I can't argue with your experience but in this situation while you can't control their job, pay, or their "hoots" about what you think, you do control their win and loss record. That usually is worth quite a bit if the topic is broached in a collaborative, respectful and humble way that retains a spirit of respect for the coach. If the coach in that environment is that stubborn and insists on driving my DD into the ground despite a reasonable request and attempt to collaborate, he/she is treated as an abusive partner and I/we walk. Their tournaments won't be much fun with zero pitchers vs one willing to go at least 3 games a week.
In the situations you describe I try to have some flexibility based on the importance of the event and always offset by additional rest, but my experience says having alignment upfront is critical to avoiding disagreements. I've also had many coaches pull my daughter before I've had to ask either because she is communicating with the coach or because they know the boundary.
I'm very fortunate to have never been in situation to deal with these toxic personalities and that's because our school coaches are reasonable and we do very careful due diligence on travel ball teams before joining.
Well said.
We left one travel team because they over-worked my DD. We will do it again if needed. And at the point we'd do that in the HS setting, pretty sure the vast majority of players, fans, parents and other coaches would be firmly on our side in that decision. We're not soft. We're just careful.