On this episode of Youth Baseball Talk, Jim has special guest Travis Kerber on to talk about youth pitchers hurting their arms by throwing too many innings with little to no rest.

Travis Kerber worked for 10 years with the Chicago White Sox Academy. In 2012 Travis helped with tryouts and recruiting for Team USA.

Travis wanted to expand upon Jim’s “rant” from the last episode and explain why he believed in a lot of the same things. Since Kerber has a lot of experience in the same type of pitcher problems, he used his experience and just elaborated on Jim’s point.

The show also talked about the importance of young pitchers’ arms and how, if they over pitch or throw too much at a younger age, it will hurt them as they continue to play.

Jim and Travis also have a discussion about the people who say that youth players are not using as much energy as professional players. But Jim and Travis both say that there is no difference between youth and pro. Just because a younger player isn’t throwing 90 to 100mph every pitch doesn’t mean that he or she isn’t throwing as hard as possible.

Kerber also makes a point on how kids now don’t practice throwing in the field anymore because, whenever they want to throw, they pitch instead of working on throwing from third to first.

Jim uses the strategy that a player should rest the same amount of days as innings thrown. He believes this is an effective way of keeping kids’ arms healthy. Kerber agrees but also makes the point that some kids could be stronger than others and could probably rest a shorter amount of time than other kids.

Jim also talks about a portable device that turns into a batter for pitchers to visualize someone at the plate while they practice their pitches; it is called the Pitch Hitter.

Domingo believes that the Pitch Hitter would make you a better pitcher for sure.

Youth Baseball Talk can be found out at www.youthbaseballtalk.com.