously a big argument to both sides, I just wanna see the “best player in softball” right now try to hit a baseball off of a person like Jacob Degrom, anyone else?

“He would be sent...to prison” got me🤣🤣

The problem is obvious: baseball is way more established which results in a tighter distribution of talent at the top where as in softball, the quality in player ranges more. It would be like if we combined AAA and MLB into 1 league, you'd see way more gaudy statistics as sometimes batters are going to go up against below average pitchers, and vice versa.

I’m simply going to say; look how many adjustments had to be made for softball compared to baseball to make it even competitive in difficultly. Make it the same size field, rules, mounds, ect. And we’re not even talking about this.

My man really said a baseball is 9 inches in diameter, had me rethinking life.

funny how i’ve never seen a softball player try to hit 100 mph

This was a great video. Very nuanced and expressive of both sides. Good work on this

It’s always a good day when BDE uploads

The idea that Finch could prove hitting in softball is harder than hitting in baseball, when the demonstration includes exactly zero hitting of baseballs, is ludicrous. You'd have to have softball hitters try to hit baseball pitching as well, which they would fail at very badly, because that's not what they've trained to do.

I play baseball at a younger level where the mound is just as close as a softball mound and I see 65 regularly

Overall in my opinion Baseball is harder then softball because if the mound was pushed back to the major league distance or the major league distance was moved up to the softball distance then hitting a baseball would be much much harder as well as the ball size and barrel size and base lengths.

Finer was basically if a top 5 draft pick decided he wanted to be a Harlem Globe Trotter instead of going to the NBA, and I love it.

A baseball player told me he struggled in softball with the upward trajectory of the softball pitch. But when he did occasionally hit a softball, it stayed hit.

It's because of the over/under trajectory. Baseball players are used to swinging vs softball. And those settle differences is the reason. Plus all that other stuff you said

If you turn your head directly toward the pitcher, both eyes see the ball at the same time. This gives your brain extra time to compute where the ball is. You hit both balls better. I used this in 1958 playing for the Jacksonville, FL team.

I feel like Bonds and Finch never truly faced each other so that people can still argue about this today