http://www.kentucky.com/sports/high-school/josh-moore-blog/article57130788.ece/BINARY/Pitch%20Count%20Rule%20adopted%20by%20the%20KHSAA

Knew it was coming

120 is still a lot of pitches though so I do not see this having a huge effect as far as the individual game is concerned.

I like the idea behind it for arm health. It makes much more sense than the innings limit in that regards considering I have seen 70 pitch innings in the high school baseball I have watched over the last 20 years. However, I do feel like 120 is too high for a high school pitcher especially in March and April. I feel like 105 at most 110 is a good number for a pitcher in a game at this age if we are really trying to protect their arms. I also am concerned about how they are keeping track of this. Most coaches already keep track of pitch counts. However, this is giving them even more work. Verifying between innings is the best way to eliminate controversy, but I could foresee this slowing down games which in high school lets be honest can already be slow.

A pitch count is better than inning limitations.

 

Tracking the count will be an issue I believe. Sometimes you have 2 or 3 pitch counts in the same dugout and they never seem to match.

 

If the designated counter is designated by the home team and has final say, what stops the potential of home cooking? (Hopefully that won't happen but is a possibility.)

 

I can see a pitcher pitching to the top half of the order, a new pitcher coming in via position change for the bottom half, and a rotating use of them in that fashion.

pitch counts at the high school level,i have no problem with.but if people think this will fix the problem with protecting arms,i think they may be mistaken. imo the biggest problem with protecting kids arms.....select baseball!!! i know people don't want to here it .....but.......!!! when you have kids playing baseball,spring summer,and fall,it's going to catch up to players, with the exception of a few physically advanced kids. case and point.the high school where i coach at played a grand total of 42 games....that's spring and summer. if we had a fall team,maybe 10/12 more games. so.....52 games total. i know that's on the low side,but weather had a lot to do with it. the max schedule for high school is 36.if i max out EVERYTHING,we might have played ....66/70 games. that's 15 to 18 year old. i have a 12 year old nephew,who plays select baseball....last year....95 games!!!! sorry,to many games. you can take all these precautions at the high school level,but unless you deal with the independent stuff,i don't know how much it's going to make a difference. and just for the record,i coached a select team,most games we played in a season.....40.

A pitch count is better than inning limitations.

 

Tracking the count will be an issue I believe. Sometimes you have 2 or 3 pitch counts in the same dugout and they never seem to match.

 

If the designated counter is designated by the home team and has final say, what stops the potential of home cooking? (Hopefully that won't happen but is a possibility.)

 

I can see a pitcher pitching to the top half of the order, a new pitcher coming in via position change for the bottom half, and a rotating use of them in that fashion.

 

I have seen the rotating pitcher idea used before. A simple rule to say that You can only be a pitcher one time per game prevent it from happening. You could also go farther and say a player may only be used as a pitcher 1 time per day.

The KHSAA is about 11 years late on this. Pretty much EVERY amateur/youth baseball governing body adopted the pitch count rule in 2005.

Eh.... The majority of kids don't take care of their arms anyways, so I don't see this making a difference.

Eh.... The majority of kids don't take care of their arms anyways, so I don't see this making a difference.

 

I don't think this is true at all. Kids these days are much more aware of how to take care of their arms than they were 20-30 years ago.

I don't think this is true at all. Kids these days are much more aware of how to take care of their arms than they were 20-30 years ago.

 

You'd be surprised at the amount of kids I've worked who do 0 stretching before/after and don't ice anything. I'd like to be wrong though.

You'd be surprised at the amount of kids I've worked who do 0 stretching before/after and don't ice anything. I'd like to be wrong though.

 

That's not my experience. If that's happening at the High School level, I'd say that's a coaching issue. I will say your experience was the norm 20-30 years ago.

That's not my experience. If that's happening at the High School level, I'd say that's a coaching issue. I will say your experience was the norm 20-30 years ago.

 

That's exactly what it is. It's from playing knothole for teams that really have no idea what is going on. I mention stretching and icing and receive looks as if I've said something in a different language. I'm glad you have better experiences than I.

The younger teams may have a staffing issue as to whose job it will be. I can think of frosh games where there's one coach and a scorekeeper. Is the scorekeeper also going to chart pitches?

The younger teams may have a staffing issue as to whose job it will be. I can think of frosh games where there's one coach and a scorekeeper. Is the scorekeeper also going to chart pitches?

 

It's easy to do for the scorekeeper, who should be keeping balls and strikes anyway. Just use a dot in the box (or and "x" or whatever you want) to notate any two strike foul balls. Takes less than a minute to count up pitches at the end of the inning.