Pitch counts
MLB and USA Baseball publish a daily limit and a rest schedule for every age group. Most parents have never been shown them and plenty of rec leagues do not enforce them. They are below, and they are not complicated.
The daily limit
Those are the published daily maximums, and the rest schedule that goes with them is the part people skip. 1 to 20 pitches needs no rest day. 21 to 35 needs one. 36 to 50 needs two. 51 to 65 needs three. Anything above that needs four. Nobody pitches three days in a row at any count, and a pitcher who has come off the mound does not go back to it later in the same game.
The year
The guidance is not to exceed 80 combined innings pitched in any 12 month period, and to take at least four months a year away from throwing competitively, with two to three of those months continuous. The yearly number is the one almost nobody tracks, and it is the one that turns up later as a sore elbow in a fourteen year old.
The part the count misses
A pitch count is a ceiling, not a plan. An athlete who is losing the strike zone, dropping their arm slot or slowing down has already told you they are finished, whatever the clicker says. Pitching while fatigued is what the research links most strongly to injury, not any single number.
What we do about it
Every PPL athlete is on a phase based throwing program with a defined start and end rather than a fixed weekly number, so the volume moves with the season they are actually in. Arm care comes from a movement screen run by a physical therapist. Their coach can see whether the work between sessions is getting done, and so can you.
Questions parents ask
75 is the published daily maximum for nine and ten year olds, and 85 for eleven and twelve year olds. Those are ceilings for a healthy, rested arm rather than targets to reach.
1 to 20 pitches needs none. 21 to 35 needs one day, 36 to 50 needs two, 51 to 65 needs three, and anything more than that needs four. No pitcher should pitch three days running at any count.
More than 80 combined innings in any 12 month period. Every young pitcher should also take at least four months a year off competitive throwing, with two to three of those months continuous.
The guidance is to avoid it. Catching is a high volume throwing position, and a kid who catches four games and pitches two has thrown far more than the pitch count sheet shows.
MLB and USA Baseball publish them as Pitch Smart. We did not invent them and we are not the only people who follow them, but a lot of leagues do not enforce them and most parents have never been handed them.
The free assessment is thirty minutes and costs nothing. We watch them throw and tell you the truth about the arm, the delivery and the workload.
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