ironhorse posted: I disagree. You're still dealing with a subjective measurement. I track that kind of stuff on a pad of paper or whiteboard, too, but it's my judgement.
As a "stats" guy, please tell me how you quantify that Billy did or didn't deal well with adversity? How do you quantify if Tommy did or didn't respond well to pressure? Is it pass/fail? Is there a 20-80 scale on his reaction? And would we measure a general reaction, or consider the best Billy could have done compared to Tommy?
SS kicks a routine ground ball with a runner at 2b going to 3b. He decides the runner will be safe at 1b. He doesn't throw the ball to 1b. How did he do there? Dad thinks he has a good baseball IQ because he held the ball. I think he failed because he didn't pump fake and check 3b. Or maybe he did and checked 3b but didn't throw when he had the runner caught off guard?
The whole game is subjective. No one has fun arguments about who the fastest man in the world is at the moment. The stop watch is objective. Some days I wish I coached track.
Subjective, sure. But what’s better? Keeping track of it or relying on memory?
And look at it this way. Those same things are gonna be weighed by every coach to some extent. At least if you’ve taken the time to think about it enough to track it, you won’t be pulling something out of thin air under the guise of the “ol’ eye test”. The eye test is like any other test. There’s a right and wrong way to go, and the validity of it depends on the criteria and their application.
It doesn’t matter how I would quantify it because I’m not the one using it. Look, you’re gonna make that judgement weather you track it or not or whether you’ve developed good criteria or not. As I’ve said about a million times, do you trust your memory or something written down?
How about this. It’s the final week of the HSV season and you’re the HC. Before the game the HC of one of the local JCs approaches you and asks you how Billy deals with adversity and how he responds to pressure. Will your answer be more trustworthy if you just spit out an answer based on memory of the last 4 months of games and practices, or if you’ve continually kept track of what had been going on even if it was only your judgment that established the criteria? Like I keep saying, you’re gonna do the same thing whether you do it based on memory or notes you’ve taken.
It really doesn’t matter what dad thinks because no one’s gonna call him up and ask him! It matters what you think, and you’re gonna make that judgement no matter what. To me, the only difference is how precise you want to be, and the same is true for any statistics. So if the SS did a no-no, that’s what becomes part of his record. But here’s the problem with counting on memory.
Let’s say it’s the 5th game of the year and for some reason the game is meaningful. There are 2 down in the bottom of the final inning and you’re ahead by a run. The bases are loaded and the SS does exactly what you described and you lose the game. Even if the rest of the year the kid doesn’t make those mistakes again, what are you gonna remember if you get asked about him? Or how about if the SS has been great all season long, seldom if ever making a mistake like that, but it’s the final game of the playoffs and for whatever reason he screws up and you lose the game and are forced to watch the other team’s dogpile.
That’s why it’s nice to have something that gives context. It’s difficult to do that when all you base your judgements on is memory.