Welcome to Our Survey

Major League Baseball, USA Baseball and the National Federation of High School State Associations (NFHS) have partnered in the Pitch Smart Initiative to promote arm safety for pitchers, particularly young pitchers. In October of 2015, the NFHS Sports Medicine Advisory Committee (SMAC) recommended that “member state associations move toward using pitch counts in Baseball, and that pitchers do not throw to fatigue in both Baseball and Softball. At that time, the VHSL staff devised a timeline for transitioning our state from our current baseball pitching policy that is based on innings pitched to a policy based on pitch counts. The original timeline was to include input from coaches and vetting of any proposed policy by VHSL member schools during the 2016-17 school year, prior to implementation of such a policy for the 2018 or 2019 season. However, during the June 2016 meeting of the NFHS Baseball Rules Committee, the committee approved a change in the Baseball Rules Book that mandates a pitching policy based on pitch counts and the rule will be effective for the 2017 baseball season (this coming spring). In as much, the VHSL staff is convening a pitching policy committee, comprised of representatives for each of our twelve (12) regions. This committee will be assigned the task of developing a pitching policy based on the number of pitches thrown for implementation during the 2017 season. While there are individuals on the committee who have extensive experience in the game of baseball, we want the input of our baseball coaches in this discussion. The purpose of this survey is to allow VHSL baseball coaches the ability to provide that input as the committee works to develop a policy recommendation.

Your completion of this survey is CRUCIAL and we thank you for your assistance.

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* 1. I represent __________________ High School.

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* 2. I represent ____________________.

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* 3. What is the maximum number of pitches per day a pitcher should throw in a game?

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* 4. What is the maximum number of pitches per week (7 calendar days) a pitcher should throw in games?

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* 5. What maximum number of pitches in a game requires no day of rest before the pitcher can throw in another game?

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* 6. What maximum number of pitches in a game requires one (1) day of rest before the pitcher can throw in another game?

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* 7. What maximum number of pitches in a game requires two (2) days of rest before the pitcher can throw in another game?

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* 8. What maximum number of pitches in a game requires three (3) days of rest before the pitcher can throw in another game?

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* 9. What maximum number of pitches in a game requires four (4) days of rest before the pitcher can throw in another game?

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* 10. Should there be different pitch count ranges for sub-varsity pitchers?

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* 11. Please provide any additional information about your handling of pitchers that would be informative to this discussion.

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