How many pitches?
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Anonymous
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How many pitches is too many for a 16u pitcher to pitch in a 2-day weekend travel ball tournament? It was a regular tourney, not a “showcase” of anything like that. Team played 4 games.
For context, I’m in Phoenix visiting family and tournament was this weekend. Beautiful weather, no heat concerns. This was their last travel tournament of the fall and the kid will be “off” until high school practices start in late January/early February. I thought the kid (not a relative) threw a crazy high number of pitches, but my experience is limited to my 12u son. LL has their pitch count rules and I thought his travel tournaments had innings limits. My son doesn’t pitch for his travel team, so I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to those rules. Do the rules change as the kids get older? So is 100 pitches too many? 150? 200? I know how many he threw, but don’t want to jade people’s answers. |
Anonymous
| Is it baseball or softball? Softball pitchers theye a crazy number of pitches. |
Anonymous
OP here - It’s baseball. |
Anonymous
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Did your kid throw say 20 pitches a day for 3 days and then throw 60 pitches, or did your kid throw 80 pitches on day one and then throw again?
The former is still probably too much, while the latter would be horribly unacceptable. This is the problem with 95% of club teams…the coach thinks doing well in the tournament means something, when it’s getting kids recruited that should be the goal (and college coaches don’t care at all about how well the team does in a tournament). If this is a team where almost nobody will get recruited, then winning games at all costs is even more absurd. The only situation where I could see the latter situation above would be if there were college coaches around to watch the 80 pitch game…and then unexpectedly a college coach that made sense for your kid happened to unexpectedly show up for another game and your club coach decided to play your kid as a result (with at least a couple days rest and at least checking with your kid that their arm felt good). |
Anonymous
| First, he should only have pitched one of those days unless it was literally like 20 pitches or so the first day. And that one day, for a 16 year old, 90 to a 100 would be the max. And that would be the max for the weekend, too, if he did pitch both days. You don't want your kid being coached by that coach if he is not protecting his pitchers' arms. |
Anonymous
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Did they pitch multiple days?
I'd only allow pitching on multiple days if the first day was under 30 and then would want day 2 in the 50ish range assuming he looks OK. At 16 it's rare to see a kid pitch on more than one day. In a single day, I like to see the count under 90. There was one game where my son's coach let him hit the limit (105) and I was quite upset. |
Anonymous
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The above responses are about what I thought seemed reasonable - about 100 on the weekend. To be clear, the pitcher was not my kid or my nephew who I was there to watch. If it had been, the coach would have been told the kid was done after the first day.
The kid threw over twice that, about 250 on the weekend in 3 different games. I was in disbelief when he took the mound in game 3. |
Anonymous
That's insane...it's a massive fail by the coach and the parents. |
Anonymous
| Why is he playing in a tournament in late December? There are no college scouts at a 16u tournament anymore. Those days are over, with very limited exceptions. He should be living in the weight room this time of year and on a structured throwing program to ramp up to the start of the HS season. |
Anonymous
| About 100, but not 50/50 more like 25/75 max if over two days. |
Anonymous
| This is why kids end up getting tj surgery. |
Anonymous
| 75 pitches every three days is our rule |
Anonymous
| I have a 16u pitcher and the most he's thrown in one game is 95. But, he's then done for the weekend. I think 95 is pushing it and it doesn't happen frequently thankfully. |
Anonymous
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It depends on the kid and the coach. DS was not a full time pitcher. He was usually middle infield, and never pitched on his high school team.
When the travel team progressed far into tournaments, he would pitch. One game he pitched 105 pitches - a complete game. He had no issue with his arm. In most tournaments, he was the closer. He’d pitch the last 2 innings. One tournament he did this for 3 games in the same day. These were tournaments where college coaches were watching. If you win, you get to play more games, which is more exposure. |
Anonymous
| There is no scenario where a serious 16U pitcher should be playing in a travel tournament in December. One or two innings tops at a showcase or college camp, fine. |