A new national rule has been issued that requires individual states to set up a strict pitch count for high school baseball players for next season.
Local coaches are split on the measure and the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association may not follow the new rule if its coaches and administrators vote against it.
In an effort to decrease arm injuries in high school pitchers, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) mandated that every state will need to establish pitch-count limits in time for the 2017 baseball season. What those limits are — and how they’re determined — will be left up to the individual states.
WIAA Executive Director Mike Colbrese said that Washington has been given a one-year grace period, until 2018, to mandate a pitch count by NFHS. And, he adds, coaches have to vote on what that will be or the WIAA will go against the NFHS and remain without one.
“We have some options here. We’ll decide which way to go through our typical process,” Colbrese said. “… If the board and staff believe it’s important to have a pitch count than we’ll have to get one in place by spring 2018. If the board reflects the decision that we do not need a pitch count we will not have one and will not have someone on the rules committee.”
Tim Stevens, a longtime baseball umpire out of the Northwest Baseball Umpires Association, currently sits on the NFHS national rules committee for baseball.
Colbrese said the WIAA has “been at odds” with the NFHS and ignored its rules before. For instance, the WIAA doesn’t follow the national federation’s weight classifications for wrestling and, as a result, doesn’t have anyone on the rules committee for that sport. They also vary in basketball because the WIAA has a shot clock rule and the NFHS doesn’t allow that. Colbrese said the option is available that the WIAA Executive Board could go against the NFHS again and not institute a hard pitch count.
“If the board thinks that’s a good idea, then we’ll do that,” Colbrese said. “However, if the board were to say, ‘We don’t want to be out of compliance’ the board might, on a special occasion, press the staff to work with the baseball coaches to get something voted on.”
The idea of pitch counts was met with both support and concern by local coaches. Currently, the WIAA rule is if a player throws one pitch over four innings he must have two calendar days of rest before taking the mound again.
That allows a player to potentially start and/or pitch in two games on a typical week.
“The coaches up here do a pretty good job taking care of their job and keeping track of it. I don’t think it’s as big of a problem here as I’ve seen it in other places,” Monroe head coach Eric Chartrand said. “That being said, the limitation of a pitch count is not a horrible idea to protect kids against overzealous coaches.
“There is value to it. I’ve seen coaches that, the importance of winning a high school baseball game outweighs the kids’ well being. That’s really unfortunate.”
It’s not just the coaches the rule seeks to monitor, but the athletes themselves.
“Kids are tough. They want to throw,” Shorewood head coach Wyatt Tonkin said. “They’re saying, ‘Yeah, I’m all right. I want to stay in.’ … I’m all for it. The amount of arm injuries that are going on in college and minor league baseball now is incredible. I would certainly embrace a pitch count.”
What that pitch count can and will be is up for some debate. Chartrand thinks there should be a maximum number of pitches allowed and if that threshold is reached a mandatory rest period of up to five days.
“If you do, say, 110 as a max pitch count, that would be the very, very top end of a kid well into the season and who has worked up to that,” Chartrand said. “I’d say 110 is the absolute top for a varsity level pitcher. And I’d say if they throw more than 50-60 pitches they should at least have a day or two rest. And if they throw to that max limit that’s probably a full five days rest.”
Tonkin suggested a tier system, where there is a number of required rest days is based on how many pitches an athlete throws in a given outing.
“I would say if you throw so many pitches — like 20 pitches or below you’re OK,” Tonkin said. “If you throw 30 you have to wait a day — maybe 30 to 40. You get above 50 you wait two days. Get above 60 you have to wait three days. Something like that maybe.”
Tonkin said pitch counts are almost a necessity because of the number of pitches an athlete may throw in a calendar year.
“Some of these guys are throwing upwards of 150-170 innings,” Tonkin said. “They’re playing summer ball, have the high school season, prospect camps and showcases, pitching lessons they’re throwing at, winter workouts.”
According to a Washington Post article, all but five states currently use inning limits instead of pitch counts. Last year, the Alabama High School Athletic Association adopted a pitch count that limits varsity players to 120 pitches in a day — with a mandatory three full calendar days of rest if the pitcher throws 76 or more pitches. Junior varsity pitchers can’t throw more than 100 pitches in an outing and junior high and middle school players are limited to 85.
Switching from an innings limit, which some see as more arbitrary than a hard pitch count, isn’t the preference of all. Jackson head coach Kirk Nicholson said that it’s up to coaches to do the right thing and know when — and when not — to use their pitchers.
“I’ll be honest with you, I think the way it is is all right,” Nicholson said. “I could tell you that I have done a great job, all my life, doing pitch counts but I’d be lying to you. You have to be reasonable and understand your kids’ kinesiology.
“Say you’re pitching a kid and he’s struggling the whole time and it’s a cold day. My pitch count for him will probably be 70 pitches. On the flip side, I’ve got a kid that’s doing well and has gone well and moved on to play minor league ball and they’re grooving. My pitch count for them is a lot higher. After 100, I’ll tell them, ‘I don’t think I want you to keep going.’ They tell me, ‘I’m doing fine. I don’t want to come out.’”
Nicholson recalled the 2011 state championship game, where he pulled Sam Brown, who now plays for Gonzaga, in the seventh inning of the 4A title game against Bothell. Brown was over 100 pitches and Nicholson didn’t want to risk long-term damage to his left-hander’s arm.
The Timberwolves coach took Brown out of the game and Jackson went on to lose 3-2.
“He’s got the heart of a lion but he’s at 102 pitches in the seventh inning,” Nicholson said. “I had to get him and it probably cost us the state title. But I had to get him. As a coach, I hope that I understand what is right and what is wrong. … When I went out to take Sam out in the state title game he looked at me and said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘You have to come out. You’re arm is more important to me than a ring.’
“I know, in my heart, I did the right thing.”
Nicholson said that while he prefers the current system, he wouldn’t be opposed to a pitch limit. He’s heard stories about kids throwing 150 to sometimes over 200 pitches in a single day.
“When you hear that, you go, ‘Oh my God. I guess we do need to regulate this,’” Nicholson said. “I could live with them giving me a pitch count. … Change is not bad, just because I’m old and I like to say ‘the good old days’ before a lot of stuff. Whatever it ends up being I’ll abide by it. Just tell me what it is.”
“The issues of overuse, while they do happen, I think are fairly irregular,” said Arlington head coach Scott Striegel. “I think they don’t happen all that often. I don’t think that’s a good reason to make such a major change in the sport.”
Striegel and longtime Snohomish coach Kim Hammons are also in favor of keeping the current system and avoiding pitch counts.
“I really do like the high school rule of once you pitch four innings you need 48 hours rest,” Hammons said. “Obviously, there’s people who feel that there’s a need for a pitch count throughout the state of Washington and the country. Pitchers’ arms are really important.”
“I’m actually really against a pitch count rule and I think a lot of high school coaches are because I think there’s a lot of logistical issues to it,” Striegel said. “Who administers it during a game? Does that require a kid comes out of the game in the middle of an inning? I think you could get a back and forth between the coaches of, ‘Oh I have him at 99 pitches and I have him at 100 pitches.’ Our stats are kept by a player or student and I think that’s an unfair position to put that kid in.”
Hammons contrasted the mounting concern over arm injuries for pitchers with the growing amount of attention to concussions in football.
“Arm injuries are a huge concern,” Hammons said. “They’re like concussions (in football). If you’re not careful you can ruin a kid’s career.”
Just this season, Hammons had to deal with an arm injury to his ace, left-hander Jake Mulholland. Mulholland, who will continue his career at college baseball power Oregon State, wasn’t allowed to throw off a mound until late March because of arm soreness and Hammons eased him back into action.
He didn’t need a pitch count to know when to take Mulholland out.
“Jake Mulholland is a great case,” Hammons said. “He was shut down the entire month of February. … Well, we threw him an inning to let him get his arm back in shape in April we had him up to two innings in mid-April and then gradually moved him up to four and five. So now when he goes to Oregon State he’s got a good career ahead of him.”
Colbrese is curious to see how baseball coaches react to the idea of a required pitch count. Just last season, the WIAA submitted a proposed amendment to its Representative Assembly — a group comprised of 53 elected school administrators that represent each of the nine WIAA districts.
The proposed pitch count stated that a varsity pitcher required three days of rest if throwing 86-110 pitches, two days for 61-85 pitches, one day for 36-60 pitches and no days of rest if throwing 35 or less pitches in an outing, with a caveat that if a pitcher threw 60 pitches over two days one day of rest was required.
The proposed amendment also allowed a pitcher to finish a batter once the pitch limit was reached during an at-bat, but the pitcher would have to exit the game after the hitter.
There were similar limitations for sub-varsity pitchers, including junior varsity and middle school teams.
The proposed pitch count amendment finished with eight votes for and 27 against by the 35 high school administrators. For an amendment to pass, a supermajority (60 percent) approval is needed.
“The baseball coaches weren’t really crazy about a pitch count, yet we felt that we needed to submit (a proposal),” Colbrese said. “After that got defeated, we thought the issue was over. However, the (NFHS) rules committee stipulated in its rule changes for next year that every state association has to have a pitch count. We knew they’d been talking about it but we didn’t see it coming this fast. We’re kind of caught in a tough situation because our membership just said no, but our federation said, ‘If we want to be in good standing with the federation, we have to have one.’”
The biggest issue that coaches worry about is how to police the pitch count limit.
“I guess the real question I have is how are they going to enforce that?” Chartrand said. “Is the other team responsible to report the pitch count for the team that they’re competing against? Is that logged by the umpires? Is it called into the paper? How do people keep track of that? And I don’t know that answer.”
“That’s the question that I have,” Tonkin said. “Obviously, you can’t put it on to an umpire. That’s going to be tough. You’re going to have an official scorekeeper that’s keeping track of the pitch count. Maybe it’ll be similar to balls and strikes with the home team book. You’re going to have to have somebody counting pitches. And what if you have a discrepancy?”
Some states use GameChanger, an app used to record play-by-play data of a game, to track baseball results. Several local teams already use GameChanger to report scores.
Others, such as Colorado, use MaxPreps to keep up-to-date pitch counts. MaxPreps is a partner of the WIAA.
According to the Washington Post article, Vermont was the first state to adopt pitch counts for high school pitchers eight years ago. An adult, or student manager, for both teams keeps a pitch count for both their pitcher and their opponent’s.
The two meet behind home plate between innings to check their pitch count with the other scorekeeper. Any discrepancies are taken care of by the home plate umpire who, if he isn’t positive, defers to the home book.
Nicholson believes if there is a pitch count rule that coaches will be monitoring both teams and if one tries to skirt the pitch limit word will get out.
“I’ll guarantee you that opposing coach will be tracking my pitches,” Nicholson said. “If you go over it’ll come out eventually. … This should be the coaches enforcing themselves to do it right. And if he didn’t, the opposing coach will be letting people know that he’s not doing it right.”
Hammons hopes the pitch limit will make its way to summer league teams, so that pitchers aren’t overused once the high school season is over.
“I’m hoping along with this that they also mandate some things for summer that that can be a part of it so we’re all being consistent,” Hammons said. “Youth leagues, summer leagues, high school. Hopefully, they will also be mandated on a pitch count as we are.”
With arm injuries on the rise, coaches and officials are having to look into ways to curb the mounting number of arm injuries. Pitch counts are the first thing, but Chartrand has another change he’d like to make as well.
“Maybe starting the season a little earlier for baseball like pitchers and catchers, like Major League players do to get them ready and conditioned,” Chartrand said. “Ten days isn’t enough to get going. We have 10 days before we start playing games. And three days of those are tryouts. … You might get three bullpens before games start.
“If we really want to take care of these boys, which is what we’re trying to do, we really want to prepare them. This would help with that.”
Regardless of what happens with the process, the coaches are potentially going to have to brace for a new wrinkle with the addition of the pitch count.
“It’s going to be interesting because I’m sure that when the innings limit was put in, whenever it was put in, some coaches were probably upset with it,” Striegel said. “Some people probably agreed with it and some probably didn’t. But it’s been around so long now that nobody really thinks twice about it.
“It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out in 10 years and see what people think of it.”
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