18U showcase team in NJ. Our catchers call their own game.
There is no reason why a catcher shouldn't get some experience calling pitches.
So I live in Canada and my kid plays local ball here and also plays in a decent US travel ball program. This year she got to play in the Tulsa Elite Invite as well as Top Gun Invitational. I did not see a single catcher in either of those tournaments calling their own pitches - everything was called in by the coaches.
Up here, not a single team does it. Not one. The argument is "Oh, the catchers need to learn how to do it." Why? They probably aren't gonna do it in college. And actually having their coaches do it is probably a good way to learn. It would be great to get catchers to the point where they could do it at the same level as coaches but not sure that's gonna happen in most cases.
Are there many catchers calling pitches in top-level tournaments where you are?
Interesting. Why do you think that percentage is so high?95%+ of the coaches have never called a game in their lives, never caught or pitched, and have zero live feedback from the game, so why should they call pitches? They bring nothing to the table......
Its all about ego. I've heard "did you see that pitch i called " way too many times. You'll never hear " i told her to throw that pitch and it got jacked to the adjacent zip code". It's always you missed you spot. Its laughable. It's also sad that parents put up with it
Also, not every coach approaches this learning process in a positive way nor does every coach know how to do it or has spent the time with the battery to even be effective at it. What Cannonball and InsidePitch described above is definitely NOT the norm from what we've experienced.