I remember bringing a pitch counter one year to the games and started tracking just how many pitches the kids were throwing. There were a lot of times I saw pitchers, including my own son, throw 50+ pitches in an inning. There were also a lot of times I saw kids who were throwing more than 80 in a game including my own son.
I know that certain leagues have pitch count/ inning limits which is good. But realistically we should be watching for the warning signs in pitchers and let that be the true gauge. I know kids who can't throw more than 1-2 innings before their elbow or shoulder are just killing them. On the other hand I know kids who can throw 7 complete innings and have no soreness at all in their arm after the game. In warm-ups I see kids who throw maybe for 5 minutes and are already complaining and want to stop while others are just reaching a point at that time when they just begin to warm up their arm to throw.
I am not sure what exactly it is- where the mechanics break down or why but some kids can throw very little and others can throw almost endlessly. I am not sure I buy the whole "not pitching at a yound age" thing. My son started throwing a baseball and tennis ball against the stairs of our house when he was about 5 years old and has been doint it ever since. There are days when he will go out and throw a couple hundred balls into those stairs, come in and watch TV and then in the evening he asks me to come and catch for him while he throws another 50-100 throws. Now I will admit that most of these throws are not at game speed velocity but he knows the difference between throwing and pitching. Both of us have come to believe that his throwing a lot has led him to have a good conditioned arm for pitching when he does.
Yes, we should limit young arms on the mound in games, but at the same time we really need to look deeper at the warning signs and let that be the real judge. For the longest time everyone was on this kick about how "curveballs" were damaging arms. Then we came to find out that throwing fastballs is actually more damaging to the elbow. What i see where we fail is seeing kids have soreness in the elbow or shoulder joint and just prescribe ice and a few days off and move on. I read a study once where like 90% of teenagers requiring TJ surgery complained of chronic elbow soreness leading up to the injury.
I do believe in strict pitch counts in games, but even moreso I believe in completely shutting kids arms down when they begin to have any kind of chronic pain and let it properly heal and perhaps help them change mechanics, strengthen the arm and body and be more conditioned overall to play the game.