GameChanger-Viewing by Opponents

What did the support folks at GameChanger say when you asked this question?

I got three responses which were identical responses and which looked like a canned response and lastly got one that said there was not a feature to block it.  Said it was similar to viewing a live game scenario.  Except in my mind, you have to be at that live game and now you don't.  Because of responses, I thought I would post on here and see if someone had any other thoughts. If not, we will just discontinue using GameChanger.

I don't think you can.  It is how they make their money.   It would take a lot of work to create anything useful for "scouting" purposes. But, I think you can delete the game after it is played.

Don't get what the coach is worried about. So some may look at general stats like who the good pitchers or hitters  appear to be but doubt most opponents have time to scout every player.  What  r they going to see that Johnny hit a grounder, then walked? Will they pitch differently knowing how they hit?  It won't say what each pitch was they hit off of or how fast the pitcher was throwing when the got GB or SO.

If it's a district/regional opponent they can come to game and watch and get all the info they need. I would think coach has more important things to worry about. 

There is a way to set your team profile to only display stats to approved members only.  Once that is done someone will need to log in and request access to your teams stats.  Which you then need to approve.  There is a very small limited amount of info you can get without requesting access to a team but its nothing that could be used to gather any useable info against your team.  

If you don't set your team to allow stats viewing by approved members everyone can grab information for your team.  At that time there is some mildly useable information such as spray charts, batting stats (1b, 2b, HR, avg,, slug, etc) that can be found.  In particular I have found spray charts of our opponents.  If you can get the data after the other team has played a number of games you may find patterns such as a preference to take the ball to the left side or to hit more grounders then pop flys, etc.  Thing is while this data is helpful (especially with the younger kids) you do not know anything about the team playing them.  It maybe that they've only faced right handed pitching and your throwing a lefty that day, etc.  While the data can be of some help its missing the context to make it really useful.

Joes87:  I understand the choice in the settings  Public vs approved.  Stats are not the issue.  The only issue is someone being able to see the plays and then being able to manually chart the plays.  Coach doesn't like it and that is his prerogative.  I rec'd a much more detailed response from GC this morning and there is nothing you can do to keep an unapproved member who is a paid subscriber from seeing the plays, etc

If the coach is that worried about another team going through an charting everything from a submitted game, more than likely any team that puts that much effort into it as scouts at your games anyway.

As far a GameChanger goes, there is no way to turn that off.  Only thing I have done is not use the school name, zip code or player names. This way unless you know exactly what to look for, you will never find the team.  Our parents are sent a link. 

Are we talking about HS? How can you possibly have enough data to draw any conclusions? Maybe - possibly - toward the end of the season you may be able to draw a conclusion that when Johnny gets a hit - he mostly pulls the ball? In HS you at most play the same team twice - (our season is about 20 games). Sounds like a little paranoia to me.

Reminds me when I was coaching youth baseball - sometimes the oppsoing coach would yell out - hit it to RF last time - be ready! Used to make me chuckle - well ya - you pitched the ball outside and player took it to RF - pitch him inside this time and see where it goes.

I have pulled GC information to see if certain players have certain tendencies in spray charts but to be useful you'd need to do a lot more analysis than it's worth to make it usable, i.e. Tim Smith is a dead pull hitter so keep him outside...most coaches worth their salt know this just by looking at the kids swing anyway.

The only other thing that is helpful is seeing who's got SB's and just being aware when that kid gets on the bases.  Really only helps with teams you're not familiar with and then still not a huge advantage.

Not in our case. Teams are too many miles away.

As far as your second comment, I've already thought of that and I may get real imaginary in the new team's name, opponents, etc 

Shhhh! I've made a lot of good use out of the charts from teams that don't know how to block them. However, I don't think I'd go to the trouble if I had to chart every game myself from the play-by-play. It would be a lot of work and I would be relying on the accuracy of the scorekeeper. If that's what you want to keep off the record, you can just score things in a way that they won't effect stats. A flyball single to rf gets scored on GC as a linedrive to left, etc. Spray charts are the only useful tool.

Alas, now that you have let on to your strategy, savvy coaches, parents and fans now know that you know that they know and now they will be able to adjust accordingly.  You now need to introduce an additional layer of subterfuge to stay ahead.

"Face piles and piles of trials with smiles. It riles to believe that you perceive the web they weave"