quote:Originally posted by Bum:
Coach Ric,
I understand your emphasis on pitch-counts, but let me put the question another way. Say it's your own kid and he has been invited onto a Florida travel team that plays year-round, except for a set shut-down period. Your kid is set to pitch once per week for 10 months. That's 43 starts or about 250 innings. Would you let him do it?
The reason I'm polling this is that I am concerned somewhat in that my own son has been getting several invites to year-round events. By the end of Fall, he'll be at 152 innings and counting. I was hoping to get a HSBBW consensus on the max innings, but it appears no one has similar concerns.
While not addressed at me, I thought I would answer anyway:
It seems like too many innings regardless of the age of the player. Assuming under 14 - e.g. pre high school - I would not want him pitching in games that much - he needs to have time to develop in practices via bullpens etc. and he needs more down time than 2 months a year. I would think that less than 100 game innings (e.g. 25 4 inning outings) and another 20 quality bullpen sessions would be more than enough pitches for a year.
For a high school aged player, any team like that would need to work around his high school pitching season. I'd like to see a high school aged pitcher throw perhaps 50 innings during the season - and then another 50-75 innings with his off season team. Bullpens again are needed to develop and perfect skills - so add those into your pitch count for the year. I'd also like to see a 4-6 weeks of complete down time followed by a gradual easing back into throwing of about 6 weeks (e.g. long toss at gradually increasing distance and quantities).
Essentially the high school program is what my son's pitching coach has him on - the pre highschool is more just my opinion based on what I have learned over the years.
Hope this helps,
08