Pete Crow-Armstrong Is Fast But How Fast Is He Compared To An Olympian?

[matto1233]

Pete Crow-Armstrong is really, really fast. But when compared to the fastest in the world, how fast is he?

Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been watching the Summer Olympics for the past week or so. I’ve found myself enjoying the brief respite from the Cubs continuing to tread water by watching Olympic swimmers who are doing nothing but treading water when they’re in the pool. 

Of course, there is one obvious Cubs connection here. For those who are unaware, Dansby Swanson’s wife, Mallory Swanson, has scored three goals for the United States women’s national soccer team as they continue their quest for a gold medal. 

While watching the start of the track and field events, I couldn’t help but wonder how Pete Crow-Armstrong would fare in a sprint against the top talent in the world. PCA is one of the fastest guys in baseball, and watching him sprint around the bases resembles Noah Lyles running 100 meters on a track. 

Statcast’s sprint speed statistic can do much of the heavy lifting for us here. This stat is listed in feet per second and measured during the player’s fastest one-second window on any individual play. According to Baseball Savant, PCA is fifth in baseball in sprint speed at 30.1 feet per second. 

Saturday morning was the preliminary and first round of the Olympic men’s 100-meter race. Since he’s the most known American athlete in this event, we’ll continue to use Noah Lyles as a measuring stick. He ran 100 meters in 10.04 seconds, though according to Sports Illustrated and some of his comments after the fact, he may have been holding back somewhat. To Lyles’ credit, his fastest time is much better, at 9.81 seconds. 

Ok, let’s do some math! One hundred meters is about 328.084 feet. If Crow-Armstrong runs at about 30.1 feet per second, 328.084 divided by 30.1 is 10.90 seconds. PCA would run the 100-meter dash in roughly 10.90 seconds. 

But hold on, not so fast! Pun intended. You might have noticed in the explanation that Sprint Speed is calculated as a player’s “fastest one-second window.” This is taken directly from the explanation on Baseball Savant. So, by my logic, not only would Noah Lyles still beat Crow-Armstrong by quite a bit in a 100-meter race, but Lyles’ time factors in the time it takes him to hit top speed, while PCA’s time assumes he is running at his top speed the entire time. 

This might seem picky, but every little bit counts when talking about a race that usually takes about 10 seconds to finish. Statcast also has running splits listed on Baseball Savant. It takes the rookie center fielder about 50 feet to reach his top speed of 30.1 feet per second. At this point, 2.42 seconds have already elapsed, on average. So he would still have about 278 feet to run, and if we assume he runs it at 30.1 feet per second, he would run that final 278 feet in about 9.24 seconds. Add the 2.42 seconds it took him to get to top speed to that, and you get 11.66 seconds. 

The other factor here is that he might hit a higher top speed than 30.1 feet per second if he knew he was running 100 meters in a straight line rather than shifting directions every 90 feet. But remember that sprint speed is calculated at the player’s fastest one-second window in a given play, so I am comfortable saying that it might help his time, but not by a ton. I’d venture to guess PCA would clock in somewhere in the 11.40-11.60 range on a 100-meter dash. 

In round one on Saturday, only the slowest finisher recorded a time in that range, and he was so far behind the rest of the field that I’d assume it was an anomaly for him. Of the 69 athletes who completed round one (three were disqualified), he was the only one who recorded a time greater than 11 seconds. So, PCA is fast. Really fast. But he’s nowhere near Olympian level fast. 

If you were curious, Lyles averaged 32.68 feet per second in his run this morning, significantly faster than Bobby Witt Jr.’s baseball-leading 30.4 feet per second figure. We’ve seen fast players like Terrance Gore stick around and end up on playoff rosters every year with one role: pinch runner. Would anyone bite if Lyles were to make himself available to baseball teams every August to fill the pinch runner role? Given PCA has yet to be caught stealing this season, I just cannot see anyone being able to throw him out. Imagine the viral potential of Noah Lyles pinch running as the winning run in the bottom of the ninth of a playoff game. 

Alas, it will never happen because Noah Lyles is incredibly successful in a different sport. But a guy can dream. If you tune in to watch any Olympic action, allow this to serve as a reminder of how impressive the physical accomplishments of these athletes are. If you think PCA is fast, Noah Lyles, and anyone else competing in the men’s 100-meter dash, would make him look slow. 

View full article

[ChiTex]

This is a fun thought experiment and you bring some fair points. PCA's HR in Miami today inspired me to perform some analyses. I saw a few different headlines declare his round trip lasted ~14s. I made several timings from video - all hovered around 13.15s. I suspect MLB Statcast starts the clock at contact while I tried to capture his transition from hitting to running. Very subjective and unscientific, but I'll reiterate my timings were within a .14s range. That's still well above 100m times for elite sprinters. But...

Let's review all the differences between the 100m sprint and running the bases. 
- Straight line vs (almost) square. Obviously, acceleration benefits from the straight path. Not only do baseball players turn every 90 feet, they're also running along an arc vs straight line. The arc softens the angle made at each base while lengthening the distance. I think the MLB running lane allows for ~3ft right of the baseline. If the arc peaked at 3' from center, 90' becomes 99'. However, a player sprinting for extra bases tends to exceed that 3' mark. (advantage: sprinter)
- The start is a whole different ballgame (I see your pun and raise my own!) There's no starting block at home plate. In fact, the batter isn't even facing their running path. Well, righties are kinda facing the path until they swing the bat. Lefties are closer to first, but are facing the wrong direction throughout their at-bat. Either way, batters are running from a standing position and must dispatch the bat in their hand. (advantage: sprinter)
- Unless it's a little league HR, a player racing around the bases is likely to slide into home. I've heard arguments about slides being slower than running, but PCA's headfirst dive to the plate didn't appear slower in any way. Given the way sprinters lean across the finish line, I suspect they'd consider diving if the track was more forgiving. (advantage: ball player)

I glossed over it earlier, but that arc is pretty important. I noted a 3' arc could turn the 90' distance into 99'. That's nearly 400' in-total...almost 122m! If PCA ran 122m in 13.15s, that's equivalent to 10.77s in the 100m...an unfair comparison since his longer distance would also include more deceleration due to exertion. By the way, I'd argue PCA's path around the bases exceeded that 3' arc. He likely ran more than 400'. How much more? I dunno - ask Statcast. Given the distance, angles, and starting position disadvantages, I feel confident suggesting PCA's equivalent (100m) sprint time was under 10.7s today. 

In full transparency, I initially considered using a round trip distance of 390' instead of 400'. Why? It stands to reason a batter's path to first would be significantly straighter than the next 3 bases. But that's not true for PCA - because he was already thinking about extra bases from the start. As a result, he adjusted his path to first, hence the 400' distance (or more). You can see this in the Marlins' broadcast video.

Despite his arcing path, PCA's race to first may be the best comparison to make with a sprinter. It's not 100m, but there's no angle to slow his acceleration. And if you believe his arced path measured ~99', that's just over 30m. The Marlins footage gives the clearest view of PCA running from the batter's box to first...in about 3.8s (again, from my timings). You can find interval splits for sprinters too. In 2008, Usain Bolt's splits through 30m was ~3.78 (https://speedendurance.com/2008/08/22/usain-bolt-100m-10-meter-splits-and-speed-endurance/). Again, I'm not suggesting PCA is on-par with those sprinters, but during the most comparable portion of his run, his numbers look pretty competitive. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

7 hours ago, ChiTex said:

This is a fun thought experiment and you bring some fair points. PCA's HR in Miami today inspired me to perform some analyses. I saw a few different headlines declare his round trip lasted ~14s. I made several timings from video - all hovered around 13.15s. I suspect MLB Statcast starts the clock at contact while I tried to capture his transition from hitting to running. Very subjective and unscientific, but I'll reiterate my timings were within a .14s range. That's still well above 100m times for elite sprinters. But...

Let's review all the differences between the 100m sprint and running the bases. 
- Straight line vs (almost) square. Obviously, acceleration benefits from the straight path. Not only do baseball players turn every 90 feet, they're also running along an arc vs straight line. The arc softens the angle made at each base while lengthening the distance. I think the MLB running lane allows for ~3ft right of the baseline. If the arc peaked at 3' from center, 90' becomes 99'. However, a player sprinting for extra bases tends to exceed that 3' mark. (advantage: sprinter)
- The start is a whole different ballgame (I see your pun and raise my own!) There's no starting block at home plate. In fact, the batter isn't even facing their running path. Well, righties are kinda facing the path until they swing the bat. Lefties are closer to first, but are facing the wrong direction throughout their at-bat. Either way, batters are running from a standing position and must dispatch the bat in their hand. (advantage: sprinter)
- Unless it's a little league HR, a player racing around the bases is likely to slide into home. I've heard arguments about slides being slower than running, but PCA's headfirst dive to the plate didn't appear slower in any way. Given the way sprinters lean across the finish line, I suspect they'd consider diving if the track was more forgiving. (advantage: ball player)

I glossed over it earlier, but that arc is pretty important. I noted a 3' arc could turn the 90' distance into 99'. That's nearly 400' in-total...almost 122m! If PCA ran 122m in 13.15s, that's equivalent to 10.77s in the 100m...an unfair comparison since his longer distance would also include more deceleration due to exertion. By the way, I'd argue PCA's path around the bases exceeded that 3' arc. He likely ran more than 400'. How much more? I dunno - ask Statcast. Given the distance, angles, and starting position disadvantages, I feel confident suggesting PCA's equivalent (100m) sprint time was under 10.7s today. 

In full transparency, I initially considered using a round trip distance of 390' instead of 400'. Why? It stands to reason a batter's path to first would be significantly straighter than the next 3 bases. But that's not true for PCA - because he was already thinking about extra bases from the start. As a result, he adjusted his path to first, hence the 400' distance (or more). You can see this in the Marlins' broadcast video.

Despite his arcing path, PCA's race to first may be the best comparison to make with a sprinter. It's not 100m, but there's no angle to slow his acceleration. And if you believe his arced path measured ~99', that's just over 30m. The Marlins footage gives the clearest view of PCA running from the batter's box to first...in about 3.8s (again, from my timings). You can find interval splits for sprinters too. In 2008, Usain Bolt's splits through 30m was ~3.78 (https://speedendurance.com/2008/08/22/usain-bolt-100m-10-meter-splits-and-speed-endurance/). Again, I'm not suggesting PCA is on-par with those sprinters, but during the most comparable portion of his run, his numbers look pretty competitive. 

Welcome to NSBB!