Jul 19, 2016 5 min read

In case you missed it last week, high school baseball’s governing body adopted a new policy that will require states to completely revamp the way they determine pitching rest, changing from innings pitched to a pitch count.

It’s something Little League Baseball did a couple of years ago. It will completely change the high school game.

Currently, all states that have rules on pitching. Some use innings pitched as the determining factor for how much or when a pitcher needs rest. Hawaii has no pitching limit while Louisiana lets each principal set that school’s limits.

The trouble is that all innings are not the same.

A few years ago, while covering a local team in a WPIAL playoff game, I witnessed the starting pitcher throw almost 50 pitches in the first inning. He came out in the second inning and threw nearly 30 more, putting his pitch count around 80 before he was finally pulled.

Had his team won, it would have come back and played again two days later. Under current PIAA pitching rules, because he had thrown just two innings, that pitcher would have been eligible to start that game, despite throwing enough pitches to get through at least six efficient innings had he shown a modicum of control in his first outing. The player who replaced him and got through the final six innings by throwing 70 pitches, would not.

Anyone who follows high school baseball knows of instances where coaches have allowed their starting pitcher to throw 100 or more pitches – not counting warmups – in less than ideal weather. This is, after all, Pennsylvania, where at least half of our high school baseball season is played in temperatures better suited for, well, nothing in the early spring.

Will pitch counts be better and keep young arms healthier in the long run?

Perhaps.

According to a 2015 study by the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, nearly 57 percent of Tommy John surgeries – the replacement of a torn ulnar collateral ligament – performed between 2007 and 2011, were on kids between the ages of 15 and 19.

Think about that.

Overuse by high school coaches likely wasn’t the main problem. Kids pitching for two, three or even four different teams each year before they reach high school is a much bigger issue.

Players used to compete only in their local recreation program until they reached high school. Once the rec season was over, all-star tournaments would be held for the better players. And some areas also had fall programs.

Now, kids participate not only for their rec program, but for travel teams. Often times, there’s no way to track a kid’s pitches from team to team.

If you’re that player’s rec coach, then you are limited in how much you can pitch little Joey fireballer. But if he leaves your team every weekend to go play for his “elite” travel team, a coach has no control over how much he pitches for that team. And you have to trust the player or the player’s parents to be honest about reporting how much or whether he did pitch.

And there are more so-called “elite” travel programs than ever. Face facts: they can’t all be elite. The majority are fly-by-night organizations formed by someone trying to make a quick buck or a dad who grew disgruntled with the local rec league.

These programs can lead to overuse. And that’s if the young pitcher is only playing on two different teams. Some parents treat their kids like soldiers of fortune, allowing them to play and/or pitch for several teams at the same time.

And it goes like that for 12 months a year. There’s no break.

Gotta chase those imaginary baseball scholarships.

Instead of innings pitched at the high school level, we’ll see teams work on pitch counts, which in itself raises issues, the biggest being who is keeping track?

Many local high school programs use students – either a player or volunteer – to handle their scorebook. Many are, shall we say, challenged when it comes to knowing the rules of the game and how to score a game. There was once a game called in to the Observer-Reporter in which a young scorekeeper insisted the winning team had 53 hits and the losers 34 in a contest that ended with an 8-3 score. And there were no errors.

Little League uses a pitch count chart compiled by a person working as the official pitch counter at each game. But getting each PIAA team to have somebody do that at every game might be a bit much.

Instead, how about having the field umpire use a counter to track each pitcher, verifying between innings how many pitches were thrown. At the end of the game, that umpire can then sign off on each team’s scorebook, thus making it official.

Limiting the pitches thrown might be a step in the right direction when it comes to overuse. It’s certainly less arbitrary than innings pitched.

But until youth baseball gets a handle on travel teams, it might be all for naught.

F. Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.