HS pitching plans preseason/regular seasons!

[daywalkerdad]

What's more important?
Efficiency or endurance?
Speed or accuracy?
The answer is yes.
Session benefits are not an either-or proposition. They develop the pitcher, no matter how you measure it.

Understand what you are saying; but practice should have a focus point. If they are struggling with walks throwing an extra 100 pitches a week with 70 of them balls will not help.

Practicing for to be able to throw a lot of pitches, when the root cause is often walks and not being able to get outs seems like practicing to mitigate failure instead of practicing for success.

If a pitcher runs out of gas with 15 pitches an inning then yes work on endurance. If a pitcher is taking 25-30 pitches an inning then work on that.

Just my opinion the best way for a pitcher to pitch deeper in games is to face fewer batters.

 

[tomorrow]

While in a HS season do you cut back on lessons?

 

[GunnerShotgun]

If they are actual pitchers, they are in pitching lessons and working independently. Leave them alone.

If they can pitch but don't (used to pitch, don't take lessons, have the potential to pitch) then you need a plan.

If you don't have kids who can pitch and haven't worked this out with 3 weeks until practice, you should start planning for next year.

 

[PJR202]

Isn’t it more important to work on being an efficient and effective pitcher than endurance?
If they are throwing 25 pitches per inning most pitchers will fade. If they are throwing 15 pitches per inning endurance not much an issue.
Seems like working on the wrong thing.

Theoretically, if they're getting in a lot of reps to build endurance, they're also working on everything else. It's not just bang bang bang flail away. My daughter threw 80 last night. Alternating with and without ball and throwing at zones while also working on drive. Took a break long enough to refill the bucket, then back at it. We got endurance, speed, accuracy, efficiency.

 

[PJR202]

While in a HS season do you cut back on lessons?

In-season, if a kid has a lesson scheduled around game dates, we encourage it. I did it with my own daughter, and when I took over her instruction we tried to get a session in every weekend. As the season wears on, they pick up habits, etc, if they aren't fine tuning (I'd say at least once a week). Getting them with their instructor just to keep the ship upright is a good thing. If nothing else, do some quality bullpen work. Just gotta be careful and make sure they do get adequate rest. Our game schedule last week was FULLL. Ended up with something like 29 games in 7 weeks, then 3 more tournament games over the next week or so.

 

[CoachJD]

Need to be throwing to live batters at this point (depending on when the first game is). You’ve got to work them into being able to go 7 innings. If you got six weeks until first game, I would hold live intersquad games twice per week. 3 innings the first week, 4 innings the next week, then 5 innings, then 6 innings, then 7 innings. I wouldn’t allow them to throw more than 20-25 pitches in one inning. Once she hits that number swap it out.

None of this reflects how a high school season actually works.

There's usually 2-3 weeks from the first day you can start team activity to when games begin (this is also what the OP says their situation is). I think that's fairly standard across all states.

HS team coaches absolutely have no way to (within the rules) have pitchers start a full pitching program, including pitching to batters in intrasquad games, from six weeks out.

Live intrasquad games are also a luxury mostly afforded to teams where the coach isn't coming here to write "omg what am I gonna do about my pitching?" posts. This will be my ninth year coaching a high school team. I have never once done a full live intrasquad scrimmage. We're not terrible, but doing so would mostly be a waste of precious little practice time when players who don't play year round need as many reps as possible.

 

[CoachJD]

Scrimmage, Scrimmage, Scrimmage,

The dirty little secret is, you cannot get in game shape without playing games. No matter how many pitches you throw in bullpens, lessons, etc. It's not the same. I know it may seem like 100 pitches is 100 pitches regardless of a game, Scrimmage, lesson, or bullpen session. But it's not. Getting into "game shape" takes some time so do as many simulated games and scrimmages as possible.

Depends on the state.

Here there is, by rule, no such thing as a scrimmage.

You can't practice with other teams, and you can't play games during the first two weeks. If another team is involved, it's considered a real, legitimate contest. You need to have real umps, etc. I suppose the two teams could agree to just pretend the game didn't happen and not report it anywhere, but all the teams I know either start playing real games the first week they can or, if they're at a lower level, they use that time for more practice/trying to get a team together before their conference play begins.

Unless you meant just doing intrasquad scrimmages, but a small school with 12 players can't do much of that.

 

[PJR202]

Depends on the state.

Here there is, by rule, no such thing as a scrimmage.

You can't practice with other teams, and you can't play games during the first two weeks. If another team is involved, it's considered a real, legitimate contest. You need to have real umps, etc. I suppose the two teams could agree to just pretend the game didn't happen and not report it anywhere, but all the teams I know either start playing real games the first week they can or, if they're at a lower level, they use that time for more practice/trying to get a team together before their conference play begins.

Unless you meant just doing intrasquad scrimmages, but a small school with 12 players can't do much of that.

We have to combine MS/HS teams in the offseason just to have enough for 5 on 5 intrasquad. We do a lot of it, though. Keeps things more fun so they'll keep coming out.

 

[Cornbread]

None of this reflects how a high school season actually works.

There's usually 2-3 weeks from the first day you can start team activity to when games begin (this is also what the OP says their situation is). I think that's fairly standard across all states.

HS team coaches absolutely have no way to (within the rules) have pitchers start a full pitching program, including pitching to batters in intrasquad games, from six weeks out.

Live intrasquad games are also a luxury mostly afforded to teams where the coach isn't coming here to write "omg what am I gonna do about my pitching?" posts. This will be my ninth year coaching a high school team. I have never once done a full live intrasquad scrimmage. We're not terrible, but doing so would mostly be a waste of precious little practice time when players who don't play year round need as many reps as possible.

Most schools are afforded an athletic block daily. When “out of season”, holding inter squads can be very beneficial. I didn’t do them every day but we tried to hold intersquad once per week out of season. Leading up to start of official season (after school practice) we would do them every Saturday

 

[CoachJD]

Most schools are afforded an athletic block daily. When “out of season”, holding inter squads can be very beneficial. I didn’t do them every day but we tried to hold intersquad once per week out of season. Leading up to start of official season (after school practice) we would do them every Saturday

Yeah, this is 100% against the rules in my state. I imagine in most states it is.

You can't gather the team to work on skills of the sport out of season.