The following is an opinion and not necessarily the view of the AIA:

 

As noted by our own Les Willsey, the AIA's Legislative Council adopted pitch-count limits for baseball last Friday, March 4. The new rules for pitching and resting will go into effect February of 2017. The limits are based on guidelines followed by USA Baseball.

The vote itself was almost unanimous with 37 voting for and only one against so that in itself is indicative of the amount of support the measure had with the Legislative Council.

Several pitchers threw more than 120 pitches in a game during the playoffs last year including Salpointe standout Donny Sands who threw an incredible 166 pitches in the Lancers 8-inning semifinal loss to Tucson High.  While obviously heroic in nature, high-pitch counts such as what was witnessed last year may be part of the increase in youth juries and the explosion of "Tommy John" surgeries.

In my view, high school pitching limits are long overdue. Way overdue.

I've seen and reported on many top-level athletes pitching from Little League through high school so I know the new AIA limits won't be a complete cure since baseball is a year round sport but it will help.

USA Baseball breaks recommendations down by age brackets since that governing body does not necessarily deal with a student class such as freshman or junior. Since high school athletes are typically from age 14 to 18 then I will go over those limits:

There are a few initial reactions to these limits. First, not all schools have the luxury of 3-4 aces on the roster. This will mean coaches will have to manage the game much like a Little League situation where multiple pitchers will take the mound in each game and someone will need to keep track and remind the head coach to change pitchers based on pitch count and not on the actual performance of the pitcher.

Second, who is going to keep track? I imagine the honor system will come into play but there will be people watching during the playoffs. All the pitchers are already used to this from youth baseball leagues.

Third, what about invitationals? For me, this is the big one. Can teams afford to use up all of their arms in such a short time span knowing games won or lost at invitationals do not count towards power points?

A lot of teams do that already in an attempt to win a tournament championship only to be faced with a sectional game the next day. Again, in my view, that is short-sighted.

I can see where some preseason or midseason baseball invitationals might make the switch to a round-robin format where every team is guaranteed five games. That is basically happening now during pool play but then the teams are thrown into bracket play where multiple games might be played in a day.

I have always been a proponent of round-robin baseball invitationals due to the pitching situation.  I'm not sure if it will make much of a difference though because the better teams will have more arms to throw out there.

Still, if a pitcher throws more than 76 pitches in a game then he will require four days rest. That's something to think about.