HS Stats

our coach gives the stats to a parent to input. About 1/3 of the schools in our county post stats either on their own site or on maxpreps.

RI Teams routinely update MaxPreps, most of them. And home team routinely sends box score and comments to state newspaper.

My sons varsity coach will post the stats after the season ends.

quote:

Originally posted by nolan ryan:
Does your HS team post player stats? If so, is it just for the varsity or for all the teams – JV, Frosh, etc?

.. Promotes healthy competition. I assume they are being kept – would be pretty difficult to manage a team without them.

I suspect he (very mediocre long time coach) doesn’t want anyone to have easy access to his past record or to question his line-up decisions.

Our HS posts on Maxpreps as do most HS programs in our state (most post V only). Many do not and I understand many good reasons they may have. Yes, it can promote healthy competition but in a short HS season it is far more likely to promote false arguments among groups of parents and among groups of players. If your son is doing well, he'll know it, as will others in your baseball community. He won't need the stats to state his case.

It can be very counter-productive for the program to have parents complaining about things like whether stats are posted or not. The worst thing a parent can do is share with his son and/or other parents that he is dissappointed in the actions of the coach, except when they are truly detrimental to the well-being of the players. Don't know if this applies, but hope it helps if it does.
It sounds like you've got a great player. It will help him immensely if you sit back, relax and be patient - allow him to shine on his own merits. Do your best to support the school, the program, the coach, the team and the other players.

Your boy will have many obstacles to overcome in the years ahead, including coaching decisions that he may or may not agree with. He should focus on doing the best he can in whatever situation he is in instead of the surrounding situation.

BTW, I will be the first to admit to not having learned this lesson completely on the first go-around with my first child.

quote:

Originally posted by nolan ryan:
Does your HS team post player stats? If so, is it just for the varsity or for all the teams – JV, Frosh, etc?

This is our first year of HS ball and I was surprised to find out that our teams don’t share any stats with players at any level. They don’t even post the W-L record or scores for any games. Kind of disappointing since baseball is a game of numbers and it’s fun to know how players are doing. Of course there are intangibles, but you know that a .500 batter is a better hitter than a .150 batter and a pitcher with a WHIP of .9 is better than one with a 2.3. Even our 12-14 yo tournament teams shared stats with the players. Promotes healthy competition. I assume they are being kept – would be pretty difficult to manage a team without them.

I suspect he (very mediocre long time coach) doesn’t want anyone to have easy access to his past record or to question his line-up decisions.

As a HS stat wonk of ridiculous proportions, I can tell you that you’ve run into something that varies from program to program, based mostly on the how the head of the program, normally the VHC in HS, feels about the issue.

Early on in my relationship with baseball, I was like you, and just took it for granted that everyone in baseball understood that baseball stats were an indispensable part of the game, at any level. Unfortunately, like you, I became aware that not everyone shared my feelings.

Even though there are varying degrees of feelings on the matter, I think there are some larger “general” categories” you can fit most programs into. Likely the largest of them is the group that has people in it like you and I who don’t see evil in the numbers at all, and have no problem posting them on-line or off-line, and from just the most basic of stats to wild and crazy metrics that only a real wonk could even understand.

Then there’s a group who believes they cause more trouble than they’re worth. That’s the group who feels the stats parents a reason to question the head of the program about why their little boy isn’t playing, even though he’s batting .302 while the kid starting in his position is only hitting .301. They see the stats as a disruptive force because they can’t or won’t take the time to explain how they’re used to make decisions. This group also includes those who simply don’t have or won’t make the time to post the numbers, and often has program heads who just don’t have a lot of experience analyzing stats.

Then you’ve got a group that feels the stats are worthless because they’re so invalid, they have little meaning, and they’re the only one’s capable of interpreting what’s really important. They feel the players are driven to distraction worrying about their stats rather than team work, and even though they feel the numbers are invalid, they often believe opponents use them to find weaknesses and cause them to lose games they shouldn’t.

Remember, those are only very broad categories, but I think they’re pretty valid. I’m gonna guess your program is in the 2nd group, but it may be in the 3rd. If its in the last group, I ‘m tellin’ ya, if you want to see numbers, start scoring the games yourself and do your own numbers. Personally, I wouldn’t worry about the coach and would post them myself, but that could get you or your kid into some deep doo-doo. I’d say go ahead and do it, but make sure you don’t put anything about the program or its name in association with them, and definitely don’t hand them out at games

But chances are, your program in in the 2nd category, and if it is, there’s a pretty good chance you can change things, at least to a small degree. Most people don’t realize how much time it takes to get good stats. Of course it starts with keeping score, but if there are multiple scorers, like on a team where bench players keep score, the scoring is gonna end up being so inconsistent, its gonna be very difficult to get numbers that are of much use at all.

So the best way to go, is to have 1 scorer who goes to all the games. That way, good, bad, or in between, you always know what you’re gonna get. When that person agrees to keep score for a “normal HS team, s/he’s given up at least 2.5 hours every game, just to begin. In my case its always about 30 games a season, and that works out to about 75 total hours a season, just to keep score.

Once the game is over, the stats part of the job kicks off. If you’re old school with a pencil and scorebook, and want to post numbers on say MaxPreps, the real work begins. They track a grand total of 54 different baseball categories. 17 hitting categories, 3 base running categories, 8 fielding categories, and 26 pitching categories. You only have to put the roster in once a season, which takes about 20 minutes, and you only need to put in the schedule once a season which usually takes a half hour or so. But, if you want to do all the stats possible, after each game, every one of the categories has to be put in for each player in the game.

Now that might mean for Billy who was only a pinch runner, an entry of an LOB, but believe me, its not something that only takes a couple of minutes. If you’re like me and want to track every category, you can count on taking anywhere from a half hour to an hour for every game to manually put the stats into MaxPreps. What I’d do was put them into another program, then let it do the totals I could just stick into MaxPreps. Some folks sit there with the scorebook and go player by player counting everything. So, you can count on it taking at least another hour or so per game to put in the numbers, so you can count on a total of 100 hours minimum per season.

But what makes it tolerable for a lot of programs, is that not all of the stat categories have to have entries. IOW, If a coach doesn’t want to track # of pitches, or stolen bases, or anything else, they don’t have to, and it makes the input time a LOT less. Trouble is, its not required to put in anything! FI, I’ve come across examples of coaches only putting in the games the team won, or only putting in “GOOD” stat days for players, like when you see “Top Hitters” in the sports page.

Of course there’s always the choice to score games using software like IScore or GameChanger, where all ya gotta do is press a button and the stats will import into MaxPreps. But my point is, if your program doesn’t do it because there’s just not enough time for the coach to get it done, check with the HC and see if he’d like you to be the team’s scorer/statistician.

If you decide to give it a try, and he does give you a go, my guess is after a couple weeks, you’ll be uploading pitchers, videos, and doing a player of the game, and printing out all kinds of stuff. Believe me, its easy to get involved in the many things MP can do! I keep my involvement to rosters, schedules, and stats.

At least talk to the guy and find out what group your program is in! And BTW, the FR or JV data can go in without the V, so they’re independent that way. It never hurts to just ask.

My 2013's HS has had a tale of two different Coaches. 1st coach didn't really keep the stats except a bench player with a scorebook and he sure didn't do anything with them. One of the parents the 1st year kept his own book and created a Max Preps account "for the school" and posted his version of the stats. The HC found out about it when one of the parents received the stats email and FWD to the HC. The HC lost his mind when the parent posted some "questionable" stats on his son and didn't get permission to do a Max Preps account with the school's name. 2nd season was easy, HC did everything and sent a private email to each family with stats for their player and will only use them to promote players to colleges.

quote:

Promotes healthy competition.

It absolutely does promote healthy competition. It promoyes healthy competition between the parents. Competition to run to the scorekeeper (me) every time a call might be questionable. It promoted healthy competition for phone calls and emails at home at all times of the evening regardless of the time to questions scoring calls after seeing the box score and stats on the website (done by me).

At one point I spray painted a line around with DO NOT ENTER while I was scoring. The varsity coach got so fed up with the parents he locked down the website for the season. No one was allowed to see stats except coaches and me. I never let my son look.

Then there was the parent doing the JV stats. His son was good enough to lead the team in hitting which was amusing considering he wasn't good enough to start. Then the mother would patrol the sideline ranting to anyone who would listen her son should never come off the field.

quote:

Originally posted by nolan ryan:
Does your HS team post player stats? If so, is it just for the varsity or for all the teams – JV, Frosh, etc?

Forget the stats. In high school they are mostly meaningless with the possible exception of strikeouts for a hitter. Everyone watching knows who are the best players, especially the coaches and the other players.

quote:

Originally posted by jemaz:
Forget the stats. In high school they are mostly meaningless with the possible exception of strikeouts for a hitter. Everyone watching knows who are the best players, especially the coaches and the other players.

That is exactly the kind of dark age thinking that keeps people from learning. You say “forget the stats”, implying they mean nothing, then suddenly have an exception you believe has meaning. But you aren’t the only person in the world with a brain. Others believe things like strikeouts for a pitcher related to walks are important as well, and all kinds of people believe all kinds of other things have meaning too. And that’s the important thing. Who are you to impose what you believe on the millions of people out there?

And FYI, “EVERYONE” watching doesn’t know who are the best players, even the coaches and other players. Many think they do, but no one can know everything about every player, so much of what they think isn’t based on fact, but rather perception, and is very often so far wrong its laughable.

As the scorer, I wouldn’t even take a guess at how many times someone has come up to me and asked who some player was, and what his BA, ERA, how many Ks he’d gotten, or some other stat they were interested in. If they all knew so much and stats were so meaningless, I’d never get a question like that.

No, the issue isn’t that HS stats are meaningless, the issue is that most people don’t agree on what exactly is meaningful.

Have fun in the black hole Jemaz. Without stats Stats wouldn't have a reason for living.

quote:

Originally posted by RJM:
Have fun in the black hole Jemaz. Without stats Stats wouldn't have a reason for living.

And I notice that about every 4th post I make on 1 of 4 different bulletin boards I use, you have to make some kind of snide comment, so what does it say for you? The guy over on BBF nailed it when he called you an arrogant blowhard, and labeled you as:

"The unbearable know it all who's kid is better than the rest. Who knows more than the rest of us. Who has the best contacts and name drops tirelessly. Who is smarter than every coach out there except the guru he's paying to pimp his kid for him".

Stats:

I can tell you never played -- or never played at a high level. The players and coaches know exactly who are the best players.

High school stats are kept inconsistently and cannot take into account the differences in levels of competition. They might be fun for you, but in terms of building a real team and in terms of actually evaluating the players to determine which ones have what it takes to move to higher levels, they are indeed meaningless.

I love stats for pro players. As I kid, I would memorize the backs of baseball cards. When I got older, I started (very early on) to pay attention to high school stats (I have three sons who have played). Fortunately, Robin Yount (yes, that one), took me aside and told me exactly what I am telling you now. And he was right.

It has been so much more fun and productive ever since.

quote:

Originally posted by jemaz:
Stats:

I can tell you never played -- or never played at a high level. The players and coaches know exactly who are the best players.

High school stats are kept inconsistently and cannot take into account the differences in levels of competition. They might be fun for you, but in terms of building a real team and in terms of actually evaluating the players to determine which ones have what it takes to move to higher levels, they are indeed meaningless.

I love stats for pro players. As I kid, I would memorize the backs of baseball cards. When I got older, I started (very early on) to pay attention to high school stats (I have three sons who have played). Fortunately, Robin Yount (yes, that one), took me aside and told me exactly what I am telling you now. And he was right.

It has been so much more fun and productive ever since.

And I can tell you believe in the tooth fairy. But all kidding aside, you’re correct that in general the players and the coaches do know who the best players are. But that hasn’t got jack-all to do with the price of eggs in China. I’ve never said to use stats to determine who the best players are, and I never would because its not about picking the best players at all, at least not for me.

HS stats are indeed kept consistently, but what difference does it make if you only look at your team? As long as the same person is keeping score, if s/he’s off one way or the other, it’ll be the same for all the players for the most part, and since they all play against the same competition, what difference would it make?

They may be meaningless to you because you’re stuck in the mode of baseball only being for one thing. To play at the next level. Well that may be what you believe is the most important thing in life, but about 90% of all HS players will never play beyond that, so what are they, chopped liver?

I’m sure Robin Yount was in the same mode you’re in when he said that, but its easy for him to say that. FYI, I’ve been told the same thing by people on the same level as he, and they said the same thing as well, until I convinced them that there were a lot of folks not looking at it from that perspective. Not everything about baseball is about getting a ‘ship or signing a contract.

And finally, you find me one HS head V coach, just one, who doesn’t use stats in any way shape or form to manage his team. You won’t find one as long and hard as you may look. And when you’re done looking for that mythical being, see if you can find even one scout or front office person in pro baseball who doesn’t use stats in any way shape or form to make judgments about HS players they want to consider offering a contract to. I warn you, that guy’s even more mythological than the other guy because there are so many less of them.

quote:

Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:

quote:

Originally posted by jemaz:
Stats:

I can tell you never played -- or never played at a high level. The players and coaches know exactly who are the best players.

High school stats are kept inconsistently and cannot take into account the differences in levels of competition. They might be fun for you, but in terms of building a real team and in terms of actually evaluating the players to determine which ones have what it takes to move to higher levels, they are indeed meaningless.

I love stats for pro players. As I kid, I would memorize the backs of baseball cards. When I got older, I started (very early on) to pay attention to high school stats (I have three sons who have played). Fortunately, Robin Yount (yes, that one), took me aside and told me exactly what I am telling you now. And he was right.

It has been so much more fun and productive ever since.

And I can tell you believe in the tooth fairy. But all kidding aside, you’re correct that in general the players and the coaches do know who the best players are. But that hasn’t got jack-all to do with the price of eggs in China. I’ve never said to use stats to determine who the best players are, and I never would because its not about picking the best players at all, at least not for me.

HS stats are indeed kept consistently, but what difference does it make if you only look at your team? As long as the same person is keeping score, if s/he’s off one way or the other, it’ll be the same for all the players for the most part, and since they all play against the same competition, what difference would it make?

They may be meaningless to you because you’re stuck in the mode of baseball only being for one thing. To play at the next level. Well that may be what you believe is the most important thing in life, but about 90% of all HS players will never play beyond that, so what are they, chopped liver?

I’m sure Robin Yount was in the same mode you’re in when he said that, but its easy for him to say that. FYI, I’ve been told the same thing by people on the same level as he, and they said the same thing as well, until I convinced them that there were a lot of folks not looking at it from that perspective. Not everything about baseball is about getting a ‘ship or signing a contract.

And finally, you find me one HS head V coach, just one, who doesn’t use stats in any way shape or form to manage his team. You won’t find one as long and hard as you may look. And when you’re done looking for that mythical being, see if you can find even one scout or front office person in pro baseball who doesn’t use stats in any way shape or form to make judgments about HS players they want to consider offering a contract to. I warn you, that guy’s even more mythological than the other guy because there are so many less of them.

Stats:

Well-written post. And, I agree with much of it. Just not at the high school level. Stats in the context of one team mean nothing. Stats that are not accurate (even if they are inaccurate in a consistent way) are meaningless.

I know lots of coaches who keep the stats that are important to them. Hardly any of them make those stats public. And many of them are not the stats people think of when they look at baseball stats anyway.

Mostly, in addition to the inaccuracies, stats at the high school level cause trouble and breed discontent (particularly among parents). I coach (and at a pretty high level) and to a certain degree, I use stats, but, again, not for public disclosure.

I understand your point; I just strongly disagree when it is applied to high school.

quote:

Originally posted by jemaz:
Stats:

Well-written post. And, I agree with much of it. Just not at the high school level. Stats in the context of one team mean nothing. Stats that are not accurate (even if they are inaccurate in a consistent way) are meaningless.

That’s you’re opinion and you’re certainly welcome to it. If you truly believe that someone looking at the numbers for one team without consideration for other teams and players have absolutely no value, so be it.

quote:

I know lots of coaches who keep the stats that are important to them. Hardly any of them make those stats public. And many of them are not the stats people think of when they look at baseball stats anyway.

And I know lots of coaches who do make them public. What does that prove, other than there are all kinds of people who believe differently? It doesn’t matter what “people” think” are important stats compared to what the coaches think! The coaches don’t own the game, and what they think more often than not is what most observers of the game care about.

quote:

Mostly, in addition to the inaccuracies, stats at the high school level cause trouble and breed discontent (particularly among parents). I coach (and at a pretty high level) and to a certain degree, I use stats, but, again, not for public disclosure.

Yes, many people say that, but when those reports are check into in great detail, more often than not what’s found is there is one heck of a lot of hyperbole floatin’ around. And very often when a true “situation” is found where discontent has been caused by the numbers, the discontent is caused by the coach’s lack of ability or desire to communicate with those parents, so they will understand.

quote:

I understand your point; I just strongly disagree when it is applied to high school.

I know, and I get it. Over the last 2 decades I’ve been in this same discussion over and over again, but you should note that over the last 2 decades, more and more HS coaches are making the number available to the public, and very often when they do, they find out they’ve been afraid of nothing.

Ask the folks at MaxPreps if they agree with you or me. They have a goal in their business plan of a specific increase in teams that use their service, and have met that goal every year they’ve existed. There are more than 16,000 HS in this country that engage in sports, and they were making money hand over fist before they allowed Fr and JV teams to use their service. Each and every year more and more teams use it, to the point that the numbers are important to someone. Even if its only for entertainment value, people want to see the numbers.

Again, I’ll be the 1st one to admit that those numbers are pretty much a joke as far as I’m concerned, but all I care about is looking at our team and the teams we play. If some jerk wants to rank teams and players, and people want to use that as their little blue pill, it doesn’t bother me one bit. But who am I or you to say they aren’t entitled to see them?

Our coach keeps them and will show them if asked. For Fresh. teams the goal should be "Be better at end of season than at beginning". Stats mean very little. We have the kids who are not best pitchers pitching against teams that are not that great, and when they get a win it's nice but doesn't mean that pitcher is better than kid who plays against VERY good team who gets loss. If the first pitcher who throws batting practice were to pitch against VERY good team he would get crushed even more and would get the loss. Some kids get in the game against kid throwing pract. and maybe gets a hit. Doesn't mean they are better than player who is against pitcher throwing real heat. It's all relative. My advice. Just keep working to improve as individ player and don't worry about comparing stats with another player. Stats can be skewed.

quote:

Originally posted by playball2011:
Our coach keeps them and will show them if asked. For Fresh. teams the goal should be "Be better at end of season than at beginning". Stats mean very little. We have the kids who are not best pitchers pitching against teams that are not that great, and when they get a win it's nice but doesn't mean that pitcher is better than kid who plays against VERY good team who gets loss. If the first pitcher who throws batting practice were to pitch against VERY good team he would get crushed even more and would get the loss. Some kids get in the game against kid throwing pract. and maybe gets a hit. Doesn't mean they are better than player who is against pitcher throwing real heat. It's all relative. My advice. Just keep working to improve as individ player and don't worry about comparing stats with another player. Stats can be skewed.

I haven’t got a lot of trouble with anything you said, other than, how do you quantify whether a player is any better at the end of the season or not, without tracking something? I know there are those who truly believe coaches have this gift, where they can accurately remember and perceive everything that took place over the course of a 20 or game season for 15-20 players without the help of any kind of those worthless HS stats, but those people are wrong!

There’s an old business adage that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and it applies to baseball too. Yes, there are people who claim they can, but even assuming that’s true, how much better could they do if they measured what the players and team was doing?

You’re correct that its difficult to compare pitchers, or for that matter any players. But difficult isn’t impossible. It just means you have to take more time in analyzing what you’re looking at. But there are a lot of people who while they think they know how to analyze stats, really suck at it. Its not as simple as saying Billy has a higher OBP than Joey, so he’s a better hitter.

Yup, its always best to just keep working to improve. But how do you know if you’ve improved or not without measuring something?

I'm of the opinion that in HS, stats are meaningless and often misleading.

• Do stats factor in where in the batting order a player batted? I know you understand that the #9 hitter doesn't see the same pitches that the 3-hitter does.
  
• Do stats factor in that not all divisions have the same strength of teams?
  
• Do stats factor in the specific pitchers hitters faced?
  
• What value do stats have over a short 18-game season?
  
• Do stats account for all the hard-hit outs right at fielders? Cuz they sure do reward all the weak, bloop popups and seeing-eye grounders that drop in.
  
• And on and on and on...
  

I'm sure we all know someone whose stats weren't stellar in HS, yet college coaches saw something beyond the numbers; heck, many only even ask about them for conversation's sake, but then rely much more on what they SEE with their own eyes.

There is a good thread on stats in the recruiting section on this site. My son is always wigged out about his stats and how inaccurate they are. Someone posted a good comment that said something to the effect of the only high school stats that matter to college recruiters are your GPA and your ACT score...that comment stuck with me...

Wow, I guess getting back to the original question of this thread, our school doesnt post their stats, and not many high schools here in the St Louis area do, but the St Louis Post Dispatch web site has a pretty slick part of their site that post the scores and stats.

http://stats.stlhighschoolspor...ll/stats/default.php

The cool part of this is that now that my son is a junior, I can find the stats of a lot of the boys either that I coached or that played against our team. Its neat to see how some of them are succeeding, or notice how some have quit.

But sometimes these stats are not accurate. Either the coach or somebody within the ball team calls in the stats and they get posted. And lots of times you will see some strange things. For example, we lost a game 2-1 but the other team had 3 total RBI's. We lost a game 8-3. The box score shows that the opponent had zero errors, but 2 of the 3 runs were unearned. Coincidentally, that pitchers ERA is under 1.00 for the year. Another game that team played, they lost 6-2. But their pitcher only gave up 4 runs, TOTAL. But even if they are inaccurate, you can still use them as a guide. As a pitcher, you cant blame a ton of walks, hit batters and wild pitches on bad stat keeping. If you are a hitter, you cant blame strikeouts and a .220 average on a bad stat keeper

As far as the secondary topic on this thread, do the college coaches look at these? I dont coach college baseball, so I have no idea. But I do know three college coaches have commented to my son about his stats that are shown on the link above. Now what do they do with that information? I have no clue.

quote:

Originally posted by Sandman:
I'm of the opinion that in HS, stats are meaningless and often misleading.

• Do stats factor in where in the batting order a player batted? I know you understand that the #9 hitter doesn't see the same pitches that the 3-hitter does.

Well, several of the regular stats I do, do show the metric by batting position. But tell me, do college or ML stats factor in BPos? If they don’t, they must be meaningless as well. Try to sell that to anyone following ML baseball.

quote:

Do stats factor in that not all divisions have the same strength of teams?

Do stats factor in the specific pitchers hitters faced?

It doesn’t matter when “averages” are taken, but even so, what difference does it make? When’s the last time you looked in the sports page and saw the leading hitters broken down by who they got hits against, and have you ever know a 2nd place ML team who did better against the top teams than the 1st place team, be given the pennant?

quote:

What value do stats have over a short 18-game season?

I don’t know. It could be very little, or it could be a tremendous amount.

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Do stats account for all the hard-hit outs right at fielders? Cuz they sure do reward all the weak, bloop popups and seeing-eye grounders that drop in.

You’ve seemed to have locked in on base hits as the only meaningful metric there is, and that’s a bad thing to do from many perspectives. But even at that, what difference does it make? Does the ML throw out all the bloops and duck farts, but give credit for all the right at ’em smashes? Not in this lifetime or any other.

quote:

And on and on and on...

Your list needs to go on and on because so far there’s nothing in it that proves stats are meaningless in the least.

quote:

I'm sure we all know someone whose stats weren't stellar in HS, yet college coaches saw something beyond the numbers; heck, many only even ask about them for conversation's sake, but then rely much more on what they SEE with their own eyes.

Like so many others, you look at the numbers in only one way, i.e. how they predict a player will do in the future. You don’t see them as possibly having pure entertainment value, the same way someone with a PHD in literature might view a comic book. You don’t see them as being a source of pride for a parent who’s going to soon be losing his child to the world.

But most of all, what you’re doing is assuming all HS coaches are so good and have such photographic memories that they never misinterpret their perceptions from the past, and therefore have absolutely no need for any kind of measuring device to assist them in managing their teams. Sorry, but you’re living in Never-Never Land.

But let’s assume for a minute that you’re correct that HS stats have absolutely no value. Then what do you care if other choose to look at them? Its their time to waste, not yours.

quote:

do college or ML stats factor in BPos? If they don’t, they must be meaningless as well. ... When’s the last time you looked in the sports page and saw the leading hitters broken down by who they got hits against... Does the ML throw out all the bloops and duck farts, but give credit for all the right at ’em smashes?

Do colleges and MLB play 18-game seasons?

Look, you obviously get a rise out of stats and adamantly defend them. I may be way off here, but I'm gonna guess that you never played competitive sports (or at least baseball) at the HS level or beyond?

You can have your "entertainment value". But I'm not alone in the camp that they cause more harm than good when the sampling size isn't large enough to draw the conclusions that entertain you.

With our head coaches permission I have kept stats and put them on Maxpreps. Last year I did it on paper scorebook and I did have some parents question my scoring. This year I used GameChanger and when pitchers Dad's question ERA I can truthfully tell them it's the program not me determining that. Also I found it best to list all errors as team errors and that seems to elicit the most negative reaction if you give a specific player an error.

quote:

Originally posted by Mizzoubaseball:
Wow, I guess getting back to the original question of this thread, our school doesnt post their stats, and not many high schools here in the St Louis area do, but the St Louis Post Dispatch web site has a pretty slick part of their site that post the scores and stats.

Well, I just called the fellow who’s in charge over at stlhighschoolsports.com, and he tells me a very different story than you, and when I say different, I mean 180 degrees different. Close to 100% participation from local prep teams, and 100,000 page hits a day isn’t something to pooh pooh. Somebody’s looking, and somebody’s making a boatload of $$$$$$.

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The cool part of this is that now that my son is a junior, I can find the stats of a lot of the boys either that I coached or that played against our team. Its neat to see how some of them are succeeding, or notice how some have quit.

That’s the pure entertainment value in it.

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But sometimes these stats are not accurate. Either the coach or somebody within the ball team calls in the stats and they get posted. And lots of times you will see some strange things. For example, we lost a game 2-1 but the other team had 3 total RBI's. We lost a game 8-3. The box score shows that the opponent had zero errors, but 2 of the 3 runs were unearned. Coincidentally, that pitchers ERA is under 1.00 for the year. Another game that team played, they lost 6-2. But their pitcher only gave up 4 runs, TOTAL. But even if they are inaccurate, you can still use them as a guide. As a pitcher, you cant blame a ton of walks, hit batters and wild pitches on bad stat keeping. If you are a hitter, you cant blame strikeouts and a .220 average on a bad stat keeper

You might want to check into how the stats get posted. From what I was told, they’re the same as most other such organizations, where you go to a web site, put in a password, and enter the numbers yourself.

Now what you’re seeing about screwy numbers can and does happen all the time, but the reason it does is because of poor validating software for what gets put in. In my software, scoring 2 runs but showing 3 RBIs would show up as an error, as would a total of 6 runs in the score, but only showing the pitchers giving up 4 runs. But those are minimal problems.

I’ve also seen instances where 1 player got 11 hits in a game, another threw 66 innings in 1 game, and other such screwy things. Most of the time what happened was, the person putting in entered a 1 for hits and was trying to enter another 1 for runs, but forgot to hit the tab or arrow key to move the cursor, then typed the 2nd 1, but never looked up at the screen. And sometimes its putting in a 4 when a 1 was meant to go in, but using the number pad without looking, and the 4 being right above the 1, gets a different number. That’s why even if I import the numbers, I check the totals with what actually happened, in order to “QC” myself, because I know everyone makes keystroke errors. So sometimes its possible to get bad numbers for any stat where it was possible to type in one number but mistakenly hit another.

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As far as the secondary topic on this thread, do the college coaches look at these? I dont coach college baseball, so I have no idea. But I do know three college coaches have commented to my son about his stats that are shown on the link above. Now what do they do with that information? I have no clue.

Oh they look, but not to choose player “A” over player “B”, but rather to get an idea of whether to even look at either player. IOW, its just another way to get a player on the radar. Now one day maybe GPA will be listed in player information on the roster, along with size and grade, then you’ll see a lot more interest, because that’s a stat every college coach gives a lot of weight to.

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Originally posted by Sandman:
Do colleges and MLB play 18-game seasons?

Yes they do, in fact they often play more than that. But not all HSs play 18 game seasons. We’re gonna play at least 28, and possible up to 33. What's your point?

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Look, you obviously get a rise out of stats and adamantly defend them. I may be way off here, but I'm gonna guess that you never played competitive sports (or at least baseball) at the HS level or beyond?

While its none of your business and not germane to the subject, unless you actually signed a pro contract, you didn’t even play at the same competitive level than I did. I played professionally in 2 different sports, and turned down a contract in another. So now what do you have to say?

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You can have your "entertainment value". But I'm not alone in the camp that they cause more harm than good when the sampling size isn't large enough to draw the conclusions that entertain you.

And who’s ever said you weren’t entitled to your opinion, the way you want to deny that same courtesy to others? While you **** around claiming stats are meaningless, there are lots of folks taking home part of the billions being made on them! And I’m sorry if you’ve never been around anyone who scores correctly and generates more metrics than the sad BA, OBP, and ERA you evidently only have access to.

Why so hostile Stats? Fix your skirt man!

Were any of your two sports BASEBALL? (didn't think so)

Who said I "denied anyone else's opinion"? I offered mine. Your panties got bunched because it didn't agree with your obsession. You apparently can't handle anyone else's opinion because maybe you feel threatened that it could invalidate the enormous amount of time you spend on stats? I dunno. But geez man, chill a bit.

And lastly, what makes you think I haven't been around anyone who scores correctly or that I'm not that person even?

You might want to calm down and not be so defensive whenever someone doesn't agree that HS stats aren't so meaningful in many cases. Take that advice or leave it; I could care less.

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Originally posted by #32 DAD:
With our head coaches permission I have kept stats and put them on Maxpreps. Last year I did it on paper scorebook and I did have some parents question my scoring. This year I used GameChanger and when pitchers Dad's question ERA I can truthfully tell them it's the program not me determining that. Also I found it best to list all errors as team errors and that seems to elicit the most negative reaction if you give a specific player an error.

Having parents question a scorer is the same thing as parents questioning coaching and umpiring decisions. It means absolutely nothing. I have been doing this for a long time now, and get questioned all the time about how I scored something. I entertain any and every question, but what happens most times is, I quote the rule book, and it shuts them right up.

But sometimes the question is about my judgment, and its simple. I’m never wrong, any more than the umpire’s or coach’s judgment is wrong. There’s a final authority, and that’s just the way it is. If some parent who’s seen maybe 3 dozen HSV games wants to believe his judgment is better than mine, who’s seen thousands of games at that level, so be it. Then all he has to do is tell the coach he wants my job, and if the coach gives it to him, I’m good with it.

But most people don’t have the luxury of my perspective or my experience, and are like you, what sounds like a parent just trying to help, but who will be gone a couple years down the road. I have no child playing the game, and haven’t for about 6 years now. I have no ties to the school, other than it gives me the opportunity to score HS baseball games.

As for GameChanger, I happen to like it a lot, and have convinced a lot of folks to use it, but wouldn’t use it myself, even on a bet because it isn’t flexible enough for me, and doesn’t do many of the metrics I’ve found to be useful over the years. But for 99% of the baseball world, its really a great product. Unfortunately, there’s something it shares something with a paper scoresheet, and it will never change. No matter how many bells and whistles a piece of scoring software has, the person using it still has to understand the scoring rules and have reasonably good judgment.

FI, if a BIP should be an error and you score it a hit, it doesn’t matter what the formula is that calculates ERA, the result will still be invalid. Or if you charge a PB when it should have been a WP because it hit the dirt before getting to the catcher, then that run scores because of it, ERA will calculate incorrectly.

When you say you list all errors as team errors, I think you’re just trying to avoid confrontation, and I don’t think that’s a benefit to anyone. Players making errors are a fact of life. It never stops, even if they get good enough to make it into the HOF. Its just like batters striking out or pitchers walking batters. Those things happen because its part of the game. If Joey’s dad can’t face the fact that he heaved a ball over the 1st baseman’s head and it eventually allowed 3 runs to score, that’s Joey’s dad’s fault, not mine.

All I do is what the rule book tells me to do as best I can, track what it tells me to track, plus a few other items, then apply math to those items to generate relationships to other items that hopefully tell someone something about the player. In 14 seasons scoring HS ball, I’ve never once scored a team error only. Its either someone’s error, or it isn’t, but I truly do understand why someone would want to stay as far away from any controversy as possible. Its no fun to get into confrontations with friends, and it takes away from the experience.

All this over high school stats?

Really?

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Originally posted by ctandc:
All this over high school stats?

Really?

Exactly

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Originally posted by Sandman:
Why so hostile Stats? Fix your skirt man!

Were any of your two sports BASEBALL? (didn't think so)

Who said I "denied anyone else's opinion"? I offered mine. Your panties got bunched because it didn't agree with your obsession. You apparently can't handle anyone else's opinion because maybe you feel threatened that it could invalidate the enormous amount of time you spend on stats? I dunno. But geez man, chill a bit.

And lastly, what makes you think I haven't been around anyone who scores correctly or that I'm not that person even?

You might want to calm down and not be so defensive whenever someone doesn't agree that HS stats aren't so meaningful in many cases. Take that advice or leave it; I could care less.

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Originially posted by ctandc:
All this over high school stats?

Really?

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Originally posted by Sandman:
Why so hostile Stats? Fix your skirt man!

Not hostile at all. In fact, if anything I feel sorry for folks like yourself who are so sure you’re right, you can’t conceive of being wrong.

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Were any of your two sports BASEBALL? (didn't think so)

No, one wasn’t baseball, but I was offered a contract in it. So what sports have you played professionally that you believe I’m so unqualified to speak on this topic?

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Who said I "denied anyone else's opinion"? I offered mine. Your panties got bunched because it didn't agree with your obsession. You apparently can't handle anyone else's opinion because maybe you feel threatened that it could invalidate the enormous amount of time you spend on stats? I dunno. But geez man, chill a bit.

What you try to do is marginalize people who don’t agree with you. I’ve said over and over that I understand the thinking that doesn’t agree with mine, but I don’t marginalize those who don’t think the way I do.

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And lastly, what makes you think I haven't been around anyone who scores correctly or that I'm not that person even?

The way you talk about it.

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You might want to calm down and not be so defensive whenever someone doesn't agree that HS stats aren't so meaningful in many cases. Take that advice or leave it; I could care less.

What you don’t get is, I don’t claim HS stats are useful in the way you think of useful, and you won’t even entertain there might be another way to be of use. Your “advice” is patronizing and insulting, so I’m glad you couldn’t care less about whether or not I take it.

I stated an opinion. You didn't like it because stats mean the world to you (for whatever reason).

You're a TOOL pal! I'm done with this.

stats dont mean a thing..the line up is what matters..dont concern yourself with stats if the coach doesnt seem to care.making sure you are in the line up is what matters.

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Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:
And I notice that about every 4th post I make on 1 of 4 different bulletin boards I use...

There are other Boards out there?

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Originally posted by wogdoggy:
stats dont mean a thing..the line up is what matters..dont concern yourself with stats if the coach doesnt seem to care.making sure you are in the line up is what matters.

Show me a HS coach who uses no stats to generate his lineup, and I’ll show you a liar. Try as you might, baseball is a stat driven game, not the other way around.

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Originally posted by 2013 Dad:
There are other Boards out there?

Well, in all honesty, out of probably a few thousand baseball boards, there are probably only 10 or so better ones than this. Everything is in the perspective.

Stats: I'm with you. Those that poo poo stats, don't understand stats. I would wager that most would not even be able to define and/or calculate what an acceptable sample size is.

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Originally posted by Clemson896:
Stats: I'm with you. Those that poo poo stats, don't understand stats. I would wager that most would not even be able to define and/or calculate what an acceptable sample size is.

Actually, I disagree with this. I always found that the people that say stats dont mean much are the ones with bad stats.

Then please enlighten all us ignorami?