If Jose Altuve faced 100 pitches from a machine simulating John Isner’s serve, how many hits would he get?

How would Jose Altuve’s speedy bat perform in a clash against John Isner’s explosive serve?  Before we can attempt to answer that question, let me setup the situation.  Altuve gets 100 swings against a pitching machine that simulates Isner’s serve.  This machine is guaranteed to locate all pitches within the strike zone.  The machine will be placed at the standard mound distance of 60 feet 6 inches from home and the ball will cross the plate before the bounce.  Baseballs will be used, there will be fielders, and Altuve needs to run out every hit.

Let’s get into the details of the the “pitch” Altuve will be facing.  A sample of 1140 Isner first serves from 2017 (Isner 2017 Serve Stats) revealed an average speed of 122.3 mph.  Of those serves, 359 were aces (31.49%) and 648 were unreturned (56.84%). Those numbers clearly illustrate how difficult it is to make clean contact even with a racquet that has far more surface area than a bat. Once the speed was determined I had to figure out the height of the release point.  A 2012 article (Serve Contact Height) placed Isner’s highest point of contact at just over 11 feet.  Let’s assume this remains consistent and place the machine at that height. Additionally, the machine will also be set to imitate the spin of the ball as it comes off Isner’s racquet.

Pitch Summary: 122.3 Mph with a release point of 11 ft imitating the spin on Isner’s serve

I’ve chosen the height challenged Jose Altuve for this tall task because he has proven himself to be one of the best contact hitters in all of baseball.  With an outstanding .335 average over the last 4 seasons, 3 of the last 4 AL batting titles, a low strikeout rate, and the speed to leg out infield hits, he seemed like the man for the job.  Some other candidates that I considered were Daniel Murphy, Joey Votto, and Mike Trout.

To gain some perspective on how pitch speed effects batters I took a look at the 50 fastest pitches of 2017 (Fastest Pitches 2017).  Those pitches resulted in 3 hits (2 singles and a homerun), 8 balls, 9 swinging strikes, 5 called strikes, and 25 contact swings that were either foul or out. The fastest pitch topped out at 104.3 Mph from Aroldis Chapman who accounted for 44 of the 50 fastest pitches thrown in 2017.  Altuve has limited experience against the powerful hurler but is 1 for 4 against Chapman in his career with no K’s.

So after breaking down the numbers, how would Altuve fare?  I have no fucking clue.  I went down a deep rabbit hole on this one and had to stop before I lost all sanity.  I’m setting the over under at 4.5 hits.

To check out the rest of this week’s Sports Scenarios click on the link below.

Sports Scenarios Week 1: Isner’s Serve vs. Altuve’s bat, Usain Bolt Stealing Home & More…