What I learned from coaching 13-year-old pitchers

This spring, I helped one of my good friends coach a 13-year old baseball team just outside Boston, where I live. My goal, besides making pitching fun, of course, was to teach my guys good pitching mechanics, so they'd stay injury free on the big league field.

Some of these kids may go on to play high school, college, or even professional baseball. That thought is always in the back of my head when working with any pitcher. We didn't want to overwork their arms while they're still maturing.

Here are some things I implemented with my pitching staff. Perhaps you can implement some of this on your team, too.

1. I limited the amount of throwing my pitchers did at the beginning of the season -- when their arms were still getting fit to pitch.
2. I helped them build up arm strength and endurance gradually. This included starting out slowly with running and exercising, too, in addition to throwing in practices and pitching in games.
3. I emphasized trunk strengthening, such as sit ups, bridges, and trunk twists.
4. I encouraged those of my guys who tended to throw sidearm to throw more overhand. (The key here, though, is to find your natural arm path, and to try to throw from it all the time. Every pitcher's different.)
5. We focused on fastballs and changeups.
6. I didn't allow any pitcher to throw curve balls more than 7% to 10% of his total pitches in a week. We charted it and stuck to it.  (This usually meant guys could throw no more than 4 to 7 CBs a game. Period.)
7. I also limited the number of pitches that a pitcher threw per week. General guidelines were not more than 80 to 100 pitches per week. (I allowed my guys who had the endurance toward the end of the season to pitch 100 pitches a week.)
8. I didn't have my guys pitch competitively between games or in scrimmages. (I also saved their arms between games by setting up a bucket next to the mound during fielding practice. Instead of making a throw, they fielded the baseball and dropped it in the bucket.)