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Today in Charlottesville, the VHSL Executive Board had its annual Winter Meetings to discuss and vote on proposed rule changes. Numerous rules for various sports and activities were discussed and voted, but a few key ones applied to baseball.

Pitching Regulations

There were two updates to the Pitching Regulations, both of which passed. The first change goes into effect immediately for the 2019 season and changes the verbiage of the rule regarding a pitcher throwing short outings on back-to-back days, mandating a day of rest if a pitcher throws 51 or more pitches combined over two days.

The second change that passed and goes into effect next year is an increase to the penalty for violation of the pitching rule. The current penalty is that the team forfeits the game that they broke the rule in. The new penalty going forward will also require that the head coach of a team the violated the rule to complete the "Introduction to Pitch Smart" class online before they will be eligible to coach again, and the violating school will also be fined $100. Any additional violations by that head coach will result in a two game suspension.

 

Slaughter Rule

The ten-run rule that applies during the regular season has been expanded to the postseason as well, so beginning in 2020, all VHSL games will be played with the 10-run rule in effect. During the playoffs, this has the potential to save some teams innings and pitching if they can shorten their games by hitting the 10 run mark. This rule was passed and will go into effect for the 2020 season.

 

Expanded Schedule

There was a proposal to expand the number of games that VHSL teams can play to 22 plus an invitational tournament from the current which is 20 games. The invitational tournament would have allowed teams to play five additional games in the tournament, this would have allowed teams to play as many as 27 games in a season. The measure was defeated.

 

Out of Season Practice

This was the elephant in the room going into the meetings and the big-ticket item on the agenda. There was a proposal in place to end the out-of-season practices that have been allowed since 2011. The ban would return us back to the old rules, which only allowed teams to workout in the weight room or in a conditioning setting. Since 2011, VHSL baseball teams have been able to long toss, hit in cages, take fly balls and ground balls as well as other baseball or sport-specific activities during these offseason practices. The proposed rule would have banned these activities again.

The rule as written and proposed today did not pass the Executive Committee, but there was a lot of interest in limiting or ending out-of-season practice, so the measure was not completely defeated. VHSL has decided to form a 24-person committee to examine the concept and to recommend a rule change to be voted on again in a future meeting. The committee will feature one representative from each Region.

The presented logic behind this proposal is the death of the multi-sport athlete and the multi-sport coach, which especially at smaller schools has limited schools' abilities to field teams or find qualified coaches that the School Districts will approve. Even at the bigger schools, the specialization of athletes has overall led to a decrease in the quality of competition and has led to numerous schools not being able to find qualified JV coaches for basketball, football, and baseball because those coaches have had to specialize to run their out-of-season practices. With the low pay that coaches receive for their primary season, a good way to supplement that income was to coach another team during the off-season