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Why the In-Game Bullpen Hurts Young Pitchers — What Coaches and Parents Need to Know | EMD Shorts · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
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• 1:10
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse of EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kiri Kutis joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing?
• 1:19
  Speaker C: Great.
• 1:20
  Speaker D: How are you?
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Good. It's a little fired up in our pre talk here, so I'm going to try to tone it, I'm going to try to tone it down a little
• 1:26
  Speaker D: bit, but we're not going to be talking about what.
• 1:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're not even talking about what we were talking about. But we are creeping up on that time of year where the, the, the mortal sin of hey, just throw a bullpen in the game tomorrow. It'll be like your bullpen. I can use you for 45 pitches like you were going to throw a bullpen anyway, where we start to have some of those conversations start to pop up. And these will become more prevalent in the summer when you're at the Perfect Game tournament down in Georgia and you got to win nine games in three and a half days. But I want to take a second to unpack this because I think it's really important for people to understand that those two things a 60 pitch bullpen or a 45 pitch bullpen, we're going to use 60 pitches here as an example. But a 60 pitch bullpen versus a 60 game, 60 pitch in game outing, they are not the same. They're not the same for a variety of different reasons and especially this early in the season. And when you're talking about arm health, which is a topic that is needs to continue to be discussed around pitch counts and workloads and how we're handling young arms and all that good stuff that we've talked about on here before, but want to make sure that we draw a pretty clear line in the sand kind of on the differences here. So. Yeah, you got any opening thoughts on that before we break down some of the numbers?
• 2:56
  Speaker D: I was never a fan of it, quite frankly. I just think that there's, there's way too much that goes into it from a, you know, the just on, on even on its surface, the obvious statement, right, like the bullpen, you're not necessarily always going max effort and you throw to get ready. You know, your arms, your, your weighted balls, your warm up, your body blade, long toss, you throw your pen 15, 20, 30, 40 pitches maybe at max in season and then you're done. You know, the in game stuff is, you know, you're maybe not getting your full warm up that you're looking for. You're, you know, you're probably going to throw at least 20 to 20, probably 20 at least to get loose. And if you're on a 40 pitch limit, you know, now you're going out to the mound, you're going to throw another eight on the mound to get ready now 28, like you got to throw three outs and 12 pitches and that generally doesn't happen. And we think about it in, in terms of, you know, what the, what the number of the pitches are in game. And I just think that that's a flawed thought process when we do that because there's a lot more that goes on into it to guys getting loose and you know, you run the risk of them trying to shorten down, to not go out to the mound, you know, to keep their numbers down and then maybe they get hurt there or something. You know, it might not be that exact instance that they get hurt, but like that wear and tear might, you know, lead to something down the line. So I was never, I've never been a fan of it. It's not something that I like doing. I really wouldn't allow my guys to do it when I coached, you know, and I know that people ask the question and generally speaking, guys want the ball to go do it. But you know, I think that there's more harm and good in a lot of those things.
• 4:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, once again, like I shouldn't say once again, but I think one of the things that is important to understand here is that you're asking youth kids to do things that you wouldn't ask college and professional guys to do. The only time you would ask guys to come back on short rest or unacceptable rest or in extreme situations. Right. You're talking about trying to win championships. It's when you see starters throwing short rest and all that kind of stuff. But for the purpose of what we're talking about, like there's a reason that in college you have hot days and cold days. You know, there's guys who go into a weekend game like hey, you're not throwing, you know, you've already reached what you're doing. You know, it's not a bullpen session. It's nothing like that. Like we protect our college arms much better than we could text our young arms. And I think it's kind of backwards, maybe not even backwards. I just think the high school level kid oftentimes is subject to what's being told to them and not really understanding the full scope of what's being asked of them. And I kind of broke down some of the numbers. So if you got a 60 pitch bullpen, you're probably going to make about 90 total throws. You'll probably throw, you know, maybe 30, 30 pitches. Assume all your warm up stuff, your dynamic warmup, your stretching, your med balls and all that stuff is the same. But when you're talking about like physically throwing the baseball, you know, if you're going to throw 60 pitch bullpen, you might make 90 total throws. To your point about the end game stuff. 60 pitches in game, well that's also going to come with probably a lengthier warm up. So call it another 40 pitches. So you're already up to 100 on top of the 60 that you're going to throw in the game, plus what you're going to do in between. So if it's 60 pitches and you throw four innings now there's another 20 warmup throws, 20 plus warmup throws. So now you're, you're already at 120. So you've thrown the ball 30 extra times, probably bare minimum. That's not taking into account one of the things that you brought up that needs to be emphasized is you cannot replicate in game intensity, in the stressors that happen in game thrown from the stretch, handling runners, the mental anxiety around it, just the, the stress and the intent behind pitches, it's just different. You can throw hard in the bullpen and hit your velocities and do all that stuff, but it's still, it's just not the same. It's not the same thing. And I think it's, it's important. Like if you're a high school coach out there and you haven't thought about this. I think you need to think long and hard about how you handle your guys. Like if they have a bullpen day, they should not be throwing that quote unquote bullpen in the game. If you don't have enough arms to get through a game, that's a different problem. But you shouldn't sacrifice a high school game or a kid's potential health because he was supposed to throw a 45 pitch bullpen so you think you can get three innings out of them in a game. Instead it's bluntly put, it's irresponsible and it's selfish and they see it happen in travel ball probably more because of the way that the tournaments are set up. And I just, I don't think you can ever put the health of a player at risk because you want to advance to the round of 32 down in Georgia.
• 8:18
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• 9:21
  Speaker D: Yeah, I mean it's, it's wildly irresponsible. I mean I, I was coming at
• 9:27
  Speaker C: it from the, the lens of a college.
• 9:30
  Speaker D: Like I hated when the guys did it in college. Yeah, you know, I, I, not that I wasn't thinking about it, but I, I think it's incredibly irresponsible at the lower levels just because it's, guys aren't developed enough. They're not, they're not built up to do that, you know. And you know, I'm against it in college obviously because it's, you know, guys that aren't necessarily, I'm going to use the term yours when you're doing it but you know, for the most part those guys are built up to throw that much. But also like you don't know, I mean, you know but you don't know how much they threw all here and where they are, where they're at and can they handle it. And that could be something that could be a contributing factor down the road, obviously. Hope no one ever gets hurt. But I think with younger players, it's. It's something that you. It shouldn't happen, like in a. You know, it's. It's a problem that we have that many games in a tournament because we have 797 teams, so we have 18,000 rounds. You know, your pool play into, you know, a bracket of 110. But if you need more arms, go get more arms. If not, like, you know, risking people's future and health for another win isn't worth it. It's. I don't know. I think we've, we've lost, as the kids say, they've lost the plot on some of that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I would be furious if one of my recruits, like, through on a Friday and then on Monday through a bullpen in game, like, what are we doing?
• 11:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'd be curious if you had a kid who's coming on campus and you found out like, hey, he threw, you know, he threw 85 pitches on Friday and they brought him back to throw 45 in game on Tuesday. I'd be, I'd be on the phone with that coach.
• 11:26
  Speaker D: Yeah. Like, what are we doing? We're within the pitch count rules. Like, that's not the point.
• 11:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. There's a reason that college guys operate on a. Once every six. Once every six days, once every seven days. You know, no, you know, no college guys throwing their Friday guy on Friday and then bringing him back to get some out on Tuesday. It would never happen. And you could be like, oh, well, they have more arms. Yeah.
• 11:53
  Speaker D: As a starter.
• 11:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. But like, that's also kind of the point, you know, like, go get some more arms. You know, don't go to the tournament. You need to win 10 games in four days with six arms. And then subject those kids to stresses that they don't need to be subjected to. Like, go down there with more arms and divvy it out and schedule it. You know, everything you should, you know, if you're going to win one of those tournaments and, you know, there's only. Shoot, there's really only like a handful of teams that can really do it. But the health of the kids should never come before trying to win that tournament. No, it should always come before.
• 12:29
  Speaker D: Excuse.
• 12:29
  Speaker B: Excuse me. Should always come before trying to win those tournaments. And doing that kind of stuff and being responsible to those kids and making sure that they have the proper rest and, you know, planning it out. And then honestly, from a, a coach's perspective, if I know you have a script, makes my job easier as an evaluator because I know, like, hey, coming to watch this kid throw and he's going to throw innings four through seven and then that's, and then he's not coming back again for the tournament.
• 12:54
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• 13:36
  Speaker B: I'm going to go and I'm going to see him in that one spot.
• 13:39
  Speaker D: Correct.
• 13:40
  Speaker B: And the coaches who are evaluating appreciate it. The kids, I think the kids too. I think the other part of it
• 13:48
  Speaker E: is that you give these kids a
• 13:49
  Speaker B: chance to prepare properly and they get to build up to the day that they're going to throw. Like, hey, I, I know I'm gonna throw game two on Saturday at this field at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, and I'm gonna plan my week to make sure that I'm ready to go for that game and I don't have to juggle this variable of like, well, am I going to throw 45 pitches and I'm going to have to come back two days later and throw another 45. I've never really done that. You know, I'm a high school starter. I usually throw every Tuesday and now you're asking me to throw Saturday and then Tuesday. And you know, you get these kids in this spin cycle of not being comfortable. They're not built to do it. They haven't been asked to do it in the past. Don't ask them to do it right now.
• 14:32
  Speaker D: No, you shouldn't, shouldn't even be.
• 14:34
  Speaker C: It shouldn't even be a question that gets asked.
• 14:37
  Speaker D: Not my honest answer.
• 14:40
  Speaker B: So moral of the story is, is that the, the in game, quote unquote, bullpen is not the same as the bullpen that you throw in a controlled environment where you have a pitch count and you're working on specific things and you're trying to get your work in. It's, it's not the same. It's not the same. And it, you know, high school coaches and travel coaches, if you're listening to this, like, avoid it at all costs and make sure that you're always putting the kids health at the forefront of the equation here because it'll pay dividends for you in the long run. But it also, you know, you're doing right by the kit and that's ultimately what matters here.
• 15:19
  Speaker C: Correct.
• 15:20
  Speaker B: Anything else you want to add? Coach?
• 15:22
  Speaker C: No, sir.
• 15:23
  Speaker D: All right.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: Thank you for our TED Talk on Bullpen. Hope you enjoy. Talk to you next week. Thanks, everybody.
• 15:32
  Speaker E: Thank you for listening this week.
• 15:33
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• 15:35
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• 15:43
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• 15:47
  Speaker E: If you want to find out what
• 15:49
  Speaker B: me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.