Baseball recruiting benchmarks

Fastball Velocity by position: what each level actually looks like

Name: Athlete Quotient baseball fastball velocity benchmarks by position
Creator: Athlete Quotient

Athlete Quotient's D1 fastball velocity benchmark in baseball is 90 for a right-handed pitcher and 87 for a left-handed pitcher. The table below runs the full ladder - high school varsity to the elite D1 rung - for every position that carries this metric.

Fastball Velocity benchmarks by position

Athlete Quotient baseball fastball velocity benchmarks (Fastball Velocity (mph)).
Position	D1 elite	D1	D1 floor	D2	D3	HS varsity
Right-Handed Pitcher	95	90	87	85	82	79
Left-Handed Pitcher	92	87	84	82	80	77

See where your numbers actually land

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Common questions

What is a good fastball velocity for a baseball right-handed pitcher?

Athlete Quotient's D1 benchmark for a baseball right-handed pitcher is 90. The D2 rung is 85, D3 is 82 and high school varsity is 79. The elite D1 rung is 95.

What is a good fastball velocity for a baseball left-handed pitcher?

Athlete Quotient's D1 benchmark for a baseball left-handed pitcher is 87. The D2 rung is 82, D3 is 80 and high school varsity is 77. The elite D1 rung is 92.

How to read these

Each column is a rung on the Athlete Quotient benchmark ladder - the bar the engine scores every athlete against - not a cutoff and not an entry price. Being under a rung does not close a door. It tells you the size of the gap, which is the only number you can actually train against.

These are Athlete Quotient's own benchmarks. Where a published college figure exists we use it; where none exists, the rung is ours. We would rather say that than claim a source we do not have.

These tables are the same ones the scoring engine uses, exported from it rather than retyped, so a page can never quietly disagree with a score. More: how AQ builds benchmarks.