Tagged With "Stats"

Have any of you heard of players who were recruited to play on college teams despite hitting below .200 his junior year in high school? My 2020 has solid measurables for a DIII MIF but couldn't buy a hit the second half of the HS season.

Coaches, I'm curious to know if anyone uses the wOBA stat throughout their season. I'm not a big advocate of using BA, SLG, or even OPS. I believe wOBA is the best way to measure offensive statistics. The only formula I've seen is on Fangraphs, but they formulate the formula around the MLB, and the problem with that is that they use pro baseball standards and ballpark variables. Does anyone know of a wOBA formula that can be used with high school baseball? Thanks!

Well, you could probably just use the original formula... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOBA ...but it's going to reflect basically the same thing as OPS. Over a short HS season, I don't see value in trying to differentiate the two and adding the complexity. What insight are you hoping to gain that you don't already know with OPS at this level, considering you see the kids practice and play every day for two or three hours?

Don't know if this helps: http://www.crashburnalley.com/woba.html seems user friendly.

For hs ball or even college ops is good enough. It is like ops correlates 90 percent with runs and woba almost 100 percent (don't know the exact numbers) so the difference is not huge.

I don't think that will matter too much, especially at the D3 level. From what I've learned, for the most part, college coaches make their decisions based upon what they see and high school stats are so incredibly variable and difficult to evaluate that they're rarely used in the equation. The only place this might impact is the conference/district/state- type awards that the players would typically put in their bio upon entering college after being recruited.

Despite what most say here (that HS stats mean zero), it can raise a flag. But most college recruiting is more connected to the travel side of things. If he was with a good travel org, showed well for himself and has someone reputable that can speak to his abilities, in most cases, it won't matter. Also, if he is targeting D3 specifically, there are other factors that play in his favor. They recruit later, so a good summer and subsequently a good senior year when any recruiting schools may...

I suspect if they make no difference from a positive perspective, then conversely they probably don't on the negative side. As Tequila said, the eye test matters. That said, there is an appreciable difference between typical HS pitching and most, if not all, D3 college pitching. I guess only you can answer why he's struggling with HS pitching but would be better able to successfully handle D3 college pitching.

It probably isn't a huge deal, but at the same time most guys batting .200 in HS aren't getting recruited. To cabbage's point- they don't mean absolutely nothing either. They usually don't matter because most guys are hitting well over .300 against mostly non college level pitching. The idea is that the colleges sift thru the players batting over .300 and determine which ones are actually college players and which are the product of weak pitching. 2019 received a call from his college coach...

It seems to me that the stats are like one more thing to be checked off. They won't get you recruited, but they are just confirming to the coach that recruited you that he made a good choice.

Yeah, he is with one of the better travel organizations in the Northeastern US, so that should help. The coach has an excellent reputation and gets lots of kids placed.

Yeah, he tended to hit better against the better pitchers, so I'm not too worried. He also had some bad luck -- they all do -- and led the team by a mile in ROE, so add it all up and he was still making things happen even with a low batting average.

Then no worries at all! As "confused" put it, may just come up as a check box - son will want to be prepared to explain away but not offer up unless asked... something like "went thru a period where I hit everything hard right at people. I'm back to shooting gaps regularly with (xx travel) and both coaches will gladly speak on my behalf."

That's excellent advice. Thanks cabbagedad!

My son had serious interest from 3 D1's before he signed. None saw him play in a HS game, and none ever mentioned his HS stats. They know what they saw the days they came to see him (travel, against top level teams). If I'm a college coach and I even looked at HS stats (which I don't think many do), the only thing I might notice is if the strikeout ratio was high. My son K'd 2 times in 100 plate appearances his senior year. The college guys are somewhere in the 1:5 range being acceptable. If...

Certainly not many .200 hitters are getting recruited but this is because there probably is a reason a guy is hitting .200. Most .200 hitters in HS simply suck, they have bad stats because they lack batspeed and hand eye coordination. The scout in the stands probably won't even look at his stats because he can see right away that the guy can't hit. It probably is hard to be a .200 hitter against high school defenses if you are a good hitter even over a sub 100 AB sample.

I agree with that. I notice on MaxPreps that some of these high schools have zero kids reaching on errors — everything is a hit. In my kids case that would have brought him up above .300 right there. Colleges can’t take those stats too seriously. (I hope.)

Agree 100%. I always do a book to keep stats for my son. Occasionally when the official score keeper is out of town the coaches ask me to fill in. During the HS season one boy always got lucky and had 6 doubles (for the season) all off errors. I know a double is a double but it sucks when he gets them due to the other teams throwing errors or FC.

So, this comment is not at all directed toward the OP, Six-four-three as I think his son is in good shape... I hinted toward this earlier. Son is a college coach at a smaller school, does a fair amount of recruiting and networks with other coaches who do the same. Certainly, it is the norm for big D1's and perennial powers of other levels to make sure they get their eyes on their recruits in person at least a couple times. But here is something that isn't talked about much here... Many of...

In today's era of Facechat and Snapface getting kids names and stats "out there" should be easy and for the most part it is. I have seen coaches that are like a PR firm for their kids, posting stats, vids, endorsements. And then there are coaches that don't do anything, either they don't know how or are lazy.

One other thing that may contribute besides stats. College coaches have a wide network of contacts besides the player's high school coach. In my son's case, HC spoke to a few opposing coaches in the same baseball league. He wanted to get info on son's work ethics, team support, attitude, etc, from the opposition viewpoint. Opposition coaches will usually tell it like it is. Thus this serves as a reminder you never know who is watching. Always try your hardest, be a gracious winner, a...

A friend's son (2015 graduate) played only 3 games of varsity High School baseball. Lot of politics, I told him not to worry son had skills. Note, received baseball scholarship from Akron (before it suspended program). Attended Florence Darlington (NJCAA-D1) , the Santa Barbara (cccaa) before doing last 2 years at Saint Leo's (ncaa-d2). He ran a 6.4 60, left handed batter, strong arm. High School stats are subjective at best as for the competition varies.

WOW! Thanks for sharing!

No problem. You can find a place. Remember the objective is to get out of college with the least amount of debt. Many call it the 4.40 . Meaning 4 years of baseball, 40 years of you career after baseball. I found these articles to be very informative. Also check out the podcast. Investigating College Baseball Programs https://keepplayingbaseball.or...e-programs-online-2/ https://keepplayingbaseball.or...-school-recruitment/ https://keepplayingbaseball.or...rents-answered-2018/...

My son had a D3 coach see him at the Arizona Fall Classic in October of 2018 and recruited him because he liked his energy between innings and how he led his team OFF the field in the dugout. He only watched him for TWO innings the whole long weekend and has not stopped calling even though my son signed in February of this year. That school is in the D3 World Series starting on Wednesday. The coaches their must be doing something right. Do high school stats matter? It depends. I have seen...