Middle School Pitching Distance...

What's your take? Our area middle schools are talking about changing the pitching distance to the 43' used in High School and College...

Is middle school the time to make the change? Opinions.......

 

Totally agree keep at 40 feet. I'm a firm believer in getting players muscle to develope on there own more. You get these kids throwing alot of junk pitches at the 5th and 6th grade to get ready for middle school, you will see more injuries and they will not make it to the college level. I've seen some injuries already from that and wrist and elbows will give out. Throw nothing but fastballs and change-ups in middle school. Just my opinion being around baseball and softball for 20 years.

 

A lot of middle school games in our conference were very pitcher dominated this year. We play a fall schedule. They pitched ASA ball on the weekend from 43, and dominated from 40 in school ball, where you generally don't have as many hitters. One step makes a huge difference with young bats. As I've said before, whether we think its good for the game or not, ASA and others have already pushed it further back. The question then becomes, Should school ball not be the same as ASA or Little league which is still 40, for 13 and 14 year olds.

 

I have seen a lot of middle school ball this year and haven't seen any dominate pitching. This would include most of the davidson county schools,davie county schools and some of the forsyth county schools.

I also watched a lot of 12/u and 14/u travel ball and once again never seen any dominate pitching. And watched most of the top teams in the state and their respective ages. Never once, that I seen, when two top teams played was there any dominate pitching at 40 or 43.

Now to the question.
I think they should leave it at 40. There are still some 12 year olds (7th graders) playing middle school ball. There is no need to rush them. If they have to move up in the spring it will give them all winter to workout and make the adjustment.

I think there should be more of a focus on middle school coaches than the pitching distance.

 

Leave it at 40, we are what 2 years with HS being at 43. I haven't seen much dominate pitching at either distance the last couple of years.

 

no matter

I would like to see the powers that be make the 43' adjustment "now" and let the spring schools know "now" instead of late FEB or early March and then have had time to work on it. If the fall schools used it, how did it work? OR just let it be a conference decision.

 

Leave it @ 40'

I was a proponent of the HS 43' but that's enough. I saw very few dominant pitchers in HS last spring. Even some of the kids who have signed with pretty good programs simply couldn't strike kids out. For most kids the a good time to transition will be when moving the HS.

 

from the high school perspective...

...leave at 40 ft. most conferences have weak programs for whatever reason anyway. move to 43ft in high school.

here on the East coast, i am not sure why so many girls pursue basketball when (my perception anyway) the East coast colleges need and would recruit more softball players. The east coast schools wouldnt have to recruit so much from the west coast. u dont have to be 6ft tall to play softball and it takes 9 players to field a team as opposed to 5 in basketball.

so a girls chances of playing college softball are greater.

of course, we have to look at the west coast middle schools. what distance do they pitch from?

 

43' changed HS ball. It is too much for middle school ball.