Everybody Loves Red Bull: MLB Pitchers Throwing Harder Than Ever

Really quickly, a personal story: Just last week, I gave up caffeine. OK, not really: I gave up drinking large quantities of caffeine, pledging to get plenty of sleep and ween myself off the demon chemical slowly. A few nasty headaches later, here I am, 20 percent less productive but 60 percent less likely to collapse in a heap at my desk. It feels good.

Major League pitchers are trending the opposite way. In fact, even after heavy fines and more potent testing, pitchers are throwing harder than ever, the possible product of Red Bull, Ritalin, and who knows what else:

Take, for instance, the fastball. One purported benefit of amphetamines is helping wired-up relief pitchers come into games with all guns blazing, throwing their filthiest stuff, and then helping them get ready to do it again the next day. If the new drug policy were having the kind of widespread impact it's been thought to have had, we'd expect to see average velocities declining across the game. They aren't. The Fangraphs Web site has data on average pitch speed, licensed from Baseball Info Solutions, going back to 2005. In that year, 89 relievers throwing a minimum of 40 innings averaged 91 mph or better with their fastball. Sixteen of them topped 94; eight topped 95.

In other words, pitchers are throwing harder than ever, which means either that amphetamines don't help you pitch faster and recent data is a blip ... or people are still using all sorts of stuff to help them throw harder.

The problem with that is that it's still unregulated, and that too much Red Bull is just as bad for you as too many greenies. Take it from a recovering junkie: The Red Bull rush is intoxicating, uplifting, and ultimately self-defeating. Professional athletes aren't all that different from us. When you need a boost, what do you do?