Saw the top-ranked 2027 player this weekend

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Nov 18, 2022
100
28
That's still a lot of innings pitched, especially when compared to baseball.

I did some research on the top HS baseball pitchers in my area. The leader in wins for baseball has 10 wins on the season. In those 10 wins, he's pitched 62 innings. No one else has more than 8 wins, and some very good teams have multiple 7 or 8 game-winners.

For comparison, our leader in wins in softball has 21 wins, including playoffs. She's thrown 139 innings this season so far. There is not one team with two pitchers on the leaderboard. The team in our county championship has their top pitcher at 11 wins, their #2 at 5 wins, and their #3 at 2 wins.

Maybe baseball coddles them too much, but the idea that we can run these girls out there until their arms fall off is just silly.

So you think that less than 9 innings average PER week is too many- we will agree to disagree- over 13 weeks 116 innings is not a huge amount IMHO.


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May 13, 2021
643
93
I would not will not allow my daughter to pitch that much. We went and watch some of her friends playing in a 10u rec end of the year tournament last week. The girl pitching for the team we went to watch pitched 4 straight games, 2 of those games went 5 innings and 2 of them went 6. She pitched 22 straight innings. Her dad is one of the coaches. After the game I spoke to him and said man Susie pitch a lot today. His reply was that underhand is such a natural motion it doesn’t matter how much you pitch. It is ignorance like this that is and will cause a lot of problems for these girls.
 
Apr 14, 2022
565
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I think High school is different since they play on weekdays and spread out. Even without games the pitcher is probably practicing. One 30 min session can be 90 pitches. Games should replace practice.
Tournaments can often exceed what you can compensate with reduced practice.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
I would not will not allow my daughter to pitch that much. We went and watch some of her friends playing in a 10u rec end of the year tournament last week. The girl pitching for the team we went to watch pitched 4 straight games, 2 of those games went 5 innings and 2 of them went 6. She pitched 22 straight innings. Her dad is one of the coaches. After the game I spoke to him and said man Susie pitch a lot today. His reply was that underhand is such a natural motion it doesn’t matter how much you pitch. It is ignorance like this that is and will cause a lot of problems for these girls.

Wow, that's about 400 pitches or so. Perhaps 500 with all the warm-ups.

Crazy.
 
Nov 18, 2022
100
28
I would not will not allow my daughter to pitch that much. We went and watch some of her friends playing in a 10u rec end of the year tournament last week. The girl pitching for the team we went to watch pitched 4 straight games, 2 of those games went 5 innings and 2 of them went 6. She pitched 22 straight innings. Her dad is one of the coaches. After the game I spoke to him and said man Susie pitch a lot today. His reply was that underhand is such a natural motion it doesn’t matter how much you pitch. It is ignorance like this that is and will cause a lot of problems for these girls.

I would not allow my HS daughter to pitch as much as the coach mentioned above either. There is zero comparison that can be made of a 10u pitcher throwing 22 innings in 1 weekend vs a HS player throwing 116 over 13 weeks. that is not even a game and a half per week average- add in that the majority of the time there is a day or more rest between games. Would I let my HS throw that much? Absolutely if she is efficient!


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LEsoftballdad

DFP Vendor
Jun 29, 2021
2,838
113
NY
So you think that less than 9 innings average PER week is too many- we will agree to disagree- over 13 weeks 116 innings is not a huge amount IMHO.


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What HS season goes three months? The ones I referenced took place over a span of 45 days. Maybe Florida can get away with spreading their season out that much because of the weather, but up here in NY, our first game was March 30th, and our final regular season game was May 12th. In that timeframe, we had 19 games in 45 days. My HS team had 5 games in 7 days, of which my daughter was forced to throw in all five, including two back-to-backs.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
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The thing about dominant kids like this is they can still be really effective while losing some of their stuff due to fatigue. To me that is when you should take a kid out and/or not pitch her at all. When fatigue sets in and it starts effecting how she throws which in turn can effect the potential for repetitive stress injury due to compromised mechanics. If somebody isn't paying attention to velocity,spin,location etc you wouldn't know the difference and most kids are competitors and are not going to ask out or say no to pitching unless they are physically hurting..
 

LEsoftballdad

DFP Vendor
Jun 29, 2021
2,838
113
NY
Throwing overhand is worse than throwing underhand. That doesn't mean there should be no limits for softball players, but it's a bad comparison.

I've said before that I can easily throw 200+ BP pitches (full arm circle, probably around 45 mph. If I really let loose in a full pitch I can throw low 50s) without any arm pain. 200 overhand throws of a baseball at that level of intensity would have me not throwing for multiple days after.

The problem with all the softball studies is there does not seem to be any differentiation between pitchers who pitch properly and those who don't. How many of the injuries are because pitchers are using HE mechanics? We need to remove those pitchers from the samples entirely before studying pitch counts.

tl;dr version: There should be limits. But basing them off faulty studies and baseball limits seems like the wrong solution.
Are you throwing from full motion with rise balls, curves, screws, drops, etc? I used to throw a ton of front toss when I coached, none of it from a full wind-up, and I would be sore if I threw 200 balls at those speeds. Now, if I were sitting on a bucket and lobbing them in, I wouldn't feel much at all.

The point about the baseball comparison wasn't to say the motion is the same. It was to show how they are monitored much more than the girls in softball are because of the silly notion that throwing underhand is a natural motion.
 
Nov 18, 2022
100
28
What HS season goes three months? The ones I referenced took place over a span of 45 days. Maybe Florida can get away with spreading their season out that much because of the weather, but up here in NY, our first game was March 30th, and our final regular season game was May 12th. In that timeframe, we had 19 games in 45 days. My HS team had 5 games in 7 days, of which my daughter was forced to throw in all five, including two back-to-backs.

You referenced heavener being overused in travel AND HS and I simply put the HS numbers up showing in my opinion she was not. She plays HS ball in Florida


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Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
Older pitchers:

Once they get to college they will need to be able to throw 7 inning games and then some relief. Lots of pitchers will need to throw one 7 inning game on Friday and then another the next day. At least your #1. Numbers 2 and 3 will get spot starts and crossing fingers will be able to eat up innings. Some of the better programs won't have that problem, but once they get to the Regionals coaches will ride their #1. They are already exhausted.
 
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