I got a great question about pitching the other day on my website and it reads "I have
a 14 year old left son and was wondering what your thought process is on how many pitches
he should throw in a year".
Well, luckily for me USA Baseball and MLB.com got together and created a great resource
called Pitch Smart.
I'm going to leave a link to that below because it's got tons of information on pitch count
limits, days rest, how many innings a year different aged pitchers should be throwing
and I think every pitcher and their parents and coaches should be checking this out to
make sure everyone is in line with where they should be as far as how much pitching they
should be doing.
So let me start off, I'm just going to answer the question by pulling some information from
this resource, but I'm going to start off with the age group from 7 to 8 year olds.
This website, Pitch Smart, says pitchers age 7 to 8 should throw no more than 60 innings
in a 12 month calendar year and with that being said, 4 months should be taken off totally
of throwing, and 2-3 of those months off should be consecutive.
Ages 9 to 12 pitchers should throw no more than 80 innings in a 12 month calendar, same
thing with the 4 months off, and the 2-3 of those months should be consecutive.
Ages 13 to 14 can throw no more than 100 innings in a 12 month calendar year, same thing, 4
months off, 2 or 3 of those months need to be consecutive and age 15 to 18 is the same
at 100 innings with the 4 months off and the 2 to 3 months consecutive.
The only difference is going to be the daily pitch count maxes will go up a little bit.
So, again, the question was about pitches.
How many pitches in a year should a pitcher throw?
So this Pitch Smart website doesn't have the pitches, a number of pitches a pitcher should
throw, but I guess what you could do if you really wanted to get the pitches versus the
innings is, you know, if you're averaging 12 pitches in an inning you can times that
by your whatever age you are, 80 or 100, let's say 100, say you're 13 years old, you times
12 pitches by 100 that would be 1,200 pitches in a season and of course taking those 4 months
off of throwing totally.
Not just pitching, taking off throwing, and 2 or 3 of those months off consecutively.
Now this is just touching the tip of the ice berg here.
There's a lot more information on this website so definitely check it out.
I'll leave that link below and I think it's a huge problem in youth baseball right now
and I think as coaches we need to get on the same page with the players, communicate with
them on how much they're throwing, if they're playing on other teams, which, I don't recommend
anyway, you know, don't play on multiple teams, pick a team and stick with a team, and communicating
that with the parents, but ultimately it's going to fall on the player and the parents
because you're the one that is there every single time.
You're the one who knows how much you're pitching.
So you have to take care, if you're trying to aspire to play at the next level, you have
to take care of your arm.
So don't get too emotional, don't get attached to trying to win and pitch a lot because you're
trying to win, take care of your arm.
You've only got one throwing arm, alright?
I hope this helps guys.
If you've got any questions let me know I'd be happy to answer them and if you haven't
already subscribe and join the free newsletter.
Thanks guys.
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