Pitch Counts

No policy at our school. Seems to be strictly dependant on the kid's strength, conditioning and endurance...and ability to get outs late in the game. 60 - 75 pitches is most common in our games but once and awhile we'll get a complete game with 80 - 85 pitches.

One week last year my son threw 130 - 140 in three days...TOO MUCH! Don't know what the coach was thinking. My son's arm took a week to recover from that.

I think the player and the Parent need to set the rules. It's tough to do but I don't think you can just blindly go by a chart. I think it's a good place to start but humans are so uniquely different that the chart doesn't really do everyone justice. THere are so many variables also. Conditioning, time of year, days since last start..it goes on and on.

My feeling is that most people don't do enough work in preseason, and it ends up effecting them in June.

I would pay very close attention to how things are going around pitch 60 or so and higher. I think you will very quickly be able to come up with your own pitching chart for your son based on your son's performance. The coach needs to agree with that one way or the other.

Good question. Even in the 'question' itself you really see a lot. Most places that do have a policy it's going to be the head coaches policy. Do many school's have a policy governing how many times a running back may carry the football in a game?
If you have a policy are you also going to govern pitches in practice? Warm-up pitches, both bull-pen and between innings?
It could get complicated.
The best protection for young pitchers is to have LOTS of pitchers on your team.
Teams that wear one kid out do deserve criticism. That being said, the hardest thing in game management is to take out your Ace (ask Grady Little. Rex Sox // Pedro... ring a bell?). I remember one time I had my ace going in a championship game of a summer trny. He's well-rested and it's Sunday. I don't need him again until next Saturday or Sunday... Right as the game starts his dad walks up to me in front of the whole team (16 yr olds) and holds up "his" pitch counter and says, "I don't want Jonny throwing no 90 pitches today!" That was basically what I had in mind ... It didn't end up mattering because Jonny got absolutely lit up in the 2nd inning and was sitting by me...
So my advice: yes communicate with your coaches... but not like that.
Coaches: Yes protect your arms... By having lots of arms to go to...

Good question.... I'm interested in hearing a lot of different posts...

quote:

I think the player and the Parent need to set the rules.

Maybe they should write the lineup or decide when to put on a hit and run or a bunt. I know sarcastic but think about it. I have chimed in about this pitch count thing before. Common sense common sense common sense. If a kid is in the 3 rd inning and his pitch count is high well chances are he is not to sharp.
I think high school coaches should develop pitchers as a staff not the ace and then pray for rain.

Where I'm from there are no rules on pitch counts. It is the coaches job to decide when a pitcher has had enough. Some coaches are good at this, some are not. A kid on my freshman team last year threw 120 pitches in a game fairly early in the season, clearly too much. His arm felt like jello for several days.

Will.

Commom sense is exactly my point. Who do you think has the best chance of reaching the state of "common sense" for a kid? If it's not his parent then who? His coach? Have you been to a competitive youth park on a Sunday lately?

It all depends on the kid and the parents have the best chance of knowing what is too much.

Razor:
I hear ya when you say, "have you been to a comptetitive youth park lately?"
I am speaking in terms of my situation. I am a HS coach in charge of a program that may have 2 really good players, 15 average players, and 20 sub-average. My job is to try to get the most out of all of them so they can enjoy the experience... I've found if I'm just reasonable with them we all get along fine and the parents aren't too worried.
Yes there are maniacs out there that would have your son throw 80 pitches on 1 day rest and then come in a close the following day.. my only advice would be if your son is on one of those teams get him off... he's better in rec league or sandlot just playing and having fun than playing for those guys Hollywood always makes fun of.

It is a last resort, but a parent should be willing to talk to the coach if the boy's arm is being abused.

The boy should be the first to talk to the coach (appropriately and with due respect). If no results, then the parent has an OBLIGATION to do so. This isn't playing time or positions. This is the ongoing health of a boy's arm.

I have known of HS pitchers throwing from 110 to 140 pitches in a game. I have known of them throwing on consecutive days.

My son went 4-1 in an 8 day period last year in Texas high school baseball during the pre-season tournaments. It wasn't just the count, but the appearances. He is a top prospect and in all fairness to his coach, it was my son telling him "I got it." He was topping at 84 by the play-offs (in the 90s during district) and had a spur removed this November. I hate to do it, but will control his innings, appearances and pitch counts this year (his senior year). Neither the coach nor my son will control them.

There are certain things a parent has control of while sons are young. Once they go off to play at a higher level, it's out of your hands.

Comments made about me on another website that I am a coach's nightmare because we had issues when son had too many pitch counts in a first season game.

If you want your sons to get to the next level, you better be the coaches worst nightmare. What they do today has a great impact on what tommorow may bring.

Competitive young pitchers WILL NOT take themselves out of the game, neither will a coach who just cares about the win. They have no CLUE as to how it will affect their future.

quote:

My son went 4-1 in an 8 day period last year

Is that baseball? Not softball? Yikes What was his record the week before? Thats out of control.

quote:

A kid on my freshman team last year threw 120 pitches in a game fairly early in the season, clearly too much. His arm felt like jello for several days.

...and probably played like jello for a week too.

I was caught completely off guard first game of the season when they left my kid in to throw 115 pitches after throwing a 75 pitch scrimmage 4 days prior. I called the coach two days later and suggested he work up to 100 pitches later in the season.

He suggested I mind my own business...."CUZZ I'M THE COACHHHH!!!" Of course, I suggested I was, since 5 years of college tuition was promised in return for some pitching starting the next year.

The coach was not retained after that season.

As trojan-skip suggests try to handle bruising the coaches ego in private.

The coach is a great guy and would not hurt my son on purpose. He was first year and wanted to win, my son was sitting next to him promising he would take care of things. I really don't expect a problem this year. If I call the coach he would do what I asked. I do not interfer with his coaching at all, just my son's health. In fact, if he sat my son on the bench, I would never call him. It has nothing to do with health issues. His record the week before was 1-0.
The one loss was on the 8th day -- I could have hit him (I'm terrible).

We’re not talking coaching we're talking abuse here. In a perfect situation parents SHOULD NOT control pitch counts or have anything to do with pitch counts….AND… coaches should ALWAYS limit pitch counts. But we are not always in a perfect situation. The parents of a pitcher needs to educate themselves and should be aware of what a suitable pitch count is, what constitutes a suitable recovery period, and understand the coach’s philosophy on both, make sure the coach is aware of your intent to monitor your son, go buy yourself a pitch counter and start clicking. Complicated? Not at all. You count balls and strikes during the game. During my son’s senior year he was being over used as a pitcher and as a catcher. I saw his velocity drop from 95mph to 90 mph in two months. His pitch count was exceeding 100 per game on three days rest and he was expected to catch and pitch a double header. At times his arm was so fatigued that he could hardly hold it up. Since my son had already signed an NLI with an SEC school I asked his soon to be college coach for suggestions. He agreed I should intervene. I tried to talk to the HS coach about the situation to no avail so I went home and typed up his pitching and catching guidelines and presented them to him. Not a pretty sight but it all worked out. The very next day the coach came to me during the game and explained that my son had just asked for the ball to close the game. I told him I didn’t care what my son had said....I explained that today is a “no pitch” day!

I agree with TPM; Dedicated players will sacrafice themselves to win a ball game. I also agree if your son is being abused you need to step in....quietly at first. If it continues you need to become more assertive. Either you can be the coaches nightmare for a year or two ...or.... he can be your son's nightmare....for many years.
IMHO Fungo

Really, my son loves his coach and his coach loves him. There won't be a problem, except both are competitors and want to win. When and how to pitch are coaching decisions. Pitch counts are health decisions, I will get involved in health decisions.

I have seen swith my own eyes coaches that leave 13 and 14 years olds in for over 100 pitches.

Anything over 60 or 70 pitches is obscene until the player is 18 or 19. Not worht risking injury

OK... I've been worrying about this one but hadn't asked.
We have 2 excellent pitchers at my son's HS. Coach has told the 2 boys his goal is a quicker recovery time so they can get more starts. Sounds great to a kid, but obviously not in the player's best interest.
The coach is having them throw 30 pitch bull pens every other day. Then he plans to start these two boys every game and has told them they'd better be efficient because he has nothing behind them. No talk about pitch count, just how often these two will be asked to start.
Is it possible to condition a kid to have a quicker recovery time? Sounds like mumbo jumbo to me.

KCBaseball,

Is one of the pitchers your son? This sounds like a very dangerous coaching attitude for any pitcher who has hopes to play beyond high school.

quote:

Is it possible to condition a kid to have a quicker recovery time?

No.

There is nothing you can do to change how long it takes the body to recover.

For him to say that his goal is quicker recovery time indicates to me that he knows nothing about how the body works.

quote:

The coach is having them throw 30 pitch bull pens every other day.

Are they doing any dry throwing with wrist weights or weighted balls or anything else that will help build up the muscles of their arms?

quote:

4-1 in an 8 day period.

How does that coach face the baseball people in your community? In most places if you did that you'd have to live under a bridge to keep from getting lynched....
I will say one other thing, the LL team my oldest son played on abused the heck out of 2 pitchers while they were little guys. Then my son and another kid were the kids that ended up having good arms out of the group... I felt bad for the kids getting abused but I didn't really speak up (I would now cuz I'm older and grayer) .. so the point about an aware parent is well-taken...

KC,
The situation you describe sounds like a nightmare!
And if what MNMom thinks to be the case and one is your son, you'd better intervene.
I think the problem lies is that coaches don't hik most parents are educated nowadays as to what we know and understand about pithcing abuse.
Sometimes it's a good idea to educate tehm on what you know.

Does anyone remember the formula for recovery time for innings pitched?

Its not the # starts that are bad, but how many innings and pitches thrown in each start. As a SENIOR sometimes my son had two starts sometimes one. The week he had two starts, he maybe pitched a few innings, no bullpen, the week he would pitch almost complete game, no more starts for a week. The complete game (or two combined) had to be no more than 90 pitches which he usually could accomplish, maybe once at 100.

The "rule of thumb" for recovery time for high school pitchers, which I read on ASMI.org and several other credible places, is:

Minimum of 1 hour of recovery time per game pitch thrown.

So, a 90-pitch game would call for a minimum of 90 hours recovery (about 4 days). Example: 90 pitches thrown Monday, kid can't pitch in a game again until Friday.

I'm not the expert, just passing along what I read from several reputable sources. But my son used that rule of thumb through high school and it seemed to match the recovery time his body needed. Personally, I would like to see a high school pitcher who throws around 7 innings not pitch again until 1 week later - like a college starter who pitches once a week (the "Friday" starter, etc.). That's just a parent's perspective, from what I observed on HS and summer teams.

MN-Mom hits the nail on the head. Simple rule and for all of you that worry about that high school coach, you can go copy that for your head coach to ponder.

OK, some of you scare me. You are going to tell the head coach what to do. Every other parent now has that same right. The Head Coach is coaching your son and putting that son in danger... You're the parent. Hey Coach, my son DOESN'T PITCH ANYMORE. Why?
Because you are jeapordizing his health. Then, if the head coach doesn't like it, there is always summer ball. Besides, most posters are coming to the conclusion that summer ball is more important than high school ball anyway when it comes to scholarships. As I tell my parents, if you don't like something I'm doing, remove your son. YOU ARE THE PARENT!

These coaches Really Scare ME! No win is as important as a kid's health. We've been through the pitch count stuff a lot on this site. What are some of these guys doing to get these coaching positons?

Bullpens - I noted the bullpen statement concerning 30 pitches - we throw everyday. A typical Bullpen for us has 44 pitches. We then wrap up with a couple of hitters on a mound. We don't throw anything but a "Sunday Catch" the day after we throw. This is supervised by a trainer. We don't throw a "typical bullpen" (We throw a 1/2 pen) or face a batter the second day after we pitch in a game. We get our long throwing in the 3rd day after we throw a game along with our typical work. We do band work everyday. We stretch before and after everyday. We tell our pitcher that they will be asked one simple question before they take the mound and we expect honesty in their response. That Question "How do you feel?"

I would also like to bring up the fact that you parents out there are parents, not coaches. This is not meant to offend anybody, but the coach was hired for a reason. He in all likeleness knows what he is doing. Let him do his job. Also, your kid is on the team to pitch. I know that I would be infuriated if my parents told me or my coach that I was pitching too much...

quote:

He in all likeleness knows what he is doing. Let him do his job. Also, your kid is on the team to pitch. I know that I would be infuriated if my parents told me or my coach that I was pitching too much...

While many coaches do in fact know what they are doing, many do not.

What's more, the pressures placed on coaches today often lead them to take a short-term focus (on winning at all costs) rather than a longer-term focus (on protecting the arms of their pitchers).

It is our jobs as parents to be as informed as possible so that we can protect our children.

CoachB25, many parents here wish we could clone you and put a copy in every HS program!

Andrew, unfortunately, not all coaches at the HS level are as knowledgeable and caring as some of the great ones we have as members here. My son attended a small (church) high school, and coaches in all sports ranged from very good to very inexperienced.

Freshman year, he was a position starter on varsity and #1 pitcher on JV. JV coach was coaching baseball for the first time. Since he had never heard of pitch counts, he thought my 14-yr-old son should complete every game he started on the mound (in spite of innings prolonged by errors), and should pitch 2 complete games per week. My son learned how to negotiate with the JV coach to balance helping his team with having an arm left at the end of the season.

Soph year, varsity only, knowledgeable and experienced coach, everything goes great. Junior year, #1 pitcher on varsity but the team also had 3 experienced Senior pitchers, no problem. Senior year, new coach who had only coached softball before, (one pitcher can pitch most of the innings in softball), son had to protect his arm from abuse again.

There are many very good HS coaches, but parents of pitchers have to educate themselves and their sons enough to know whether the youth or HS coach is or is not protecting his pitchers' arms. We as parents never needed to speak to our son's coaches at all about the issue, because he took care of it himself from age 14 up.

MN-Mom, another GREAT POINT! Your son NEEDS to be the one that talks with the coach and lets the coach know what he is feeling. In an ideal situation, both are concerned with the health of that arm. As I read more and more on this site, that often isn't the case. If your son tells the coach that he is tender or his "arm is tired," and the coach then pitches him, then as a parent and not a coach, I get involved. We would all hope that the coach would respect the pitcher's honesty and preserve the arm.

One other thing we haven't mentioned and that is type of pitches. We can all argue as much as we want on the curveball and or slider. However, pitch counts don't always tell the story on arm fatigue. If your son is throwing a large number of either of these pitches then the pitch count should be lower. This is my opinion. In my opinion, fastballs and changeups are the standard to set the absolute limit on. Some things we think about:

• 50-60 pitches max first outing.
• We plan for 2 pitchers to make one for the first couple of weeks. This means that one might get 55 and the other get 40. The one that got 40 might throw again after a couple of day's rest. BTW, we call this "Pitching by Committee."
• If we can get another pitcher one inning, we can then take the pitcher that was going to throw 40 and now he throws 30. He should be good to go if we need him the next day.
• These numbers should be discussed with the pitcher the day BEFORE he throws. Therefore, he knows his count and he can mentally be prepared to come out. I had one young man that needed this badly since he was such a fierce competitor. To him coming out was a Macho Thing. With this agreement, he understood.
• The coach should count the pitches on the pitching chart and not a kid. I messed up and once had a kid in too long. Our pitcher keeping the book didn't count an inning. I apologized to the player and parents and won't let it happen again.
• We progress 50-60. Then, 75 pitches. Then, we let them extend to above 80. Then, we don't want to ever get past 100. We've posted before that we aren't perfect and have had a couple of times where a kid passed this.

[QUOTE]The "rule of thumb" for recovery time for high school pitchers, which I read on ASMI.org and several other credible places, is:

Minimum of 1 hour of recovery time per game pitch thrown.
[QUOTE]

This is VERY helpful. Thanks, MN-Mom for providing it and thanks for the pm. Yes, my son is one of the pitchers.

My husband and I had a long discussion last night about this subject. We didn't incude our son because he is a "team first" player and would be appalled if we ever spoke to the coach about pitch counts. We're just not sure that our son will speak up if he feels overused since he believes you do whatever it takes to help the team.
We will be visiting the college campus where he has signed to play baseball over spring break. Its before our HS season begins. We plan to bring this up with the college pitching coach and have him walk through his opinions with our son. Sometimes its best if it comes from an expert, and not from your own parent!
As a last resort we will intervene with the HS coach, once the season begins, if we feel his count is too high. We have to be careful because son #2 arrives at HS in one short year. Oh, the politics of HS baseball!
Thanks for all the great advice. This site, as always, helps me so much!

CoachB25,
I was typing while you were responding! I agree with MN-Mom that we all would love to have you guiding our sons. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
My son didn't even throw a CB till 6 months ago. He relies on FB, CH and has great success. He's also very big (6'4", 220 lbs), with a really solid trunk/lower half. I will make sure the discussion with the college coach includes the CB discussion, especially since this pitch is new to our son. He knows he wasn't supposed to throw it till he quit growing, but he may not realize that it "counts" more as stress on the arm than his other pitches.
Once again, thanks!

KCBaseball,

What a great idea to discuss with the college coach and let him give your son the guidelines! He definitely will want to help your son keep his arm healthy from now until he shows up on campus, and your son should definitely take it seriously coming from him!