Does your school have in place, innings and pitch count limits early in the season. Is there a minimum number of starts or pitches. When does that gradually increase.

Alot depends on the tepmerature and the individual pitcher. If it's a basketball kid that has only been throwing for a couple of weeks, I think you've got to have a pitch limitation (30 max), and a pitch type limitation (fastballs / change-ups only).

 

Other factors to consider would be if they play a position when they aren't on the hill and when you plan to bring them back to pitch again. If the temperature is above 60, the kid has been out all fall and winter, and they won't be playing a position that requires them to make a stressful throw (bang bang play from shortstop), or they won't be pitching again for four days. I think 75-90 pitches would be o.k. even in early April. However, the next day at practice or game they should do long running (15-25 min.), cord work, or light dummbell work to help repair their arm.

 

I think as the temperature and arm strength increases so should the number of pitches.

No matter the pitcher or temperature I know at Dixie (when I played a few years ago) everyone was on a pitch count at the beginning of the season for about 2 weeks. Normally it was like 40-50 pitches but varied a little bit every now and then. For a reliever like me it wasn't an issue because if I threw that many pitches in a game I wasn't doing my job and was out of the game.