We are playing the 8U kid pitch stuff as the old post suggests. Our first tournament was this weekend. Finished 2nd with 8 of 11 7 year olds. It was better than I thought. There were no walk-a-thons like I expected. The most walked in any inning was 4 by one of the other teams. That is better than the freshman game the other night I watched where they walked 11 in one inning.
A pitcher can only pitch 3 innings per day and 6 for the weekend.

On a side note:
7 year old pitched 3 innings first game and had 9 strikeouts, no walks, and 1 hit ball.
Today in championship first round had 8 strikeouts, 1 hit, and no walks.

Not trying to start arguments. Just was reporting that it was not as bad as most, somewhat including me, would have imagined it would have been with 8 year olds pitching.

Jeff,

When my team was first started, we were 8U playing up against 9U. We had a drop dead pitch count of 40 but we were the only team. I personally witnessed 2 pitchers throw 127 and 153 pitches against us.

I don't think the argument was they couldn't throw strikes...I think it more had to do with the stress on their arms. Playing tourneys require quite a few pitchers or abusing a couple.

I didn't see that either. They can only throw 3 innings and no one abused pitchers. Most only threw 1 or 2 innings unless they were just bringing it.
I talked to a friend who I coached his son last year and he moved up to kid pitch 9 year old in Little League this year. Their first two games had over 20 walks by each team and they pitched 2 kids each game.
I know there is abuse in tournament ball but I did not see it this weekend and saw every team in our age group play.
There was one 7 year old lefty pitching 52 mile per hour. Had 17 strikeouts on the weekend and only 2 walks and 2 hits.

quote:

There was one 7 year old lefty pitching 52 mile per hour. Had 17 strikeouts on the weekend and only 2 walks and 2 hits.

Personally, I think this is too much.

17 K's x 3 pitch minimum = 51
2 walks x 4 pitch min. = 8
2 hits x 1 pitch min. = 2
= 61 total pitches

More likely
17 K's x 5 pitches (2-2 count) = 85
2 walks x 5 pitches = 10
2 hits x 3 pitches = 6
=101 pitches in a weekend

So, this 7 y.o. threw somewhere between 61 and 101 pitches. Seems like a lot to me.

Especially if it were, 40 one day and 40 the next. MLB pitchers don't do this, why should a 7 year old?

Actually it was 72 pitches. You are telling me the average player does not throw 75 throws in a game. A pitcher at 7 and under is not throwing any harder pitching than throwing. How about the team that practices 3 hours which most teams do in Little League.

The only people throwing 72 throws in a game are the P and C.

72 for the weekend. Between 2 games on 2 different days. That is more than the average ball player at the games watching their older brothers at my son's high school games.

Throwing off a mound puts more stress on the arm than throwing on flat ground.

Then we're still okay because they did not have mounds.

Posted April 14, 2008 12:11 PM Hide Post
Actually it was 72 pitches. You are telling me the average player does not throw 75 throws in a game. A pitcher at 7 and under is not throwing any harder pitching than throwing. How about the team that practices 3 hours which most teams do in Little League.
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if you find any player at any level making 75 throws in a game...........that would be a football score.
a 3 hour LL practice is about 2 hours to long. kids at that age lose interest quickly. stud or not.

jeff

does your high school ball field have a retaining wall around the backstop and a batting cage in the furnace room ?

Let me slow down and explain it.
6 innings or 7 innings
10 throws between innings warming up
any throws during inning added to that
you easily have 75 throws (not pitches) for every player playing.
I don't know what that has to do with football (at least in the south)
3 hour LL practices are the norm down here.
NOrmally 3 days a week and 2 days a week during the season.

Don't know what the last question has to do with anything. But we have large backstop behind home plate and 2 batting cages in the gym.

We are in the south so we do not have furnace rooms.

jeff

if your counting warmup throws for players then the 6 inning,72 pitch count with warmups would be over 100? but i do understand the number now.

maybe the football thing was a bad analagy. if the ss or 3rd baseman had to throw the ball 75 times in the game,then he didn't get many outs,so i would think it would be high scoring. but that's just my thinking. no harm intended.

the reason i asked about your field is i think we played there a few years ago. in the aau nats. the school colors were maybe orange and white? i know not many this color in tn. field was on the corner of two roads set on a hill, with a retaining wall around home plate. it rained hard for a few day's,the high school coach let us go in a utility room,it felt like a furnace room that we'd have up north. where they had a small weight area and a cage. very nice people .that's why i asked. as i recall good baseball area.but it may not even be the same place.

That would have been Sullivan Central. Right outside Kingsport and they have a batting cage in basement.

I mainly put the start of this thread on here because when I first talked about 8U kid pitch everyone said it would be a walk-a-thon and bad baseball. It really was good baseball with better pitching (in perspective) than most older tournament ball. The games were only 1 hour 15 minutes so you could pitch one or two kids per game. Only played 2 games a day so 4 or 5 pitchers per team for the tournament.

I watched a 9 year old at LL the other night throw the 80 pitches they can in 2 innings.

kids are either on or way off ,when it comes to pitching at that age. somrtimes they really can surprise ya.
i think they should get used to pitching at a young age,but with moderation.and they should throw/play pass every day.that helps to biuld up the arm.