MACON — Long suggested, the Georgia High School Association on Monday adopted a pitch limit for high school baseball pitchers beginning in the upcoming season in the spring of 2017.
A proposal brought by the National Federation of High Schools to the GHSA executive committee at its fall meeting called for a limit of 110 pitches and mandatory rest days. The new rule will force pitchers to leave the game at the end of the at-bat once when they reach the 110-pitch count.
Rest days will become mandatory at certain stages. Pitchers who throw 86 pitches will be required to rest three days. If they hit the 61-pitch level the rule calls for a two-day rest period, and if they toss 36 or more that will require a one-day break between appearances. In tournament play, like the state playoffs, pitcher will be limited to 120 pitches in a series unless the series is extended due to weather.
Gainesville baseball coach Jeremy Kemp called it a necessary move.
"I'm all for it," he said. "This will help protect pitchers. No kid needs to be throwing that many pitches anyway. Hopefully it will also create depth by having more kids throw and get experience. I like the rule."
North Hall coach Trent Mongero was right in line with Kemp.
"I think it's a great rule," Mongero said. "When we can protect kids, that's a good thing. I'm sure there will be some issues, like for the smaller schools, where depth is more of an issue, but nothing's perfect. Overall this is a rule that will help (the coaches) stay away from the temptation of overusing a player. Butin all my years of coaching I've only ever seen a situation where that occured maybe a handful of times."
Of course, nothing is ever without it controversies, and the new rules bring up two major questions. Will it lengthen some games and who will monitor the pitch counts?
"It might cause some games to be longer if you can't throw some guys because of previous use," Kemp said. "Also, I would like to know who is going to keep up with the pitch counts. We monitor our guys, as I'm sure most teams do, but how will we know if someone has thrown his limit for the week or a couple of days.
"That's kind of a big question there. I'm sure no one wants to turn in another team on that. I'll be interested to see how that's handled. Other than that, I like the rule."
Said Mongero, "Our new region talked about turning in pitch counts at the end of each game but really I don't think this is going be an issue. It could make games longer and I'm sure there will be a time or two where some guys are not available when you could use someone. But protecting the kids is more important."
The GHSA also voted to make golf an area sport. Each classification will now be broken down into four areas with qualifiers from each area advancing directly to the state tournament. The new change will eliminate sectional play and the new rule will give the executive director the power to add teams to the state tournaments to make it 20-team field in each classification.
In other action:
-- the executive committee voted to give member schools the power of determination of gender and eliminating the power of appeal by other member schools on those decisions. But, the committee gave initial approval to a proposed constitutional amendment giving the GHSA board of trustees the power to act in “exigent” circumstances.
