Can you hit a home run off of Paul Skenes?

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science 2026-04-15

I received an email with subject line, “Can my friend hit a homerun in infinite tries off the best pitcher in baseball”:

Hey Professor Gelman,

I’m sure this is a weird email that you probably don’t get often but if you could respond that would be awesome!! My school is having a massive debate right now. In an INFINITE amount of attempts (without the loss or gain of strength) could a 5”7, 140lb Senior hit a home run off a 100mph pitch from Paul Skenes, at PNC park (shortest dimension of 320 ft.). If you could get back to me that would be awesome, thanks!

He has no experience playing the sport of baseball, he is not very athletic, there is no wind.

In my opinion I think he can as the possibilities of infinity would eventually create a scenario where he has the perfect swing, with the perfect launch angle, making perfect contact, in the precise direction.

I replied that it’s hard to speak of infinities but my guess is no, he couldn’t ever do it because he couldn’t swing the bat fast enough. But this is just my quick guess; I haven’t done any analysis on the question lately.