Pitch counts and building up to a game

turnin2,
Just my opinion but this thing is a process that takes the pitcher years to develop to reach higher pitch counts.
There are some who may say that at lower velocities, they can't hurt themselves pitching more, I do not agree. Pitching from the mound does cause stress on the arm regardless of velocity.
The best thing is to follow guidelines set forth for each age group.
If you have pitchers that remain healthy, why change things?

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
turnin2,
Just my opinion but this thing is a process that takes the pitcher years to develop to reach higher pitch counts.
There are some who may say that at lower velocities, they can't hurt themselves pitching more, I do not agree. Pitching from the mound does cause stress on the arm regardless of velocity.
The best thing is to follow guidelines set forth for each age group.
If you have pitchers that remain healthy, why change things?

I agree with everything you say. I have a guideline of how many pitches my kids throw and how ofte nand required rest, etc. I really don't intend to change or think we need to, but the thought came into my head so I through it out there to ask. I try to
keep all my kids near 80 if they are Seniors/juniors, yeah sometimes that kid goes 90-100, most of our soph and freshman are between 50-60, partially to protect them and partially to develop more arms.

Somewhat off topic but does anyone else feel that young kids shouldn't start actually pitching until they are maybe 10 or 11 instead of 9? It may make a difference in how long a kids arm would hold up. It also would give them an extra year or two to learn proper throwing motions and how to warm up the correct way. Most kids at 9u just go out and throw alot. Majority of them don't stretch and things of that nature. Just a thought, but does anyone agree?

JMO as stated before, if we had to do it over son would not begin pitching until later. And we watched his innings and gave lots of time off.

This is something you don't realize until the pitcher becomes older and begins to move up the ladder. But definetly we have thought about this over the past several years.

Regardless, every pitcher, sometime in his pitching career (HS,college, pro or maybe even sooner) will have issues.

Hardnose,

I would say, absolutely not.

First of all, for most Little Leaguers, they aren't even going to play past age 12. So you're going to curb their playing in what might be half their baseball playing experience?

For kids who do move onward and upward, I don't know how you are supposed to tell those who are to advance from those who aren't if they haven't had a reasonable opportunity to play the game.

Yeah, maybe if we could wait until age 18, we wouldn't get hurt. Or, maybe we'd have no conditioning for the task and we'd all get hurt immediately at that point.

To me it's kind of like driving. We all know there are going to be accidents and even tragedies, but we all want to drive and need to drive anyway. Well, if you want to play the game, you have to take the bitter with the sweet, and the risks with the rewards.

Why do so many high level pitchers get hurt? Because they're still pitching. Everyone else either washed out or quit.

I don't know if there really is a way to build up to the amount of throws in a game besides just "throwing in a game". You can do bullpens and what not and build up to the pitch count required and then in a game everything sometimes goes out the door because of the added adreniline or stress/anxiety of it all. I think its best to limit pitchers therefor to 2-3 innings in the beginning and build up slowly from there into the full 6-7 innings.

Everyone is different but this is how my son builds up for a season.

First we always shut down for 10-12 weeks of active rest. Coming off his rest period he starts to long toss 2-3 days per week, starting easy and slowly working up to maximum throws. After a week or two his LT ends with some flat ground “pitching” at 60-70 feet.
We will start to add in a bullpen after a couple of weeks, again not at 100% just getting a feel for his mechanics.

After 3 weeks he will start to add in a day or two more of LT as his arm strength comes up he focuses more on the “pulldown” part of LT. We will start adding in bullpen sessions depending on how he feels. After 4-6 weeks he will be on a daily LT routine, start to do more bull pens and then he is game ready. All first games are FB only and 2 maybe 3 innings. After a few games he will add in his CU and then finally his CB. Early games are 3 innings max.

After 8-10 weeks the coach starts to allow him to stretch out his innings, up to 75 pitches. By now he is long tossing nearly everyday, generally lightly the day after pitching. Once he is feeling good and we are starting to get ready for league play he will be allowed to stretch out to a full game. Generally 80-90 pitches or so. Once we are in league he will complete a game up to 100 pitches plus or minus a few. One game last year he went out to 110 pitches.

He is on a constant LT routine, doing his band work daily, stretching, and stretching with a partner prior to his starts and always running after pitching. Once he is at this point the limitations are artificial. After his 110 pitch game he said he felt like he could pitch 2-3 more innings.

He is very diligent with his warm ups, he always runs to get a sweat; he always does a full set of arm circles, always bands, always stretches, and always long tosses prior to his starts. He is fortunate to have a buddy on his team who has done the full Jaeger course with him several times so he has someone to work with. They are the only two pitchers on the team (IMO) who prepare properly.

Speaking of pitch counts in HS baseball, here is an example of what NOT to do, from my home state:

This HS senior pitcher threw 122 pitches in a complete game win for his team, in the semifinal game of the State tourney. I have no problem with 122 pitches at the end of a season. The only problem is - he came back the very next day to start the State championship game, throwing 5 innings. Yikes!!!

"Borchardt, who pitched a complete game win in Thursday's quarterfinals against Eden Prairie, allowed nine hits, struck out four and walked three (Friday). He battled through a sore arm that had bothered him since Thursday."
http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_12582139

Sore arm - ya think???

Julie

Seriously - do these states not have some sort of pitching rules in place?

I'm not real sure what Kentucky's were because I didn't like them but there was structure in place to try and help protect arms.

It was something like

One pitch - 2 innings = no rest
3 - 5 innings = 2 days rest
6 - 9 innings = 3 days rest

Also, you were limited to 9 innings in one day and 14 total in a sliding weeks time.

Only problem I have with this you can have a kid throw 70 pitches in two innings and come back the next day. I never heard of that happening but it was possible.