The Statcast era only tells us so much

I wish we could have known how fast the ball traveled out of Ken Caminiti or Shawon Dunston's hands during the 1980s and 1990s.

Elly De La Cruz is electric.

The Reds phenom is one of the most exciting things about Major League Baseball this season. He gets clutch hits. He steals all of the bases. And he can throw the ball really, really hard.

According to people who track these things, a throw he made in Sunday's Reds-Brewers game to nab Milwaukee's Joey Wiemer was the fastest infield assist during the so-called Statcast era, which covers the past eight or nine seasons.

The ball topped out at 97.9 mph, according to Sarah Langs.

Which is fast!

I wish we could have known how fast the ball traveled out of Ken Caminiti or Shawon Dunston's hands during the late 1980s and 1990s. They had cannons.

Case in point:

Or this:

And this:

Also, this from Dunston.

One of the limitations of the Statcast era is that it excludes a century of baseball before it.

Stats and metrics are great. It's awesome to be able to correctly quantify home run measurements and ball speeds instead of, say, racing a pitch against a motorcycle or relying on a speed gun that may or may not be accurate.

Maybe having those metrics available in previous generations could have allowed us to better appreciate players' talents. Instead, we were left in awe, saying, "can you believe how fast he just threw that ball?"