It's official: High school pitching distance moving back to 43 feet

Just saw a notice in an NFCA newsletter. The National Federation, the governing body of high school softball, just voted to increase the pitching from 40' to 43' for varsity players beginning with the 2010-2011 season. For those not sure what that means, it takes effect the year after the one coming up. So if you're a senior, no sweat. If you're a junior it will kick in your senior year.

The rationale is to increase the amount of offense in the game. The feeling is the extra three feet will help batters hit the ball more, which will get the defense more involved (instead of watching pitchers rack up 15 strikeouts per game) and make the game more exciting for the fans.

All of that is probably true for the better teams. But I wonder what it will do to the lesser teams -- the ones whose pitchers are already struggling. It might also be a problem for those pitchers who bounce between JV and varsity during the season. Any who rely on movement rather than speed may find it difficult to stay on top of their game.

What do you think? Is this move really necessary for the quality of the high school game, or is it more to benefit the elite pitchers -- to get them ready for college ball? And will it make the lower teams more competitive by helping them generate more offense, or penalize those who don't have big, strong pitchers who can throw 60+ mph?

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The focus of improving HS SB should be on dynamite. That might improve the game. Moving back to 43 ft. should only make an already dreary thing worse.

Very true. Requiring HS teacher/coaches to take courses on how to coach (such as ASEP) would be a good thing too. From my observations, a teaching degree doesn't necessarily translate to the field. There are plenty of good HS coaches out there. They're the ones who take it seriously instead of just putting in the time to get a check.

My take. If you have good pitching no big deal. It will help the small ball game and increase the use of speed with the pitcher back 3 feet fielding. The drop ball is now more of a weapon. Those high schools that only have a fast ball pitcher will suffer. What I don't like about it is the JV Level. Everyone will say train them to pitch. Hard to do in 3 months. Most JV games in this area are walk and wild pitch games of 30 plus runs scored , and not pitching. I only know one travel ball pitcher at the JV level. Most of these kids are 14-15. So do we pitch at 43 during high school and 40 during travel ball? That will really cause issues. My dd is a pitcher at 43 no issue, since she throws movement pitches. But it takes time to learn new locations on the screw and curve, because they break more. Change up , same deal. We need everyone at the same distance, none of this back and forth. Just do away with 40 feet, if you move high school to 43. But on the good side, bunter slapper. She can bunt 1/2 back to the pitcher and they can't get her out now, so offensively she is going to have a field day. Those kids that have speed will enjoy this!

We practice at some mulit-use fields in the summer in my community. A few years ago our 12U community travel team (a pretty good one, but community based) had practice on a field with 3 pitching rubbers (40', 46', 50') some of the fields had a 4th at 35'. We decided to run a 6 on 6 scrimmage for the second half of practice and the pitchers decided that the 46' mound looked right (they thought 40' looked too close) I told them they were wrong, but they were insistent so I let them go to see what would happen. After playing for about an hour both pitchers were still convinced that they were pitching from the correct rubber, but the batters were having a field day.

My point being that if 11 and 12 year old pitchers can make the adjustment on the fly to a 6' increase then 14 to 18 year olds can handle a 3' difference even if they aren't elite pitchers. It will definitely effect batting averages. I'm pretty sure HS baseball is played on a full sized college regulation field not sure why you wouldn't play HS softball on a full sized college regulation field especially given that girls physically mature at an earlier age than boys. When I look at the size disparity between our 9th grade softball and Varsity softball team it's almost neglible especially compared to the difference in the same two baseball teams.

SBFAMILY said:

What I don't like about it is the JV Level.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the wording said that the change was mandatory for varsity not JV. At any rate I don't think the extra three feet is that big of a deal. My DD pitched from that distance as a 11U eligible player to kids entering college at a summer camp and did just fine. We really didn't even think about it until she was half way through the game when I asked the coach the distance the pitcher's plate was set to.

SBFAMILY said:

My take. If you have good pitching no big deal. It will help the small ball game and increase the use of speed with the pitcher back 3 feet fielding. The drop ball is now more of a weapon. Those high schools that only have a fast ball pitcher will suffer. What I don't like about it is the JV Level. Everyone will say train them to pitch. Hard to do in 3 months. Most JV games in this area are walk and wild pitch games of 30 plus runs scored , and not pitching. I only know one travel ball pitcher at the JV level. Most of these kids are 14-15. So do we pitch at 43 during high school and 40 during travel ball? That will really cause issues. My dd is a pitcher at 43 no issue, since she throws movement pitches. But it takes time to learn new locations on the screw and curve, because they break more. Change up , same deal. We need everyone at the same distance, none of this back and forth. Just do away with 40 feet, if you move high school to 43. But on the good side, bunter slapper. She can bunt 1/2 back to the pitcher and they can't get her out now, so offensively she is going to have a field day. Those kids that have speed will enjoy this!

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I agree it shoudl be 43' for all HS and I would say at least 16U maybe 14U travel as well.

As far as the JV pitchers not handling the change, Sounds like someone needs to develop more pitching. There is no reason JV games shouldn't be expected to hold up to a 14U travel level or better, but it's a pretty common problem I see areas around here that repeat the same mistakes year after year. Develop 1 or 2 pitchers for every one or two years. Problem is attrition. 4 years later you have 1 pitcher every 4 years and no back ups. Last year we had 15 kids pitching at 14U for 5 travel teams at that age level. The commitment to developing pitchers keeps the opportunity to play alive for more kids. The more kids playing the more they compete to be on the upper teams. Net result is that we field 5 teams at the HS level Varsity, JV, B-Squad, 9th A, 9th B and had one pitcher on the 9B team that could pitch Varsity for 2 of the teams in our conference. That 9B pitcher is someone who pitched at a "C" level at 12U and a "B" level at 14U but is continuing to work and get better year after year. Seems like everyone is chasing that one elite pitcher, reality is that it's difficult to improve without competiton, the two best pitchers at my daughter's age started with the goal of being better than a girl at 12U who was the #1 pitcher. That 12U #1 girl no longer pitches. Now they strive to be better than each other so that they will get time eventually pitching for Varsity.

Lack of a JV pitcher should be a one maybe two year problem. Identify a few freshman this year and teach them to pitch, develop an off-season plan for them and provide access to indoor facilities year round for them to practice. Point them to a reliable local pitching coach. Do that every year and you should never have a lack of workable JV pitchers and you might get afew surprises if the girls really work hard there is no reason a 14 yr old who starts pitching can't become a competitive Varsity pitcher in 3 years with a commitment to work and a little athletic ability. If you really care about developing a quality program you'll reach down to the 12's and start making sure their developing prior to coming to HS

I know we're blessed with a large community, but the principal is the same when applied to a single team and in some ways even more important. If your letting one girl pitch 95% of the innings at 10U/12U don't be suprised when you come up short in the pitching department at the HS level and don't be surprised when you have to start over at 14U because the one girl you leaned on for 4 years in no longer pitching, or no longer pitching for you.