Do you see these recommendations followed?

[rkbenn]

Scorekeeper posted the name of a MD that was featured in SI, Lyle Micheli.

I was reading through some information on throwing/pitching. With travel, Rec, and school ball, kids, especially pitchers are throwing way too much and everyone seems to not care.

Micheli wrote, "specific recommendations have been made for young baseball players. Experts recommend that adolescent baseball players should not throw more than 80 pitches a game, should limit their total number of pitches in competition to 2500 per year. Should not participate in more than 8 months of competition per year At least 3 days rest is recommend between outings to allow adequate recovery and to avoid fatigue. Throwing breaking pitches should not be started until after 13."

I see it all the time, kids arms are almost falling off. We have a number of kids doing, travel, rec, and school ball. 5000 pitches in a season at least, breaking balls at 11 and 12 not resting and pitching back to back games. We had a kid pitch for his Junior High, throwing at least 80 and then going to Rec and throwing another 85 in one day.

[Rufus67]

RK
I agree with you. We play under USSSA rules which have inning restrictions by age group. I believe Little League has a # of pitches restriction, however, and that is much better I think in trying to protect pitchers from overuse. In USSSA you could conceivably leave a kid out there for only 3 innings but have him go for 70-80 pitches (I coach recreational league where full counts, walks, and wild pitches are the norm, therefore higher pitch counts). According to USSSA rules that same pitcher is good to go for another 6 innings the next day. Ridiculous and potentially damaging.

I'm fortunate that I have three good pitchers that I can rotate in and out, along with two others that are serviceable. We don't play tournaments except one at the end of the season so I won't have to deal with this problem. I can see coaches justifying the burn-out of pitchers using the loose guidelines established by USSSA instead of a more conservative pitch count limit.

In reviewing the roster for one travel team the other day I noticed that every single player (there were 11 on the team) were listed as pitchers. They probably have 4-5 "aces" but the rest are used to eat up innings and spread the load around. That seems good both developmentally (every player learns to pitch) and as a protection against overuse.

[hawkiirock]

When i coached USSSA travel almost everyone on my team pitched. I had a stud who other coaches would have thrown him his 8-9 innings on weekends and than 6 during the weeks city league. Luckily his coaches listened to me and only threw him a couple innings during the week


I was very cautious over my kids arms. I normally pitched them 1-2 innings. If low pitch count might get them 3 innings but not normally

We lost some close games we couldve won by legally throwing my top guys but it didn't matter to me. Only one arm problem and that was with a kid who wouldn't listen and through max innings during the week every single week.

[scorekeeper]

I see it all the time, kids arms are almost falling off. We have a number of kids doing, travel, rec, and school ball. 5000 pitches in a season at least, breaking balls at 11 and 12 not resting and pitching back to back games. We had a kid pitch for his Junior High, throwing at least 80 and then going to Rec and throwing another 85 in one day.

Here’s a post I made on another board, and a reply from a person who purports to be a preeminent youth baseball authority, and sells videos and books based on his authority. Dinosaur attitudes like his are going to be around until that generation completely dies off, and then its gonna take at least another full generation for the remnants of that kind of ignorant attitude to keep popping up.

I guess there’s just no way to make people understand that winning another ceramic medal just isn’t worth risking a kid’s health.

Last night I scored a HS game where one starting pitcher threw 8 innings/125 pitches, and the other threw 9 innings/134 pitches.

Great game? You bet. A HS 1-1 9 inning tie in a tournament is always a great game. But, one team had 6 other pitchers it could use, and the other had 8! Sorry, I just can’t see how a win is that important.

He is a senior in HS. What are you saving his arm for? He is representing his school. He is embracing the competition. The Japanese think we are wussies. They do it all the time and then do 200 long toss the next day.

THE KID'S(his son) HS team played a 14 inning playoff game. His pitcher went the whole way and didn't allow a hit the last 7 innings. At some point, he told the other pitchers that if he saw any of them warming up he would whip their butt.

It was maybe the greatest game I have ever seen pitched. It might have been the last game he ever pitched but he did get the opportunity to play one yr of JUCO.

[HYP]

Here’s a post I made on another board, and a reply from a person who purports to be a preeminent youth baseball authority, and sells videos and books based on his authority. Dinosaur attitudes like his are going to be around until that generation completely dies off, and then its gonna take at least another full generation for the remnants of that kind of ignorant attitude to keep popping up.

The comment, "He's a senior what are you saving his arm for". Says it all. This guy is a moron. Ya, he's right. His life is over as soon as he graduates.

[ralanprod]

I don't know who said it first, but it hits the nail on the head......

"Kids today pitch too much, and don't throw nearly enough."

[halfguard]

about 3 weeks ago my sons 9u travel team played a double header and the other team only used 2 pitchers total. 1 for each game............they were around 90 pitches each for a 6 inning game****after the second game i saw the pitcher jogging around the field with his arm in a sling*****

[scorekeeper]

about 3 weeks ago my sons 9u travel team played a double header and the other team only used 2 pitchers total. 1 for each game............they were around 90 pitches each for a 6 inning game****after the second game i saw the pitcher jogging around the field with his arm in a sling*****

Oft times, problems come because people try to compare kids to full grown adults.

I’ve always used 15 pitches per inning as a good rule of thumb to measure the pitchers by. Assuming the P is getting reasonable rest between innings, isn’t varying his inning pitch count wildly, like 6 pitches one inning, then 24 for the next 2 innings, then 6 again, isn’t throwing more than half of his pitches in stress situations like having a lot of runners in scoring position or that he has to hold on, I don’t have a big problem with him keeping on throwing.

But there’s something else to consider. A 9YO isn’t an adult! For the sake of conjecture, let’s assume a 9YO is half as big as his dad when he was 21. Keeping everything in perspective, 7-8 pitches an inning would be about right, so for an entire 6 inning game, that would be no more than 64 pitches. I use pretty much the same standard for HS players, but I use 3/4ths rather than ½. That would be 84 pitches for a game.

Here’s another way to think about it. Let’s say a kid is approximately half as big as he’s gonna get when he’s a fully grown adult, and he weighs 90lbs. That means the 5 oz baseball will be roughly twice as heavy to him as it would be to his dad at 180.

[Jake Patterson]

about 3 weeks ago my sons 9u travel team played a double header and the other team only used 2 pitchers total. 1 for each game............they were around 90 pitches each for a 6 inning game****after the second game i saw the pitcher jogging around the field with his arm in a sling*****Educate the parents.... (rhetorical)

[hawkiirock]

we had a 10 and under throw 8 or 9 innings against us. Dont remember which now. He lost finally. Ihave no doubt he wouldve kept coming out if we hadn't scored

[rkbenn]

I get sickened by see coaches use the hell out of pitchers. Parents need to step in, and if they don't care they should have the CPA called on them.

They been trying to get my son to play travel, but I think it is too much, plus he likes other sports.