When the 2017 American Legion baseball season begins next June, it will be the pitches that are counted, not the innings.
In an effort to minimize injuries from arm overuse, American Legion Baseball has adopted regulations that for the first time will determine pitchers’ availability based on the number of pitches thrown rather than innings pitched.
The decision follows a similar mandate announced in July by the National Federation of State High School Associations for all state associations under its jurisdiction to have pitch-count policies in place by the start of the 2017 season.
The baseball committee of the Maine Principals’ Association is working in coordination with the Maine Principals’ Association sports medicine committee to develop pitch-count limits in time for a vote by that organization’s general membership next month.
Pitch-count rules at both the Legion and high school levels largely will be in line with USA Baseball’s Pitch Smart initiative, which includes a series of age-appropriate guidelines that have the support of Major League Baseball and numerous medical advisors.
“I think we figured this was coming,” said Maine American Legion baseball Zone 1 Commissioner Dave Paul. “It’s probably a good move, now we’ve just to make sure that we’re able to police it.”
Under the new American Legion standards, Senior Legion pitchers (ages 19 and under) will not be able to exceed 120 pitches in any single day and Junior Legion pitchers (ages 17 and under) may not exceed 105 pitches. Should pitchers reach the limit in the middle of an at-bat, they may finish pitching to that batter before being replaced.
Pitchers will not be able to make more than two appearances during any three-day span and will have required rest based on the number of pitches thrown in a given day.
Throwing one to 45 pitches in a day requires one day of rest, 46 to 60 pitches requires two days of rest, 61 to 75 pitches requires three days of rest, and 76 or more pitches will require four days of rest.
Failure to adhere to the pitching rule will lead to the ejection of both the pitcher and the team manager if a protest is filed to the umpire-in-chief.
“In the long run I think it’s going to benefit baseball as a whole because it’s going to force teams to develop even more pitching,” said Paul. “We should as coaches and adults be into developing players. We’ve tried to stress that throughout our zone, to play kids and develop them because you never know what you’ll find.
“You’re going to find kids who are going to step up and surprise you,” he said.
The pitch counts will replace the previous American Legion rule that limited pitchers to 12 innings or four appearances within any three-day period.
“These pitch count rules for both high school and Legion are a positive because some of these kids do want to go on and play at another level,” said Coffee News of Bangor American Legion head coach Dave Morris, who guided the Comrades to back-to-back state championships in 2014 and 2015 and back to the state championship game last summer.
“But when they’re getting put in positions where they’re really having these high pitch counts I think we’re putting the cart before the horse and we’re looking at the win more than the kid’s arm.”
Morris said his Legion pitching philosophy involves dividing most of the innings among five different pitchers, which limits the strain on any particular player.
He added that Bangor High School, where Morris has been the pitching coach since 2010 under recently retired head coach Jeff Fahey, has employed a similar philosophy for its shorter season based around a rotation of three starters and at least one reliever.
“You can take a [2016 Mr. Baseball] Trevor Delaite, for example,” said Morris. “He was 38-2 for his high school and Legion career, and the average number of days Trevor had between starts was six days of rest.”
How pitch counts will be tracked during Legion games in Maine beginning next summer will be discussed at meetings among local and state Legion officials during the coming months, Paul said.
“Obviously in the zone tournament and state tournament we’ll be able to police it,” said Paul. “Now like with the high schools we’ll have to figure out the best way to do it during the regular season.
“Obviously the umpires aren’t going to be having to police that nor could they, so we’ll have to make sure we have someone from each team to keep an accurate pitch count,” he said.
Paul said another method of keeping track during the regular season would be for team officials to report pitch counts to their zone commissioners at the same time they report final game scores.
The American Legion regular-season schedule for Zone 1, which covers teams from the Waterville area north, typically involves 20 to 25 games over a five-week period, with a mix of seven- and nine-inning contests in anticipation of nine-inning postseason games.
With a 120-pitch limit, a pitcher would have to average about 13 pitches per inning to complete a nine-inning game and 17 pitches per inning to complete a seven-inning game.
“It’s going to force pitchers to throw strikes, which is another good thing,” said Paul. “Coaches are going to have to really harp on that, to have their pitchers throw strikes and to develop more pitchers.”
