9 year old pitcher

[bbb3601]

Hi everyone I am new to this and I am completly amazed by this site. MY son just turned 9 and we are playing fall baseball this year. he was given an opportunity to pitch and had great success. now it is all he wants to do. he pitches from the stretch, and has control of his fastball and change. my ? is how much practice or how many days a week should we throw, and how many pitches? he has good power for 9 and played 4 years coach pitch

[Charger567]

I am a pitcher as well, but only 13 years old so you may want to seek more professional advice. But, my advice, work on his mechanics before you work his arm too much. Then, I would suggest doing longtoss a couple times a week during the fall and winter. Wait til the early spring to start pitching. Thats what I am doing once my fall league ends in a few weeks. You should use this time to prepare him for the next season. If he does pitch in the fall, I would suggest at most 50 pitches per game, maybe 20 pitches per practice session. He also doesn't need a change up yet, I wouldn't say its necessary until he is throwing 55-60 mph.

[Jake Patterson]

Hi everyone I am new to this and I am completly amazed by this site. MY son just turned 9 and we are playing fall baseball this year. he was given an opportunity to pitch and had great success. now it is all he wants to do. he pitches from the stretch, and has control of his fastball and change. my ? is how much practice or how many days a week should we throw, and how many pitches? he has good power for 9 and played 4 years coach pitch

There are several schools of thought here. Looking for a quantifiable answer is dependent upon you son's size, shape and condition.

Practice throwing with a healthy arm properly every day is not a problem as it develops arm strength and endurance. A sore arm however, needs rest and should be monitored closely at this age. 30-40 practice throws would be reasonable. Just remember playing catch properly is one of the most important aspects of the game, it creates muscle memory that is necessary on the field. Doing it improperly actually detracts from learning.

Pitching every day can be problematic due to the biological maturity of a nine year old body. Given a healthy arm a safe number of actual pitches may be in the 20-25 pitch range every other to every third day.

Also, do not confuse power and control with a nine year old's long term potential. I personally see this as a deficit as most fathers and youth coaches see this as a sign from the baseball gods and tend to over-use the youth. At the end of the day he's just nine and his abilities now may not mirror his his potential.

Hope this helps,
Jake

[bbb3601]

thank you very much. i agree with you. my main concern is that a coach may exploit him by over using. we are playing in a travel leauge next year and i hear of this happening often due to inexperienced coaches? personally i dont care if he pitches or not....and i really dont want hime to become a pitcher only player....but at the same time his interest in the game has tripled. he has always been very interested just now it is on a daily basis. again thank you

[jojab]

thank you very much. i agree with you. my main concern is that a coach may exploit him by over using. we are playing in a travel leauge next year and i hear of this happening often due to inexperienced coaches?

I'd suggest that you talk to your son's travel coach ahead of time and find out how many kids on the team will be pitching and also inquire about the anticipated pitch counts that the coach will be using, etc. You'll be able to get a good feel about what type of coach you are dealing with in this conversation.

I disagree with Charger in that I always think it is a good idea to have a change-up. Might as well work on it while he's young.

[The Kid]

Throw a bullpen session once a week, play catch as much as you can, and ice his arm after he pitches.

And never be afraid to talk with his coach if you think he's overusing him.

[Jake Patterson]

my main concern is that a coach may exploit him by over using. we are playing in a travel leauge next year and i hear of this happening often due to inexperienced coaches?

BBB,
Be aware that the absolute worse combination in youth baseball is travel ball + inexperienced or poor age appropriate coaching. I am not an advocate of travel ball until the players reach the big fields. I have seldom seen good things come from travel ball on the small fields.

[jojab]

BBB,
Be aware that the absolute worse combination in youth baseball is travel ball + inexperienced or poor age appropriate coaching. I am not an advocate of travel ball until the players reach the big fields. I have seldom seen good things come from travel ball on the small fields.

That is one person's thoughts. Don't let him scare you away from travel/club ball. There are plenty of good travel/club ball coaches (some of the best youth coaches I know coach travel as opposed to rec.).

Travel/club allows a better opportunity for the coaches to spend more time teaching the kids proper fundamentals simply because they have more time with the same kids.

Your experience will depend on who is coaching your son. Get to know that person, ask plenty of questions, etc.

[Chris O'Leary]

Pitching every day can be problematic due to the biological maturity of a nine year old body. Given a healthy arm a safe number of actual pitches may be in the 20-25 pitch range every other to every third day.

I agree.

Also, regarding travel ball I wouldn't let him pitch more than 1 game per weekend (and 1 game per week total).

[Chris O'Leary]

...and ice his arm after he pitches.

This isn't necessary, assuming he's only practicing a couple of times a week (e.g. 20 to 30 pitches) and only pitching one per week (e.g. 30 to 35 pitches).

[Jake Patterson]

That is one person's thoughts. Don't let him scare you away from travel/club ball. There are plenty of good travel/club ball coaches (some of the best youth coaches I know coach travel as opposed to rec.).

Travel/club allows a better opportunity for the coaches to spend more time teaching the kids proper fundamentals simply because they have more time with the same kids.

Your experience will depend on who is coaching your son. Get to know that person, ask plenty of questions, etc.
Jo,
I think you're supporting my view about coaching when I say..
...absolute worse combination in youth baseball is travel ball + inexperienced or poor age appropriate coaching ...
Bad coaches in travel ball tend to be there for their own gratification and through either their own ignorance or motives destroy more than they build.

I agree there are great coaches in travel ball. There are also great coaches in rec. I also agree there is generally a higher quality coach in travel ball than rec.

I don't agree with TB pre-big field when age appropriate rec is available. Again, having run the guantlet with the several hundred kids I have coached at the school ball level, I just have not seen where the positives of pre-big field TB outweighed the negatives. JMO

[Chris O'Leary]

I disagree with Charger in that I always think it is a good idea to have a change-up. Might as well work on it while he's young.

I agree.

At this age, kids should be working on their FB and CU.

Wait on the curve and everything else until they are 16 or 17.

[Jake Patterson]

BBB,
The other thought I had was don't be afraid to challenge the credentials of any person who works with your child. If they have any they will be more than happy to give them to you. (Even here at BBF)

[GFK]

BBB,
The other thought I had was don't be afraid to challenge the credentials of any person who works with your child. If they have any they will be more than happy to give them to you. (Even here at BBF)

Don't get "star-struck" by stellar credentials. Go with the "Mark H Test". Compare what they teach to what the MLB Players are doing by reviewing the video.

[Jake Patterson]

Don't get "star-struck" by stellar credentials. ".
Agree - the best combination is someone with credentials whose teaching proper fundamentals.

I think we both agree however, that understanding your son's coach's background is important.

Go with the "Mark H Test Compare what they teach to what the MLB Players are doing by reviewing the video.

Not just what they teach, but how they teach it.

[bbb3601]

wow...do any of you live in ohio? being new to youth sports is quite overwhelming. the coach issue is my biggest concern. we played in a new coach pitch travel last year in ohio ussa. for the spring we switched teams and coach's for most of the reasons you stated earlier. the reason we like travel over rec is because we love the game. rec around columbus ohio lucky to get in 12 games...talent level??????? this spring we got our feet wet in travel played about 22 games 2 tourneys and the kids loved it ofcourse we were blessed with good parents...coach'...maybe not. it seems so hard to evaluate a coach or a orginazation not being experienced myself. most seem to be living out some fantasy inside their kids body's but how do you know it up front. as far as central ohio i have been told the coybl league is about the best and largest? some times i am not even sure if i'm leading him in the right direction...any good ohio instructors?

[cartersball]

work on his mechanics before you work his arm too much

This is a very wealthy piece of advice from a 13 yr. old. Well done Charger! I thouroughly agree that mechanics at this age take a priority over arm strength. As far as how much he should pitch, my son is the same age and I only allow him to throw 75 pitches per weekend tournament. I set this up with his coach before the season began. At each game I counted pitches and as soon as he made it to 65 I let the coach know. At first his coach struggled with it, he didn't like me telling him it was time to pull his pitcher. After awhile he realized that I am just an educated father, who is serious about keeping my son healthy.:) Now days, we don't have any problems. He'll sometimes pull him out after a few innings so he can use him later in the weekend.

[bbb3601]

awesome carter thanks.

[bbb3601]

dont take me for a complete fool...i know what mechanics are i know what has been taught to him...and what we have read.but how do you know if all is well....is there a book of all books

[XFactor]

The book of all books, in my opinion, would be the Science and Art of Baseball Pitching, written by Dick Mills and Brent Rushall. I'd say check it out, you don't have to buy it.. just read some of it.

I just wanted to bring somethin up, I would suggest at most 50 pitches per game, maybe 20 pitches per practice session. He also doesn't need a change up yet, I wouldn't say its necessary until he is throwing 55-60 mph.

That you don't want to do that. Because that means he'd have to make up 30 pitches during a game. That'd be like me running 1 mile every Monday and Wednesday, and then expected to run 20 miles on Friday. How would I make up all those other miles?

What you might be interested in (and to make it fun) is to throw blocked pitching sessions. What I mean by that is, tell him to throw 5 low and away FB. Then after those 5, how many were strikes? What could he do to work on it so instead of 2/5, it's 3/5, and then 4/5, etc... (but you don't want to analyze everything... because that's no fun). Then low and in FB, high and away, and high and in. That's 20 pitches. Then work on his change up low and away and low and in twice, so that'd be another 20 pitches. Then mix it up for fun the last 10.

What MLB is missing right now is, it has it's pitchers throw 30-50 pitch bullpen sessions, maybe not always at 100% intensity, and then expect 100+ 9 inning complete game (ideally, anyways). How are they going to make up those extra 50 pitches?

So, I wouldn't tell you to have your son throw 50 pitch bullpen if he hasn't thrown in awhile. Go from like.. iuno I never pitched at 9... start at 20? Build up from there, add 5 pitches each session until you get 50, or 45, or whatever the coach plans to use for his pitch count.

But check out that book yo ^_^