Average pitching velocity by age, with your percentile
Pick an age, enter a fastball speed in mph, and see roughly where it falls among pitchers that age. The percentile is an estimate worked out from a published radar study, not a ranking of real players, and it is not a goal: arm health comes before speed at every age.
By Adelyons Software LLC · Published 2026-10-16
Pitching velocity by age chart
Estimated fastball speed in mph at the 25th, 50th (the middle), 75th and 90th percentiles for each age.
| Age | 25th | Middle | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 42 | 46 | 50 | 54 |
| 10 | 45 | 49 | 53 | 57 |
| 11 | 48 | 52 | 56 | 60 |
| 12 | 52 | 56 | 59 | 63 |
| 13 | 55 | 59 | 63 | 66 |
| 14 | 58 | 62 | 66 | 69 |
| 15 | 61 | 65 | 69 | 72 |
| 16 | 64 | 68 | 72 | 75 |
| 17 | 67 | 71 | 75 | 79 |
| 18 | 70 | 74 | 78 | 82 |
How the percentile is worked out
Sgroi and colleagues (2015) measured 420 youth and adolescent pitchers with a radar gun, each throwing from the regulation distance for their age. They report an average speed of 64 ± 10 mph, an average age of 14.7 ± 2.6 years, and a correlation of 0.816 between age and speed. No study we found publishes the spread of speeds for each single year of age, so this page estimates it from those numbers.
Treating age and speed as a normal pair, the speed of a pitcher of a given age is spread normally around 64 + 0.816 × (10 ÷ 2.6) × (age − 14.7) mph, with a standard deviation of 10 × √(1 − 0.816²), about 5.8 mph. Your percentile is the share of that spread at or below your speed.
What this estimate can and cannot tell you
It is one group of pitchers, studied by Chicago-area clinicians before their season, and the study rounds its averages to whole numbers. Real speeds are not perfectly normal. Ages below 9 and above 18 are left out because the study had few pitchers there. Read the percentile as rough, within a few points.
Speeds also depend on how they are measured: a radar gun behind the plate, a phone app and a showcase gun can disagree by a few mph. Compare a pitcher with their own readings taken the same way, and see the pitch speed converter for what a speed from a shorter mound means.
Throwing harder is not worth an injury. MLB and USA Baseball’s Pitch Smart sets daily pitch limits and rest days for every age: see pitch count rules by age.
Questions
- How fast should a 12 year old pitch?
- There is no speed a 12-year-old should reach. As an estimate from a published radar study of 420 youth and adolescent pitchers, the typical 12-year-old pitches about 56 mph, with the middle half of 12-year-olds between 52 and 59 mph.
- How fast should a 14 year old throw?
- By the same estimate, the typical 14-year-old pitches about 62 mph, with the middle half of 14-year-olds between 58 and 66 mph. Growth matters as much as age at 13 and 14, so a late grower can sit well below this and catch up.
- How much faster do pitchers get each year?
- In the study, speed rose with age by about 3 mph a year when age is looked at alone, and by about 1.5 mph a year once height is taken into account: much of the yearly gain is growth.
- Are these Baseball Tracker’s own numbers?
- No. They are an estimate from a published study, named on this page. Baseball Tracker’s own readings are not used yet, because the ages on player profiles are self-entered and often missing, so the readings cannot be tied to an age reliably.
Measure yours free with Baseball Tracker
Film a pitch, a swing or a run to first on your phone and the app reads the pitch speed, bat speed or sprint speed from the video, keeps every reading, and shows how it changes over a season. The readings are estimates from video, not a radar gun.
More free tools
- Exit velocity by age: baseball and softball rangesEnter an exit velocity and see where it sits against published average, goal and top-10% ranges for the age.
- Softball pitching speed by age: ranges from 10 to collegeEnter a fastpitch speed and see it against two published sets of ranges for the age.
- Pitch speed converter: mph, km/h and speed by distanceConvert mph and km/h, and turn a speed at 46, 50 or 43 feet into the equivalent speed at 60 feet 6 inches.
- Pitch count rules by age: Pitch Smart limits and rest daysThe daily pitch limit for an age and the days of rest a day’s count calls for, from MLB and USA Baseball’s Pitch Smart.
Where the numbers come from
The percentiles and the chart are an estimate from the published study below, not Baseball Tracker’s own measurements.
- Sgroi T, Chalmers PN, Riff AJ, et al. Predictors of throwing velocity in youth and adolescent pitchers. Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery 2015;24(9):1339-45 (420 pitchers, radar gun, regulation distance for age): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jse.2015.02.015. Read on 2026-10-16.
- MLB and USA Baseball, Pitch Smart pitching guidelines by age (8 and under, 9-12, 13-14, 15-18, 19-22): https://www.mlb.com/pitch-smart/pitching-guidelines. Read on 2026-10-16.