Georgia Travel Baseball - NWBA - Yearly Pitch Count for different ages

180 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 09:21:15

Have any of you ever heard of a number of Competitive pitches (Game Piches) a child should throw in a year. Had a college coach tell me the the number he uses for his college pitchers is based on the pitchers age times 100.

This would be the total of competitive pitches for different ages:

8yr - 800
9yr - 900
10yr - 100
11yr - 1100
12yr - 1200

Thought this was interesting, what format do you guys use to take care of your pitchers arms for an entire year.

Edited by - FCASLUGGERS on 01/16/2013 09:21:51

115 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 09:56:39

Be sure to count all warmups between innings, pitchces in practice, rocks thrown at home, footballs thrown with friends, and friday dodge ball during P.E. INMHO really difficult to come up with a number as each kid is different. Some say the lack of offseason throwing some say no throwing for for 3 months both attribute to injuries. Interesting topic cant wait to hear different responses....

180 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 11:07:15

As a coach and a former player who tore my rotator cuff in college I want to make sure I am protecting these kids arm as much as possible. That is tough when as a competitor you want to win. There is always those 1 or 2 pitchers you want on the mound when the game is on the line. My main goal going into this year was to develop more kids that could pitch to lower the innings and pitches thrown by my top 2 guys last year.

How do most teams use their top 2 pitchers in a normal 2 day tournament? Innings/pitches/Sunday only/ Saturday and Sunday, if they pitch Saturday and Sunday what is the pitch limit Saturday for them to come back on Sunday. I know Usssa says a pitcher can throw 3 innings on Saturday, but that could be 30 - 70 pitches.

22202

263 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 11:32:47

If you do a search on the forum I bet this has been discussed at length.

115 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 14:05:59

Over 25 pitches/ cant pitch next day.... 26 to 60 pitches/ 3 days rest.... over 60 at least week no pitching is what our coach done last year seemed to be reasonable and had no arm injuries. Im sure as many ex pro pitchers are coaches on this board you will find answers... I was told by very successful coach at highest level if a kid is not throwing 11 months out of the year its impossible to compete at this level. Interesting note... If his arm gets sore in designated bad areas no throwing for 2 weeks

bballman

1432 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 14:22:55

quote:
Originally posted by LilBigTown

Be sure to count all warmups between innings, pitchces in practice, rocks thrown at home, footballs thrown with friends, and friday dodge ball during P.E. INMHO really difficult to come up with a number as each kid is different. Some say the lack of offseason throwing some say no throwing for for 3 months both attribute to injuries. Interesting topic cant wait to hear different responses....

No, these numbers are for pitching in games only. I'm pretty sure the recommendation this guys is using come from ASMI, along with the Little League pitch count rules. All these recommendations come with off the mound throws and warmups built in.

180 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 16:25:49

LilBigTown - "Over 25 pitches/ cant pitch next day"... I am actually implementing that this year with my 9U team. My goal is to not have to pitch my 1 or 2 guys on Saturday unless it is to close a game. I am shooting for no more than 75 in a weekend (25< on Saturday 50< on Sunday. If a child throws over 25 pitches on Saturday they will not pitch on Sunday. I guess there are many different opinions out there. Unfortunately there are coaches out there that will use innings rather than pitch count, which could lead to kids throwing with a fatigued arm and putting them in position for injury.

32 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2013 : 21:51:46

FCA- 25 pitches, that can be one inning so I hope you have 10 quality pitchers on your team.

180 Posts

Posted - 01/17/2013 : 08:48:45

Slump buster - There is wiggle room for that "25". I will not take a kid out if he is in the middle of batter. The key is not to have a kid you expect to go deep into a game on Sunday having to throw 30+ pitches on Saturday. I don't think you have to have 10 pitchers to make this work. You do have to have 6 or 7 though. That's what is so hard for coaches... In the perfect world you have 2 guys that can eat up innings in pool play, leaving 2 to 3 guys as filler guys for Saturday and Sunday, and your 1 and 2 at full strength for Sunday. The smaller tournaments are not the problem, it's the tournaments where you could possibly play 4+ games in bracket play with no rest. I guess my coaching life would be easy if I had 10 quality pitchers, but that rarely happens.

115 Posts

Posted - 01/17/2013 : 09:24:30

slumpbuster... This is travel ball where one requirement of a tryout might be CAN U PITCH. We were AAA team last year (who beat some majors) and every kid pitched some were better than others but they all pitched. Great defense still wins in baseball along with great pitching so depends on team goals who pitches an how often. Kudos to FCA for asking these questions. Using a pitch count an watching these tourn. you should see a wide variety of ideas when it comes to pitching. Worst scenario is to have kid throw 40 or so pitches friday, saturday, an sunday. The obvious thing you will see is great teams will be so talent filled they usually win out come sunday and you will also see teams ride a great player and often not worry about injuries. If winning at 9,10,11,12 is the goal then tryouts becomes a very important factor. To most parents development is more important than wins for instance does anyone that did not play with a great team last year remember how many games that great team won?

RACGOFAR

208 Posts

Posted - 01/17/2013 : 17:24:36

I've never seen anything like this type of guideline recommending 100 pitches times the age of the player for a season. What is the basis for that standard? In my view, there are a lot of variables as to how many pitches is too many. A properly conditioned arm along with the correct mechanics goes a long way towards how much a pitcher can throw in a given outing.

Generally, I would not use a pitcher if he threw more than 25-30 pitches the day before. If he threw 25 on saturday, from experience I know he is not going to give me much more than 50 or so pitches of effectiveness on Sunday. When you are tired, you lose your mechanics and that's when you increase the likelihood of injury.

32 Posts

Posted - 01/17/2013 : 23:34:57

LilBig- winning at all cost is a horrible thing for any coach to do however TRAVEL baseball is geared towards development during practices and winning during games and as for your players not remembering how many games the great teams won...probably not but they sure know who the great teams are don't they! If you aren't about winning then you had better inform the rest of the team because I would think you are a minority. Just sayin.

180 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2013 : 10:45:30

Slumpbuster - I dont believe there is a coach out there that doesnt want to win. It is the coaches job to develop the kids to give the TEAM a better chance of winning. Give me a coach whos team is competitive by developing 6 or 7 pitchers over a team that wins more on the back of 2 or 3 studs any day of the week. It is easy to rely on 2 or 3 kids to get you through tournaments, but then you have to ask yourself why are you really coaching...to win for your own gratification, or developing players. As a parent, I would not let a coach piggy back off of my son by pitching him too much. Unfortunately some parents are not educated enough to look after their childs health when it comes to pitching.

32 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2013 : 14:09:05

FCA- I don't believe I said anything about piggy backing or winning for own gratification however if you can't win games at the Major level then you WILL LOSE your better players to winning teams and that's a fact!! I've been coaching for YEARS and have won many major championships as a coach and let me tell you, the reason why we Winn is because my players are being developed so as a result we WIN!! Most teams have a number #1 a couple #2's several #3's pitchers and the rest are pool play pitchers...so you go right ahead and rely on your average 6-7 while the other major teams win the the already developed #1-3 pitchers. Guess what if your 6-7 aren't getting the job done (winning) then it's because you don't have any studs and that's ok but don't harp on us coaches just because we have dominate pitchers who are conditioned to pitch more than your 25 pitch count and still develope without arm issues. Some of us have doing this a LONG time without arm set backs because we might know a thing or two about developing arm strength through our own personal professional baseball careers.

180 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2013 : 15:41:29

Slumpbuster - Not directing "piggy backing" at you...but you have been in it long enough to know there are teams that over use 1 or 2 pitchers for different reason: 1. All they care about is winning. 2. they havnt developed more pitchers. You said... "Most teams have a number #1 a couple #2's several #3's pitchers and the rest are pool play pitchers...so you go right ahead and rely on your average 6-7 while the other major teams win the the already developed #1-3 pitchers" according to this statement you are talking about a team using 6 or 7 pitchers. I am not a Major Team, therefore I dont have 3 or 4 studs... but I do have 2 really good pitchers and 4 or 5 kids that I am trying to develop. It is a Coaches/Parents choice to pitch kids on day 2 after throwing 30+ pitches on day 1. Overuse is overuse no matter if the arm is conditioned or not. From what it sounds you wouldnt do this to a pitcher because you have 3 or 4 quality guys out side of your number 1 and 2. Dont understand why you got so defensive. This topic was started to get ideas from other coaches on how they monitor pitchers pitch counts. So... "through your proffessional baseball career" how do you monitor your pitchers in terms of pitch count/days rest etc?

32 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2013 : 22:43:29

Pitching 30 pitches and repeating another 30 in the same day on our team of well conditioned pitchers who have been training for weeks prior to the season has never resulted in any arm injuries. Lets keep in mind major level pitchers are heavily investing time and hard work into being the best in the game so maybe the two (FCASLUGGERS) and Major teams in this area are on different levels of experience as well ability...Maybe even coaching?? By the way I didn't get defensive, I was simply responding to topic.

180 Posts

Posted - 01/19/2013 : 13:19:43

Slumpbuster - What age group do you coach?

jacjacatk

154 Posts

Posted - 01/19/2013 : 16:35:54

quote:
Originally posted by slumpbuster101

Pitching 30 pitches and repeating another 30 in the same day on our team of well conditioned pitchers who have been training for weeks prior to the season has never resulted in any arm injuries.

Two 30 pitch outings on the same day (I'm assuming substantial cool-down period) is too dangerous for my taste, regardless of your track record. Guys who get paid big bucks to do this stuff (coaches and players), almost never do that. Pitching on back-to-back days with youth pitchers is bad enough.

To be frank, most youth tournament schedules require too much pitching in a weekend to be healthy for the way most youth teams handle their pitching. My kid's been chomping at the bit to pitch for 4 years now, and I tell him every chance I get that the fact that's he had minimal pre-HS mound time is probably going to work out for him in the long run, which is illustrated by the number of teammates he's had who've had substantial arm troubles from over-use.

32 Posts

Posted - 01/19/2013 : 17:06:33

10 and 12...what about you?

180 Posts

Posted - 01/19/2013 : 18:07:08

I coach a 9u team. Most of our kids play multiple sports. We finish up playing in August and start back in November. (One reason is I'm a HighSchool football coach as well and I am pretty busy from August to November) We usually start winter workouts (throwing program) in November or as soon as our last football game is over. Good luck to you and your team.

32 Posts

Posted - 01/19/2013 : 19:24:21

Thx coach and good luck to you guys as well

11UFAN

149 Posts

Posted - 01/21/2013 : 11:07:06

Wow. Even at the MLB level the vast majority of good quality pitchers only go 6 or 7 innings and less than 100 pitches, and throwing 200 innings makes you a real grinder. Look way back and you had pitchers pitching 16 inning games and throwing 300-500 innings.

My point is that the game has evolved and injury prevention, combined with common sense, is erring on protecting arms. My kid plays 13U and it really rubs me the wrong way to see great pitchers throwing max innings EVERY weekend. A good pitcher may throw plus or minus 15 pitches an inning on average.

My son has always played on really good teams and we've always had 8 or 9 pitchers that could get the job done and RARELY threw our studs all their allowed innings and almost never multiple times in a tournament unless they closed a game and started the next one when it was a back to back situation. Of course we had some throwing more than others, but arm protection came first.

FCA, I like your approach. Kids first, wins second and crazy travelball mentality win at all costs last. Developing those one and two inning guys is a great way to both protect the arms and win.