The Phillies' Cliff Lee struck out 16 batters in his last start and currently leads the National League with 60 strikeouts. And with all his recent success (2008 AL CY Award, postseason dominance), that seams like par for the course. The thing is, it isn't. This kind of dominance is a recent phenomenon. There is a curious thing about Lee's career - like the famous literary character Benjamin Button, he seems to be getting younger with age.
Check out these year-by-year numbers of Lee's average fastball velocity since he made his MLB debut as a 23-year old in 2002:
Year (Avg FBv) Age
2002 (87.2) 23
2003 (88.8) 24
2004 (89.4) 25
2005 (89.3) 26
2006 (89.0) 27
2007 (89.0) 28
2008 (90.5) 29
2009 (91.1) 30
2010 (91.3) 31
2011 (91.6) 32
Most pitchers, even guys in their 20's, tend to gradually lose velocity. This is a normal trend - virtually all pitchers progressively lose a little gas as they get older. Even the great Felix Hernandez, just 25 years old, has lost some of the heat on his fastball. Here are King Felix's yearly average fastball velocity numbers:
Year (Avg FBv) Age
2005 (95.8) 19
2006 (95.2) 20
2007 (95.6) 21
2008 (94.6) 22
2009 (94.0) 23
2010 (94.1) 24
2011 (93.5) 25
It's no coincidence that Lee became a dominant pitcher in 2008, when his average fastball velocity broke 90 mph for the first time in his career. And surprisingly, his velocity increase hasn't stopped yet. When he has the good stuff, Lee is blowing away batters with 95 mph missiles from the left side. His average fastball is a career high 91.6 this season and it's the fourth consecutive year he's set a personal high in fastball velocity. Cliff Lee is actually getting better with age. And that's remarkable, because I can't find any other pitcher in the past 10 years (when FanGraphs started tracking velocity) who has done the same. In that way, Lee is completely atypical as a pitcher. He has more in common with a bottle of wine.
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