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Reply to "Good WHIP for HS?"

quote:
Originally posted by J H:
I probably shouldn't have used the word impossible. But I was implying that because of the imperfections with the majority of HS scorekeepers, tracking opponent's OPS throughout an entire season would be very difficult to do because of those inaccuracies. I didn't mean it in any sort of negative connotation, just speaking from experience.


Ok, now I understand, and I agree with you 110%!

Hopefully this won’t hijack the thread, but I want to postulate why it is that the scorekeeping is so bad. I don’t want this to come out as attacking coaches, but the truth is, every head coach or manager at every level, is the person who controls that score book.

We’re talking about something most first graders could do. Its just not that complicated, so why is it that from t-ball to the pros, scorers are generally so poor? Like every other managerial position, the boss has only so many resources, and thus has to prioritize how they’re used. If the boss doesn’t think having valid numbers is something useful, chances are the person scoring isn’t going to do a very good job.

Please don’t get me wrong though. There are one heck of a lot of pretty good scorers at every level, just like there are a heck of a lot of good coaches at every level. The trouble is, there’s a lot more teams than either good coaches or good scorers, to there’s gonna be a lot of book kept poorly. But again, who has control of that?

Imagine how much the quality of scorers would improve, if the coach spent as much time training an SK as he does finding a team mom, someone to man the snack bar, order the team equipment, or join the booster club! Those things are all important because the team needs them, but unless a coach has had a truly good SK/statistician, he doesn’t realize that its really an assistant coach he doesn’t have, because there’s so many questions s/he could help with.

quote:
I completely agree with you about the predictability aspect. I am a college pitcher and therefore see things in a different light than high school players do, at least from a statistical standpoint. This probably isn't the most ideal forum for the question, but my focus would be more towards college or the pros, where the specific numbers involved are much more quantifiable for comparison.


Its not that they more quantifiable. Its that they’re simply more available in a standardized format and in a centralized place. HS is getting a lot better because of the new scoring and stat programs, but they’re still woefully hard to find. I was talking to a fellow over at MaxPreps last year and he told me they’re the largest HS sports center for statistics in the county, and they’re only at about 5% of the total. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but you’d be amazed at the hardware and software they need to do that.

I can only guess that one reason the college numbers are so much better, is because there’s a lot fewer colleges than HSs. I assume another reason is, many college conferences or leagues require the calling in of stats to some central location. Some HS conferences and leagues require it too, but again, the numbers are much more significant.

I understand your focus, and that’s exactly where it should be. I hope you can understand that my focus isn’t on just getting to the next level, but rather simply showing what’s happening for every player, not just the studs. At the HS level, most players and parents will never see a college baseball field, let alone a pro field, but shouldn’t those players and their parents get see how they perform too? One reason I do a play-by-play newsletter after every game is so that every player will get to see his name in ink. I still get players and parents contacting me who come across the stats or a newsletter from back in the LL days. People can see that and remember the things that make baseball a lot of fun to play. Wink

quote:
Sorry for the confusion.


No problem at all. We have the capacity to communicate, and it only makes sense to do that to learn things we don’t know. Would you mind saying what school you play for?
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