Replies

It is hard to believe any sport would do this to a child who is learning to play the game with excellence. I have coached Little league 9 year olds. Our local league uses pitching machines for 7-8-9 year olds to get them used to faster pitching. These machines are set at minimum 42 MPH. We had a Championship game where it was set at 51 MPH. At 9 my Son was pitching 40-45 MPH and guess what? Kids were hitting him. There were other 9 year olds throwing faster than him in the league.

The key is to get the kids to be better batters. If this 9 year old moved to our area he would be surprised at how many kids put his ball in play.

Teach the kids to hit... don’t penalize the pitcher who is performing on par with kids his age around the Country.

I agree that little Jericho should be moved up an age group to compete with those at his skill level. What WILL happen eventually, unless he is challenged, is little Jericho will not develop into a true pitcher, he will just be a hard thrower. In due time (usually around 14-15 years old) the kids WILL begin to hit the hard thrower and Jericho will be standing there wondering what the heck is going on. If Jericho gets moved up, he will be forced to learn the ART of pitching and not just blowing the "gas" right by the hitters.

Our local league uses pitching machines for 7-8-9 year olds to get them used to faster pitching.

I was a coach, director, and president for a local youth baseball league and we used machines for 8-9 year olds and I found it to be a very exciting game that kids enjoyed playing because the kids put the ball in play and defense was rewarded as it was the better defensive teams that won games. Kids also were not afraid of getting hit by a pitch and also learned what a strike looks like instead of swinging at poorly pitched balls by either a coach or kid that cannot pitch well.

I remember a study done by a University on the east coast comparing youth baseball teams coming out of their 8-9 year old years from a kid/coach pitch environment vs. a machine pitch environment. The study was done on 10 year old teams when the machine pitch teams finally started kid pitch and the machine pitch teams thoroughly trounced the kid/coach pitch teams because of superior hitting skills (identifying and hitting strikes) and superior defensive skills (having to play a batted ball instead of a bunch of kids drawing a walk).