MaxPreps

Yes they are worthless. 

Depends on where they are getting the stats. If your coach uploads them, they are  good, or as good as your team's scorekeeper. Coaches who use GameChanger can import those stats in directly, so again, that's probably pretty good, depending on the reliability of the scorekeeper.

BOF -- is there some other way that MaxPreps can get stats?

Unless something has changed very recently, it is always dependent on an authorized person from each school to post to Maxpreps, usually the coach, asst. coach or scorekeep.  Many schools don't post or post partially and there are lots of obvious errors.  The data is only as good as the scorekeeper for the game and the person transposing the info into Maxpreps.  So, the quality and accuracy varies WIDELY.

Cabagedad got it. It depends on the program and who is authorized to upload them. I have seen cases where they were accurate, but then go look at what the opposing school put up for the same game...not so much. 

I'm with Steve Springer anyway....batting average is evil 

I've found that you can get an accurate idea of how good the stats are from applying a simple smell test. Often you will see the team that has a .460 team batting average with only a handful of ROE's for the season and a team ERA of 1.59 and yet has a record of 10-25 on the season and seems to be losing every game 13-4. Those you can write off.

roothog66-  EXACTLY!!!

Catcher on Jr.'s team was trying to do some scouting of lineups from last season, and commented that several teams batting average was above .400, yet they won only a handful of games, and most of the ones they lost were a beat down!  Same with pitching stats...not sure how you have a team ERA hovering around 1, yet you are allowing 10+ runs per game, your defense can't be that bad!!!  There were several teams like that.

I keep score for my son's HS team, and am responsible for uploading stats to MaxPreps (using iScore rather than GameChanger - both programs make it pretty easy, but iScore uploads defensive stats and GameChanger does not, and I find it more intuitive anyway).

i have definitely noticed a wide range of scorekeeping ability.  Personally, I don't think it is that hard if you grew up in the game, and learned proper scorekeeping early.  Parents who've just recently learned, or maybe just picked up an app and think that makes them an expert (I kept score for decades with a paper book before I ever used one of the apps - though they ARE handy) are the problem.

Personally, I've never found it that hard to distinguish between a hit and an error.  There might be a couple plays a game - at most - that are really one of those 50-50 decisions, and I always run the book by the coach before I post the stats and defer to his judgment on close calls.  My tendency is to be harder on our team (and particularly my son) on close calls, but I know I am far more the exception than the rule.  I do get parents who lobby me to change scorekeeping decisions, usually on the rationale that our kids need to "keep up," that our kids won't have as good a chance for post-season awards and honors if we don't, and we need to do what "everyone else" is doing.  I reject that (as do our coaches) - it's just a slippery slope that makes whatever stats you do have worse than worthless.  If other coaches are making decisions on honors based on those kids of  obviously worthless stats, they are much dumber than I thought.

Some other things you will find with Maxpreps baseball stats by school...

Regional trends - in some areas, use of Maxpreps for stat entry is fairly common and consistent, other areas are spotty and some regions don't enter stats into Maxpreps much at all.

Small school factor - not only are stats usually inflated due to poor competition level, but those scorekeeps generally seem to be much more generous regarding hits/E's/earned runs/SB's, etc., leading to some really gaudy numbers.

Playoff time - many of the better programs in our area delete stats toward the end of season as playoffs near as to not give opponents any informational advantage.  In Maxpreps, there is not an option to "hide" stats for a period of time and re-entering can be a pain, so they are sometimes left off afterwards.

ROE should be part of OBP.  That would solve a lot of those parent issues and it would make the stat more meaningful.

Tyhat has always been a pet peeve of mine. The kid with speed who hustles through every play and does a good job of putting the ball inplay will naturally get more ROE's that the slow, lazy kid who doesn't know how to get out of the box and swings for the fences on every pitch. Why isn't that differential in skill sets somehow incorporated into the stats through OBP?

I have mixed feelings on this.  On the one hand, I have no doubt that speedy kids and kids who hit the ball harder will generate more ROEs than kids who aren't/don't, and a stat called "on-base percentage" really ought to measure every way you get on base without making an out.  On the other hand, I also think that the lower the level of play the less consistently that will be true.  I'm not sure I'd change a long and well-defined stat if I don't see a very clear correlation between some skill that is currently left unmeasured and the proposed change to measure it.  Most of these programs will track ROE, and if you believe that correlates with a repeatable skill, you can look that up (though maybe not on MaxPreps, which only tracks certain stats regardless of others your program may track).  In iScore, same with hard-hit balls.

The problem really is the people who complain about scoring decisions are far too results-oriented and don't really know how to judge the quality of batting performance.  In general, and contrary to popular opinion, I don't think most coaches are in that category....

I'd like to think most coaches are not in this category, however their resumes look better with more kids that make All State, All District, etc. honors, and padding stats is one way of improving those chances.

I agree with EdgarFan - it should not be that hard to keep honest / accurate stats, but unfortunately it likely is more the exception to have a scorekeeper like EdgarFan, than the rule.

As for ROE being part of OBP, while there is something to be said for the player that does not strike out much, and has speed, I don't know that it should be included in that stat.  I think it all washes out in the end, just like the high fly ball that lands in the infield with two fielders looking at each other is scored a base hit, then the next hitter lines out on a diving play by an infielder....

Agreed, BFS!

BFS,

There’s a lot of things that can be said for the MaxPreps stats, but accuracy to the level of MLB is definitely not one of them.

The 1^st thing to understand about MP and other services like it is, the data is only as good as the SK and/or anyone else who has the password to enter and/or edit the data. I don’t know for sure, but after having communicated with literally hundreds of HCs about it, I think its safe to say most MP stats are entered manually by a coach, but that’s slowly changing as apps like IS and GC become more widely used. Here’s what happens when stats are manually entered.

Someone has to either have the scorebook in front of them and total every entry as they’re putting in the data, or they have to have totaled everything for every player ahead of time. But either way it presents a problem because there’s human beings involved, and we all make mistakes doing both totaling the data and doing the actual data entry.

The 1^st thing MP wants is the final score. Its only necessary to enter the score, but the score by inning and hits and errors. And this brings up the first thing that “might” be an issue. Our league as well as many others in the area have Arbiter enter the schedules and scores, so whoever checks the data has to make sure the schedule’s correct and the score is correct. When I enter stats, I usually don’t do it until the next day after I’ve double checked everything, so in almost every case the score is already posted, but only the score is entered, so I have to put in the runs by inning and the hits and errors. And that brings up another little “problem”.

Either team can change the game score, hits and errors. So if Arbiter enters a score of 8-3, and I edit it to show the runs by inning as 5-3-0-0-0-0-0 with 9 hits and 2 errors, and 1-1-0-0-0-1-0 with 5 hits and 4 errors, it isn’t necessarily over. Anyone with a password for our school or the opponent’s school can change either the score or the hits and errors! That really wouldn’t be a big deal, but those are the things the standings are automatically made up from, and that the folks who do the rankings use to do that. I’ve caught a few people making changes to scores to enhance their ranking, but its pretty rare. Usually there’s only difference in hits and errors, not scores.

Once the score and R-H are entered, you can start entering stats for the players. The user is presented with the roster in uniform # order, and the 1^st thing that can be entered is the 17 batting and running stats. Each one has to be entered individually, so if you had 12 different players hit or run, that’s 204 possible entries. Here’s the bad part. There’s no data verification done. For example, its possible to enter 6 hits for a player who only had 3 ABs. In my program I check a lot of things like that so the bad data can’t be put in. The reason that’s important is, many people are like myself and use the number pad. Well, the 6 is less than a 1/16^th of an inch from the 3, so “fat-finger” mistakes aren’t at all unusual.

Once the offensive data has been put in, you hit a button and the data is entered into the database, and the user’s taken automatically to the defensive data input screen. Here again the roster sorted by uni # is presented, and 7 different pieces of data can be input. After the data has been entered into the database, the pitcher’s data screen is presented, made up of 26 different data points. Once its all been entered, another button is press and the pitcher’s data hits the database. Here’s where I’m a lot different than “most”.

I’ve already made sure my data and totals are correct, so I go back into the hitting, defense, and pitching screens to check the totals MP has with the totals I have. That can’t be done during the data entry because MP doesn’t total anything until its put into the database. So if someone putting in the data doesn’t check very closely as its being entered, and they don’t go back and check totals, bad data is in there.

I have a standard spiel I give to coaches, players, and parents, that when they see something they think is wrong, to let me know ASAP. Either they’re wrong and I’ll give them an explanation why that is, or I’m wrong and I’ll go in and change it.

So, you can see how its very possible data might be accidently bad, or in some case purposely bad. It should also explain why some schools don’t put in “ALL” the possible data. Its not like it takes hours, but it’s not a 2 minute job either. MP doesn’t require any field be filled, nor does it require data for every game. What happens is, schools like ours who have someone willing to do it and the time to do it, usually put in everything they can, while others where the coach has to do it, it takes a much lower priority.

The nice thing about these scoring apps, is they export the data, so after the score is entered, instead of entering the data manually, all that has to be done is to hit the import key and its done automatically. But here again is where more problems can happen. I love importing the data, but even though I know its gonna work, I check all the totals against what I have.

Now comes the trouble with the apps. They’re great and I encourage people to use them, but it doesn’t matter how easy they are to use, if the person using them doesn’t know how to keep score well, its even easier to get bad data into the system.

So, the answer to your original question, are the MaxPreps stats for the most part worthless, is it depends on the school. For the individual school, they’re pretty good because they’re usually consistent, so you can pick out who has the bet BA or ERA on the team and be confident it shows good comparisons. But as much as I like MP and know the folks in our league generally do a pretty fair job of scoring and putting in data, personally I don’t do a lot of comparing players using the MP stats other than look at HRs for hitters or Ks for pitchers. And that goes for sure about trying to compare players from even larger pools like a division or state.

But the good news is, even with all the problems in MP, the data is immensely better than even just 5 years ago.

Just last week I offered to update JP's MaxPreps HS team stats for the season. The HC said no thanks; the assistant coach would handle.

After reading Stats' post, all I can say is ...

WHEW!!!

Consider the source and $$$ motivation.

Bob

founder Area Code games

Max Preps is the shiny new object that everyone is focusing on because its the "brand new way of posting stats for everyone to get seen so that way you can get recruited by colleges and MLB scouts can find you".  These stats (and most) are irrelevant for much of anything.

If you use these to try and scout an opponent - let me tell you a secret.....the other team's first 6 batters will be their best batters.  You may want to focus the most on the first four batters.  They tend to be the best of the best hitters.  They tend to not let the 115 freshman outfielder who care barely swing the bat be the number 3 hitter.....unless they just absolutely stink.  But even then he will be their best hitter.

All stats in HS (and below) are useless.  That running back you see on Max Preps or the newspaper who got 464 yards rushing the other night could be inflated by straight up lying.  We faced a kid one night who had a great game rushing and we couldn't stop him.  Next morning we checked the paper and they had him down for a national record for rushing.  He had a really good night - not a record breaker.  He ended up in the Faces in the Crowd section in Sports Illustrated and it was pretty embarrassing to be honest.  But we couldn't wrap our heads around the fact he had that many.  We watched the film super closely and what he got rushing wasn't near what they said it was.  So we started adding up the number of kick returns and receptions - funny how all those numbers together with rushing ended up being what he got put down for rushing.

My honest piece of advice is I would never go to a website like this unless you really want to stroke some egos.

OK -- rookie question: I'm in Texas but not sure it matters. How are All District, All State and All American determined?

Are stats considered, and if so, whose?

coach2709 ---  Great post!.....I don't think this could have been explained any better.

Thank you!

coach2709,

Shiny new object? I don’t think so. They’ve been around since 2003 as MaxPreps, and before that the same stats services were available like in most cities, from the local newspaper. All they’ve done is fill a niche, and they’re doing it pretty well. It’s a service with a demand.

Is it useful from the standpoint of recruiting? Actually, in a way it is. The local scouts tell me that having rosters and schedules available, rather than having to bother coaches, is a handy thing to have. As for whether or not the actual numbers are useful, I think that’s something that can be different from scout to scout. I don’t think the numbers are useful as far as comparing players, but I know at least a couple players that got on the radar because of numbers that got posted.

I pretty much agree that they aren’t of much value as a scouting tool, other than to identify which players might be more likely to run. But, that isn’t really where their value lies. That comes from what “entertainment” value they add for the fans. Many fans love to look at the game programs, the same way fans at a ML game like to look at a program. Its pure entertainment, and to be honest, it takes something off of my plate. It used to be that every game I’d get anywhere from a few to a couple dozen inquires about what a player’s name was, what his grade was, or some other inane thing. Every one of those questions that I don’t have to field, makes my life easier.

I wouldn’t say ALL HS stats are useless because they aren’t. But it does matter what you try to use those stats for. If you’re a scout and trying to find some diamond in the rough, forget it. If you’re an opposing coach and want to find some little secret that will give you an advantage in the upcoming game, don’t hold your breath until you find it. But if you’re a parent who takes pride in his/her child’s accomplishments, like to see how your kid or team stacks up against others, or you just get a kick out of looking at baseball stats, it’s a great source, and the largest of its kind for HS sports in the country.

What it isn’t, is a place to go for stats that are on a par with what you’d find for MLB. What you find on MaxPreps for stats are the most basic of basic stats, and only as good as the people who put them in try to make them.

I understand that stats may a little subjective. How about the  HR's numbers. I guess they could be in the parkers and then a possible error could be missed. I'm asking because the HS my son will attend  next year hit 4 homers last year. Is that low or average? The fields look like Comerica Park compared to the 300' ban boxes his travel team plays on.Still I would have thought there would be more homers than that.

Hueysdad,

HR numbers are more than likely fairly accurate because they’re so easy to spot. 4 for a season is prolly on the low side, but nothing strange as far as I can see. We had a pretty darn good team last season but only hit 8, 4 each by 2 players, and gave up 6 in 31 games.

A lot depends on the parks you play on. The team in our league that almost always hits the most HRs is only 365’ to CF and 310’ down the lines, while most of the other fields in the league are much bigger. Like our field where we’re only 375’ to center, but 385’ in LC. A lot of would be HRs die in that LC gap.

A lot also depends on the competition you play. If you play a lot of weak teams with weak pitching, even if your team isn’t very good, chances are you’ll see a good number of balls sail over the fence. Same if you happen to have a super stud. He’ll see enough pitchers that he’ll get a few “gifts”.

A lot of travel teams play on fields set up to be something less than 60/90. Also, many HS fields were built in the days of hot bats, so the extra real estate was needed. When the school my son attended put up its fence, it was the year before the BESR bats became the rule. My son was throwing against teams where most of the hitters were using Titanium drop 5s, and that was a real thrill to watch. So the fence was 325’ down the lines and 410’ in center, but when the 1^st BESRs were used, the HRs dropped dramatically. The school and many other moved the fences in, but within a few years the composites showed up, along with rolling and all the other crap going on, and suddenly the balls started flying out again. Wouldn’t ya know it, as soon as they moved the fences back, out comes BBCOR, and there’s talk of moving them in again!

Yeah, a lot of folks believe the HR rate in HS ball is even higher than in the ML, but trust me, it isn’t. Remember, there’s a very wide range of player skills and competition in HS, but my guess is, the “average” HS player can barely hit a ball out of the park in BP,  let alone in a game.

Cabbagedad and roothog good posts.

Stats4Gnats-having someone like you do stats sounds right.

Just looked up MP and saw incorrect data for the HS team.

A Scout said they look at a player's form, etc (what they see themselves) during HS more than HS stats from MP, GC, etc, as said above those are as 'good' as whoever inputs them. 

Some HS fields are pool table smooth, others look like gopher-hole territory (a ball right at you takes a wacky hop off those for 'hits', rare to see poor fields at the next level), for this scout at least, he values travel stats more highly, better fields, better competition, etc. Above all, he said he watches how a player gets ready, his approach, tracking balls, charging balls, many things not found on a stat chart will tell him who is a ballplayer.

Originally Posted by Catcherdad:

…A Scout said they look at a player's form, etc (what they see themselves) during HS more than HS stats from MP, GC, etc, as said above those are as 'good' as whoever inputs them. 

Some HS fields are pool table smooth, others look like gopher-hole territory (a ball right at you takes a wacky hop off those for 'hits', rare to see poor fields at the next level), for this scout at least, he values travel stats more highly, better fields, better competition, etc. Above all, he said he watches how a player gets ready, his approach, tracking balls, charging balls, many things not found on a stat chart will tell him who is a ballplayer.

Its pretty amazing that any scout is ignorant enough to value one set of stats over another when its very likely the quality of the scorer is no different, and in fact might be the same person scoring at both. Also, I haven’t got a clue why a scout would worry a lot about the field condition. In fact, if anything I’d think a player excelling on a poor field wild be more valuable than one excelling on a great field.

I can certainly understand why all those things you listed at the end were considered very important. But if you want to believe all those things are done for every HS player in the country, you’re sadly mistaken. Something has to draw the attention of any scout. They don’t just randomly wander around the countryside looking for baseball games to watch.

Stats,, I may not be the most eloquent writer or relayer of a conversation, my apologies

You are correct, He was there to see 2 players he had seen before and wanted to see more of, those two did very well and stood out that day.

He has had experience with one of the teams and their stats over 2 decades which he shared.

I probably should written his entire conversation over 5 innings to better show his comments (or not posted at all).

Of course every situation is unique.

The one thing he said that really stood out was that HS stats mean little to him.

He echoed the sentiments of prior posts in this thread which caught my attention and prompted my post.

Respectfully.

Catcherdad,

No need to apologize for anything. Its just that I’ve read what seems like a million posts over the years trying to convey what scouts have told them or they heard a scout has said, and it always seems to come down to how useless HS stats are. Accurate? Not likely. Valid? Not likely either. But, the things that attract a scouts attention a pretty much objective numbers in that they don’t involve much judgment.

What will attract attention is a lot of HRs for a position player or a lot of Ks for a pitcher. An extremely high BA or OBP will also attract attention, but not like a lot of HRs. Other than outright putting in false numbers on purpose, which doesn’t happen all that often with those particular stats, those particular numbers can usually be counted on as indicators of above average players. Not only can they be generally counted on, using MaxPreps its downright simple to break out those numbers for leagues and school size to help isolate those players so they can be compared and looked at more readily.

In the case of position players, all anyone has to do is look at the team’s schedule to get an opportunity to get to see them play. In the case of pitchers, more often than not all that will happen is a call will be made to the HC to get an idea when that pitcher will be throwing again. Until the player is seen, there’s no way many decisions can be made, and there’s no reason to see them until there’s some reason.

What I’m trying to get across is, I have no doubt scouts don’t have a lot of use for HS stats in general, but every scout I’ve ever talked to, and I talk to a lot of them every season, looks at them. Look at it this way. In our section alone(Ca-SJS), I believe there are 169 baseball schools. Within a 2 hour drive of Sacramento, there are prolly another 200 schools. That’s a lot of ground to cover in a 4 month HS season without having some way to identify the best players. There are at least 30 MLB scouts covering that area, plus prolly ten times that number of “birddogs”, so its important they do the best job of identification as possible, and even then there’s still a lot of good players falling through the cracks.

IOW, it’s a very complex process that takes a lot research, a lot of personal knowledge, and a heck of a lot of time. Anything that will help reduce the time while helping to identify the most players will be used.

When my son is playing i only care about the Swing, once that's over with i could not care less what the result is. I have seen some scorecards that are plain flat out lies when it comes to hits.

I  know what you mean.  But I'm rooting hard for the team too, so I'll take that weak chopper base hit over the hard line drive out any day.  Well, unless we're already way up.

well yeah i root for the team too but take last night for example, son hits a shot down right field line, OF dives for it and misses it ends up being a triple. point is the OF is not that great and if not for a bad jump should have had the fly ball without even diving. so in my mind a decent fielder would have made the play making the result null. I was very happy with the BS and swing though  (we were up 12-2 at the time)

Originally Posted by KauaiDad:

well yeah i root for the team too but take last night for example, son hits a shot down right field line, OF dives for it and misses it ends up being a triple. point is the OF is not that great and if not for a bad jump should have had the fly ball without even diving. so in my mind a decent fielder would have made the play making the result null. I was very happy with the BS and swing though  (we were up 12-2 at the time)

I know that’s how a lot of people feel, but when push comes to shove, it is what it is. Baseball is a game with all kinds of twists and turns that change literally on every pitch, every movement of every player, and every decision made. Over the years your kid is gonna play a lot of games, and every single one counts just as much as any other because its part of the process. If you really think a “decent fielder” would have caught the ball, how about all the times the great pitcher’s he’s faced have made mistake pitches, the great fielders he’s played against made fielding errors, the great base runners he’s played against got caught, and most importantly the great players he’s played against made some boneheaded mental mistake.

Maybe on that “shot” he hit, had it been a better pitcher he’d have swung through it or fouled it off, so even if Roberto Clemente was playing right field it wouldn’t have made any difference. Maybe if the pitcher threw it half a mph slower or faster, or had put half an RPM more or less rotation on it, or threw it higher, lower, or more in or out by a half inch the ball would have been caught. So what? It wasn’t caught, and that’s the way that play will stand forever.

If you expect nothing less than perfection in a game where perfection is non-existent, I’m afraid you’re missing the greatness of the game.

I never worry about any at bat. If a player has talent, over the course of the season he will be successful. Along the way he'll have shots hit right at fielders for outs. He'll have spinners off the end of the bat that flare just over the infielder's head. 

In my opinion the use of Maxpreps is a joke in general and more and more programs are not using it.  At the end of a season with potentially 100 abs and 100 fielding chances 3 or 4 inaccurate inputs during the season can move things 30 or 40 points. At my son's high school the book is kept by parents in the stands and I have witnessed inaccuracy and frankly dishonesty numerous times.  I've seen parents demand that an error be changed to a hit and vice-versa. I agree with the poster who said number of strikeouts and homeruns would be the only decent piece of data for a scout.  Here's a scenario to consider:  your team has an average shortstop who doesn't come close to getting a hard hit ball in the hole - ruled a base hit for the batter.  Another team has a stud shortstop that gets to that ball and turns and attempts a Derek Jeter throw over to first base.  Ball sails a foot over the first baseman's head - most times that is going to be scored an error and the hit taken away by scorekeepers who don't know what they are doing. Which shortstop is more of a prospect? I have asked numerous scouts and recruiters and they don't use it at all and will tell you that it is a joke.  The norm seems to be that they will see a prospect at a showcase and they may attend some high school games to get his full makeup, i.e., how he handles himself in the dugout, how he treats his teammates and coaches, etc. when they don't know they are being watched by a scout.  If the book is kept in the dugout and the data entered is by a coach there is more legitimacy.  Why the need, though, to post the stats online?  It pushes the concept of player before team too much.

I watched a catcher blow 2 games on pass balls and bad throws, and MaxPreps had him down as no errors.

Am sure many "books to Maxpreps" are accurate, in other cases.........

This spring, after a routine grounder to 3b, the 3b-man made a wide throw,

so instead of being out by 3 steps, the runner ended up on 2nd base.

My friend overheard the HS coach say, give him a double.

At another area HS, a player was listed as having hit .575 last year.

Everyone asked if his father was entering the scorebook.  

Probably because a passed ball isn't an error.

Originally Posted by Catcherdad:

Am sure many "books to Maxpreps" are accurate, in other cases.........

This spring, after a routine grounder to 3b, the 3b-man made a wide throw,

so instead of being out by 3 steps, the runner ended up on 2nd base.

My friend overheard the HS coach say, give him a double.

At another area HS, a player was listed as having hit .575 last year.

Everyone asked if his father was entering the scorebook.  

It doesn’t matter who scores the game or enters the stats either. The HC is the guy who is given the password to change MaxPreps data, so he’s the guy responsible. I think most book are at least close to accurate, but there will always be sometimes where a coach cheats on purpose or out of ignorance.

SacBaller,

I understand your opinion, but your thought that more and more programs are not using it is exactly the opposite of what’s happening. MaxPreps isn’t there for scouts to use stats to draft players. Its there for information. I use it every game to get rosters, and most scouts around here do the same. Its also used to identify “potential” players to take a look at. If a player is batting .575, no one with any baseball knowledge expects him to be able to do that in the environment of high level ball, but even if the numbers are 20& in error, he’s still a much better than average player.

In your scenario, its entirely possible that stud shortstop deserves an error. It depends on the play. If he had to rush the throw, that’s one thing. But if he had plenty of time and a good throw would have gotten the batter-runner, he’s gonna get an error by good scorekeepers.

I believe you’ve talked to scouts and recruiters who have said that. I’ve talked to many who’ve said the same thing, but many who look at it on a regular basis. I don’t think there’s a “norm” for finding potential player for the next level. I think the scouts are looking everywhere.

As for the book being kept in the dugout being more legitimate, I couldn’t disagree more! Almost every book I’ve seen kept in a HS dugout is kept by a player who very likely not only doesn’t know the scoring rules very well, but is even more prejudiced because of his bond with his teammates. And as far as the data being entered by the coch being more legitimate, as I said previously, the HC is the only person given the password to enter/edit MP data. He can give that password to someone else, but he’s always the guy responsible.

There is absolutely no need to post the stats on-line. That’s completely the choice of the HC. But why is it pushing the concept of player above team when it give team totals? We’ve had the discussion here many times about posting public stats, and it always comes out the same way. Some people like it and some don’t, but there’s no proof one way or the other that they’re harmful in any way.

So because pass balls are not errors his 4 bad throws get canceled out too? I didn't know that!

Originally Posted by The Doctor:

So because pass balls are not errors his 4 bad throws get canceled out too? I didn't know that!

How was anyone supposed to know how many throws were bad from your post? But other than that, a catcher can make a heap of bad throws and not be charged with an error.

OBR Errors 10.12 (d) The official scorer shall not charge an error against:

(1) the catcher when the catcher, after receiving the pitch, makes a wild throw attempting to prevent a stolen base, unless the wild throw permits the stealing runner to advance one or more extra bases or permits any other runner to advance one or more bases;

In a discussion like this one where I’m not about judge what happened for myself, I find it difficult to go against the SK just because someone THINKS he wasn’t marking the book correctly. I often hear comments like yours from coaches, players, and fans, but very seldom do they know the scoring rules. When I explain it to them with quotes from the rules, in most instances they acknowledge they were wrong.

That’s not to say you don’t know the scoring rules, but the truth is, I gotta go with the guy who’s job it is, the same way I’ll go with the umpires judgment or the coaches judgment. I wish I were there to see the game you’re talking about. Perhaps one of us could learn something. Is there any way you could send me the scoresheet for that game? I’d like to see if those PASSED BALLS were the cause of any runs scoring.