Anyone see a problem?

These are the 4 teams with them most SBs in 2012 in the MaxPreps database.

Alabama/5A – 1^st got 278 / 288 in 559 PAs and scored 151 runs. It gave up 24 SBs in 23 games.

Are they seriously suggesting they had 278 stolen bases in 23 games (12 per game), while simultaneously having 24.3 plate appearances per game or roughly .5 stolen bases per plate appearance? You have to make at least 12 outs in a HS game if you play them all at home and run rule everyone, which allows 12 base runners of which they had to average 1 stolen base per base runner?

Am I reading this right? 

OK, guys, you two, more than any on this site, know that if you are trying to make sense of or find consistency for entries into Maxpreps on a national level for HS's, you are really spinning your wheels.  For the time being, dead horse - well beaten (IMHO). 

Continued advancement in technology is great but humans with a very wide range of knowledge, time, intent and concern are still making the scoring and entry decisions, and don't forget the tremendous range in skill, talent and and competition levels. 

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!

Yeah, you’re reading it right.

Here’s the deal. Personally I love MaxPreps, but I know to take what I find there with a pound of salt. Its not that I think there are many folks posting stats there to purposely make their team or players look good, but it is a thought. I think its far more likely that scorers are simply not generally as good as people believe, and that there aren’t many who bother to validate the numbers.

The reason I say that is, there’s simply nothing of value in cheating to make anyone look better than they are. Sure, scouts do look at services like MaxPreps, and sure they’ll use them to pick players to check out, so there certainly is possible value. But scouts aren’t stupid! So while they’ll look at those stat services for “leads”, it doesn’t take more than 1 look to show a pig’s ear to be a pig’s ear rather than a silk purse.

I don't even look at MaxPreps myself. I know parents complain when stats aren't uploaded there because they actually believe somebody will recruit their kid based on viewing his stats. The primary consumers of MaxPreps are parents looking at their kids' numbers and opposing teams trying to get a free scouting report.

The examples above defy any logical explaination. I don't even know how you could make up those numbers.

In fairness I know of people who attempt to upload data to MaxPreps and run into difficulty resulting in some weird stuff being posted there. I just found the examples above to be bizzare.

Originally Posted by JMoff:

I don't even look at MaxPreps myself. I know parents complain when stats aren't uploaded there because they actually believe somebody will recruit their kid based on viewing his stats. The primary consumers of MaxPreps are parents looking at their kids' numbers and opposing teams trying to get a free scouting report.

I do look, but only out of curiosity. I know how much work I put into making sure my numbers are valid, and I look for examples of others that don’t, and its never difficult to find them.

You bet parents use services like MaxPreps, just like parents will likely open the sports page in the local paper to see their kid’s name and how the other locals did the day before. I don’t think a great percentage of people actually believe their kid is gonna get a ride to USC or get drafted in the 2^nd round because of the stats, but there definitely are those that do. I’ve come to know how ridiculous that is, but I’ve also come to learn that in most cases it’s a parent’s last opportunity to take part in their child’s growing up experience, so I give them lots of leeway.

The examples above defy any logical explaination. I don't even know how you could make up those numbers.

I don’t think you can either, that’s why I truly believe that if investigated its likely someone would find someone improperly using some slick new scoring App, or a really poor scorer.

In fairness I know of people who attempt to upload data to MaxPreps and run into difficulty resulting in some weird stuff being posted there. I just found the examples above to be bizzare.

Yeah, there are definitely problems that can and do happen with sticking in data. I’ve had them myself. But to be honest, unless someone is truly lazy, there’s no reason for the end product to be less than pretty darn good.

Here’s what I do when I “upload” the stats, and encourage everyone else too do as well. After the stats are uploaded, I go back and check the totals. There are 4 different stat groups in MaxPreps. The 1^st is the score and RHE. That one can be hinky because either team can change it. FI, if you post a score at 8PM, I can go in and change it any time I want. And what’s worse is, for the most part that’s where the national rankings come from. Knowing how bad some scorers/coaches are, I generally check the scores/RHE for all the games from time to time during the season.

Then there are hitting/ base running, defense, and pitching groups. Each group has totals for each game, and that’s what I check to make sure it matches what I have in my books. I do that every time I put in data because I know things change at MP and I may not notice. If everyone verified their data alike that, there wouldn’t be so many weird things getting posted.

If you want to see bizarre and haven’t seen the NFHS record book before, take a look.

http://www.nfhs.org/recordbook....aspx?CategoryId=175