What position in professional sports requires the highest level of talent?

It depends on how you define talent. Your pitching example talks about one specific skill. By the same token, you could argue any position in hockey as you have to have a very specific skill of skating at a world class elite level just to even have a chance.

I might argue point guard in basketball - you will have to be taller than average (for the most part, don't come at me Muggsy Bogues stans), fast, agile, strong, skilled, high sports IQ.

This question is impossible to answer because it depends on subjective judgements about questions such "is being able to swing a piece of wood as forcefully as Shohei Ohtani is a more or less impressive skill than being able to shoot 3 pters under duress like Stephen Curry."

Personally, the most impressive athletes to me are the people who I can easily imagine playing a different sport at an elite level if the athlete had chosen to concentrate on that other sport from an early age. For example, I have no problem imagining Ja Morant playing cornerback in the NFL or Lebron playing tight end. I have no problem imagining Roger Federer playing shortstop in the major leagues. I have no problem imagining Randy Moss as an NBA shooting guard. I have no problem imagining Mike Trout as a middle linebacker. I have no problem imagining Erlin Haaland as an elite decathalete. I have no problem imagining Steph Curry as an EPL midfielder. I have no problem imagining Ronaldo as a world class tennis player.

I think top tennis players have the most diverse and dynamic skillsets other than one missing element. That one major thing tennis players don't have to deal with is opposing players in their space, and contact. Basketball, soccer, hockey, etc you have to deal with all these moving humans. Half of which are trying to stop you.

As somebody who pitched at a reasonably high level, I actually think pitcher is one of the easier positions in sports. Nobody interferes with you when you throw the ball, and you typically have 2 pitches that you mostly throw and so when you do you're basically just doing the same motion over and over again, precisely and with power but still the same uninterfered motion. Hitting what pitchers throw is 10x harder of a skill. For pure difficulty of a single skill hitting in baseball is right near the top, possibly right at the top. You can be a top athlete like Michael Jordan but you still can't hit.

Since hockey is a contact sport, played at high speed on skates, with a puck that's a bit more awkward than a ball, and with the hand eye skills of using a stick to manipulate it, out of the major sports I think my end vote is for hockey. Hockey players could probably transfer their skills to another sport far better on average than other athletes could to hockey.

I also think basketball suffers a bit because so much advantage is gained by a players height. There are many extremely skilled basketball players who aren't in the NBA because they're 5'9" like an average human, or really anything under 6'2" really you get pushed to choose another sport unless you're really amazing like Steph Curry, Steve Nash, or Allen Iverson. Those smaller guys are really the most skilled NBA players. Whereas in soccer, hockey, or tennis, being an average sized human isn't ideal but being the size of any of those 3 guys is perfectly fine.

A non team sport position fo sho.

curling.

The first thing that came to my mind is the Polejump, which requires extreme athletism and incredible technique

QB. Only 10 people in the world do it well.

Re: What position in professional sports requires the highest level of talent?

taking the question strictly, im inclined to think baseball catchers that cant play defense dont last very long in majors unless they have an elite bat. the position itself requires a baseline of defensive talent across all catchers in the league. the fact that a good defensive catcher can carry a shitty average only highlights this importance.

but hey, there came a point where i couldn't catch 80+ mph fastballs, not for lack of trying. left catching hand still acts up sometimes. thus im biased.

I like this answer.

Even as a Brit, non hand egg fan, I’d have to agree with QB.
You’ve got to know all the routes of your receivers, have lightning reactions and you’ve still got to throw a pass on a sixpence.

Second , for me, would be a handball goalkeeper

Is Ohtani a position?

Intelligence can make up for talent in a great many positions in every sport

NFL WR or NFL RB are probably the only ones where no amount of intelligence can compensate for lack of talent so that’s what I’m going with

Point center

And a tiny dong

Knee jerk answer QB.

The answer is obviously snooker player

1st line center in the NHL.

Is the question kind like :
Which positions in sports needs the most talent without athleticism genes to perform at the top level ?
QB seem a good candidate .

Yeah, I didn't put much thought into the post. The question just occurred to me. The question doesn't have to do with skill developed over time through work and practice. It has to do with natural talent. Of course, all the greats put a lot of time and effort into becoming what they are, but I'm guessing there are some sports or positions where natural talent plays a bigger role.

If you took an age and athletic demographic, taught them how to pitch and made them practice, how many would be able to throw x mph, accurately, etc? Then compare that to how many people would be able to throw a football x amount of yards, accurately, etc. Obviously, there is no answer and a million factors to consider. Lots of speculation. Nonetheless, I think it's an interesting question. I'd venture to guess that less people could pitch like Greg Maddux than dribble like Jamal Crawford, but I really don't know, and little things that set players apart in one sport may not be that significant in another.