High school baseball: Small schools could have trouble navigating IHSA pitch-count limits, mandated rest days

A major victory for the well-being of young arms is causing some logistical concerns for small-school baseball coaches.

Few will argue against the health benefits of the IHSA pitch-count limits, which became official in December. The rule is in place to protect pitchers from being overworked. But small schools with fewer players might have trouble adjusting to the mandated rest days.

The pitch-count rule limits any pitcher to a maximum of 105 pitches in one day. There is a sliding scale for mandated rest days. A player who throws 31 pitches is required to take one day off. A player who throws between 76 and 105 pitches is required to rest for four days before pitching again.

Last year Alden-Hebron, which co-ops with Faith Lutheran, had 15 players on the roster, six of whom pitched regularly.

“Big schools will probably survive,” A-H baseball coach Brian Engelbrecht said. “Small schools are going to struggle. They might only have a few pitchers and they might have four or five games in a week.”

Engelbrecht thinks the Giants will be in good shape this season, numbers-wise. There have been seasons in the past, however, when they had to get by with only five pitchers.

To complicate things further, with the regular season beginning so early – March 13 this year – and ending in mid-May, it’s no surprise that teams often battle the weather early in the year. Engelbrecht can think of times when his teams have been forced to squeeze five, six, even seven games into a week late in the year, just to make up all of their rainout games before the state tournament.

Such a situation would be impossible with only a handful of pitchers and the new pitch-count limits.

“At the 1A and 2A schools, the benches aren’t deep enough to do that,” Giants assistant coach Tim Oman said. “While I certainly don’t want to abuse kids' arms, when we’re playing doubleheaders and games every day, we’re just not going to have enough pitching.”

For small schools across the state, that could mean one of two things: more forfeits or more kids without pitching experience taking the mound.

IHSA assistant executive director in charge of baseball Sam Knox acknowledged that the restrictions could affect small schools differently than bigger schools that have as many as a dozen pitchers and full junior varsity rosters.

“We encourage [small schools] to find more kids who want to pitch and can pitch,” Knox said. “They may not find a kid who’s an ace, who can go through the whole game. But they might find a few kids who can help you get through a couple innings.”

Engelbrecht thinks the IHSA should consider tinkering with the baseball schedule.

“They need to come up with a situation where the season is lengthened or it’s pushed back so we start later and don’t lose the first three weeks (because of the weather),” Engelbrecht said.

The IHSA Class 1A and 2A state tournaments begin May 15 this season and end June 3. The Class 3A and 4A tournaments start and end a full week later (May 22 to June 10).

For 1A schools trying to cram in the maximum 35 regular-season games between March 13 and May 15, an extra week could make a difference and lessen the stress on a team’s pitching staff.

Knox said the IHSA has heard concerns regarding the scheduling of the 1A and 2A tournaments, but the IHSA has not considered making changes.

“I don’t see us altering the landscape of the postseason and the state finals at this point,” Knox said. “We have to be careful, because it’s the traditional route of playing the 1A/2A finals on this weekend and the 3A/4A finals on the following weekend. We think we have a pretty good system in place.

“We certainly have to be careful about spreading ourselves too thin and possibly having all tournaments on the same weekend in two different cities and two different ballparks and it doubles your number of workers and people to supervise.”

Knox also pointed out that teams are not required to play the maximum 35 regular season games.

Engelbrecht is concerned what might happen to the quality of the games at the Class 1A level during the regular season.

“Teams are going to leave kids out there,” he said. “If a kid’s getting shelled, leave him out because you can’t burn anybody else, save your other arm for the next game.”

SIDEBAR

IHSA pitch-count logging system is coming along

IHSA assistant executive director Sam Knox, who oversees baseball, said a few select schools across the state are testing a new pitch-count logging system. With pitch-count limits going into effect this season, the IHSA has said it will have an online logging system ready by the start of the season.

Knox said the logging system the IHSA is working on is within the IHSA's schools and officials center, which coaches already use to rate umpires online. When a coach enters a player’s pitch-count after a game, the system will provide coaches with a five-day forecast for how much a player is allowed to throw in the coming days.

“It takes a lot of thinking and the paperwork out of it,” Knox said. “There’s no guess-work involved.”

The program also will allow coaches to see pitch logs for all the teams across the state. This allows a coach to know how many pitches an opposing player can throw in an upcoming game.

It also can be used to make sure an opposing coach logs pitches accurately after a game.

“The other component is kind of a checks and balances,” Knox said.