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Reply to "Good WHIP for HS?"

Yes Hawk, a good WHIP is about the same at every level, but there’s something that needs to be kept in mind that most people don’t consider. A 1.0 WHIP in the ML has pretty much the same meaning or value no matter which team a pitcher is on or which league or division they play in, because the quality of the hitters they’re facing in general, is pretty much the same. Of course a pitcher in the NL does have the advantage of facing a fairly weak hitter at least twice a game though. Wink

That same thing could be said about all the players who play in a league or division where in general the players are all equally skillful. FI, a AAA WHIP has pretty much the same value across all of AAA, but a 1.0 in AAA doesn’t equate to a 1.0 in the ML. And that’s the way it goes down the ladder. A 1.0 on a DI team isn’t the same as a 1.0 on an NAIA team. It can be, but in general they aren’t because the competition is different.

When it gets to HS though, things go to Hell in a handbasket. Not only are there fewer games to make up the sample, but the competition can vary widely. FI, we’re a Ca school in the largest school division(DI). We played 31 games last season, 24 of which were played against teams in our same division. But those other 7 games were a mixture of good and bad. 5 were against DII schools, 1 against a DIII school and 1 against a DIV school.

Now don’t get me wrong, one of the great things about baseball is, on any given day any school can whup up on any other school, because pitching plays such a big part at that level. But in general, over the long haul smaller schools that have a more shallow talent pool to draw from, are at a disadvantage. The result is, a pitcher on a small school team with a WHIP of 1.0 probably wouldn’t have that same WHIP if he was playing on a big school team.

However, there is one thing that HS stats are very good at doing, and that’s comparing players on the same team or league, and that’s because the completion is generally the same for all the players. Then there are so many other factors involved, like coaching, pitch calling, defense, etc., its really hard to tell what one kid would do in another environment, and those are some of the things that make using HS stats to compare players is so very difficult.

The only way to really evaluate a player’s stats is to average together all the games in any venue. That way there would be a “true” average, rather than a bunch of different ones where each has to be considered differently.
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