My buddy tracked his dropped on-target throws down in the 'tag zone' that beat the runner as 12 so far.
(weak 2nd basemen here, wide range of talent levels in HS ball)
Twelve dropped throws in 16 games? The team would be better if they went against "the book" and had the SS handle the throws.
One of the problems with steals in high school ball is that I see a lot of steals recorded that I (sitting there with my own scorebook in order to occupy myself and keep from coaching from the sideline) record as Defensive Indifference.
The definition of defensive indifference in the rules is surprisingly limited.
O.B.R. Rule 10.07(g): The official scorer shall not score a stolen base when a runner advances solely because of the defensive team's indifference to the runners advance. The official scorer shall score such a play as a fielder's choice.
I see too often in high school where the catcher doesn't even as much as get out of his stance on a stolen base. If it's a lopsided score, I'm calling it DI. With 1&3, I'm looking for something that tells me the defense allowed the steal without a throw due to some strategy - for example a throw back to the pitcher or a fake throw to try and draw R3. I'm giving a stolen base if I see some indication that the defense had something in mind. There is a 100.7(g) comment that calls for a totality of the circumstances, but that is left to the discretion of the scorer.
Fair enough, but here I rarely see catchers not at least attempt a throw. It's more the other parts of the scoring rules that make the stat so worthless. Runner gets picked off but the defense boots the rundown. That's a steal. Ugh.
Originally Posted by roothog66:
O.B.R. Rule 10.07(g): The official scorer shall not score a stolen base when a runner advances solely because of the defensive team's indifference to the runners advance. The official scorer shall score such a play as a fielder's choice.
I see too often in high school where the catcher doesn't even as much as get out of his stance on a stolen base. If it's a lopsided score, I'm calling it DI. With 1&3, I'm looking for something that tells me the defense allowed the steal without a throw due to some strategy - for example a throw back to the pitcher or a fake throw to try and draw R3. I'm giving a stolen base if I see some indication that the defense had something in mind. There is a 100.7(g) comment that calls for a totality of the circumstances, but that is left to the discretion of the scorer.
You forgot to quote the most important part of that rule.
Rule 10.07(g) Comment: The scorer shall consider, in judging whether the defensive team has been indifferent to a runner’s advance, the totality of the circumstances, including the inning and score of the game, whether the defensive team had held the runner on base, whether the pitcher had made any pickoff attempts on that runner before the runner’s advance, whether the fielder ordinarily expected to cover the base to which the runner advanced made a move to cover such base, whether the defensive team had a legitimate strategic motive to not contest the runner’s advance or whether the defensive team might be trying impermissibly to deny the runner credit for a stolen base. For example, with runners on first and third bases, the official scorer should ordinarily credit a stolen base when the runner on first advances to second, if, in the scorer’s judgment, the defensive team had a legitimate strategic motive—namely, preventing the runner on third base from scoring on the throw to second base—not to contest the runner’s advance to second base. The official scorer may conclude that the defensive team is impermissibly trying to deny a runner credit for a stolen base if, for example, the defensive team fails to defend the advance of a runner approaching a league or career record or a league statistical title.
It’s rare when looking at EVERYTHING and nothing can be found. A defender moves to cover the base being advanced to or a defender not playing in a “normal” position for when no runners are on negate the indifference. Also, if the runner moves prior to the pitch being delivered the DI is negated because the runner has no idea whether they’ll be making a play on him or not.
In short, total indifference is a very difficult standard to achieve, and it should be.
Originally Posted by roothog66:
O.B.R. Rule 10.07(g): The official scorer shall not score a stolen base when a runner advances solely because of the defensive team's indifference to the runners advance. The official scorer shall score such a play as a fielder's choice.
I see too often in high school where the catcher doesn't even as much as get out of his stance on a stolen base. If it's a lopsided score, I'm calling it DI. With 1&3, I'm looking for something that tells me the defense allowed the steal without a throw due to some strategy - for example a throw back to the pitcher or a fake throw to try and draw R3. I'm giving a stolen base if I see some indication that the defense had something in mind. There is a 100.7(g) comment that calls for a totality of the circumstances, but that is left to the discretion of the scorer.
You forgot to quote the most important part of that rule.
Rule 10.07(g) Comment: The scorer shall consider, in judging whether the defensive team has been indifferent to a runner’s advance, the totality of the circumstances, including the inning and score of the game, whether the defensive team had held the runner on base, whether the pitcher had made any pickoff attempts on that runner before the runner’s advance, whether the fielder ordinarily expected to cover the base to which the runner advanced made a move to cover such base, whether the defensive team had a legitimate strategic motive to not contest the runner’s advance or whether the defensive team might be trying impermissibly to deny the runner credit for a stolen base. For example, with runners on first and third bases, the official scorer should ordinarily credit a stolen base when the runner on first advances to second, if, in the scorer’s judgment, the defensive team had a legitimate strategic motive—namely, preventing the runner on third base from scoring on the throw to second base—not to contest the runner’s advance to second base. The official scorer may conclude that the defensive team is impermissibly trying to deny a runner credit for a stolen base if, for example, the defensive team fails to defend the advance of a runner approaching a league or career record or a league statistical title.
It’s rare when looking at EVERYTHING and nothing can be found. A defender moves to cover the base being advanced to or a defender not playing in a “normal” position for when no runners are on negate the indifference. Also, if the runner moves prior to the pitch being delivered the DI is negated because the runner has no idea whether they’ll be making a play on him or not.
In short, total indifference is a very difficult standard to achieve, and it should be.
That isn't part of the rule. It's a comment. And I didn't leave it out. I specifically mentioned the part you highlighted.
Originally Posted by JCG:
Fair enough, but here I rarely see catchers not at least attempt a throw. It's more the other parts of the scoring rules that make the stat so worthless. Runner gets picked off but the defense boots the rundown. That's a steal. Ugh.
Why is that so repulsive? If a runner takes off for 2nd, the catcher throws down but no one is covering 2nd and the ball goes into center it’s a steal, so what’s the difference?
The bottom line with scoring is, there’s no way every conceivable situation could have a rule written for it. There are accepted procedures, and that’s the way it is. Trouble is, those procedures are set at the ML level and very well should be applied differently at different levels. But then you get into having different applications for every level of the game, and that isn’t practical.
There are many times I have to hold my nose when I mark something, but that’s the way it goes. When something becomes important enough, the owners will change the rules, and hopefully that change will filter down. 
Originally Posted by roothog66:
That isn't part of the rule. It's a comment. And I didn't leave it out. I specifically mentioned the part you highlighted.
S’CUSE ME? Not part of the rule?
OBR page iv. IMPORTANT NOTE
The Playing Rules Committee, at its December 1977 meeting, voted to incorporate the Notes/Case Book/Comments section directly into the Official Baseball Rules at the appropriate places. Basically, the Case Book interprets or elaborates on the basic rules and in essence have the same effect as rules when applied to particular sections for which they are intended.
This arrangement is designed to give quicker access to any written language pertaining to an Official Rule and does not require a reader to refer to different sections of the Official Baseball Rules book in considering the application of a particular rule.
Case Book material is printed in smaller type than the rule language and is labeled as Comment.
Freddy77, every dad on the sidelines wishes the SS would cover. Our votes were not tabulated, call it a 'hanging chad'
Good luck to all this weekend
Statistics at every level actually are important If they are accurate. However statistics don't tell enough to accurately evaluate a player.
Some statistics are more revealing and create more interest than others.
Pitchers striking out a lot of hitters with a low number of walks and hits. (Whip)
Still have to consider the level of competition.
Hitters with a high number of extra base hits and Home Runs with low number of Ks. Still have to take into consideration the parks they play in and the level of pitching.
I would say the stats that mean the least are pitchers ERA and hitters batting average. We see stats that are sent to us every day. Sometimes they create interest, sometimes they mean nothing, and sometimes they reveal a negative reaction.
Example, we recently looked at the hitting stats of a HS player. The parents were using these stats to explain why their son was such a good prospect. The players batting average was just below .500, but with one extra base hit (a double) in over 80 at bats. Looking further he had 0 stolen bases in 2 SB attempts. So what would someone get out othat ose stats? After looking at everything, you might suspect the batting average doesn't make sense. No indication of power (1 extra base hit), no indication of speed (0 SB despite being on 1B all the time). Doesn't look like this player hits the ball hard or runs well, so what does the high batting average really mean.
While stats might not be very important in evaluating players, stats are still a very important part of sports. Then again poor stats can become a red flag. Example, a player is recognized by the scouting community as a early round draft prospect. Then his final HS season he is hitting below .200 with a large number of K's. Or a top prospect pitcher is giving up two hits an inning and walking more than he K's. All of a sudden those stats become very meaningful.
PG Staff: How do you really evaluate a hitter in your showcases/tournaments? Pitchers have velocity and movement to go by, not sure how hitters are really evaluated.
many great posts.
Good points on subs facing end of rotation pitchers which results in misleading stats vs facing aces.
I imagine many of your sons experienced what son has this HS season and especially this week, played two top of conference teams, they moved him to leadoff instead of middle of the order for more at-bats (usually 4 vs 3 in a 7 inning game at leadoff)
happened to sit next to opposing pitchers dad (random) in game 1 introduced self, they knew my son and this dad said we are not throwing a fastball to your son as coach scouted him-he will see nothing to hit as we don't want him to hurt us.
Next game same,
though son hit a hanging curve off the plate 400 feet to RCF for a homer as it was the closest pitch all day.
Saturday was the same, son has a friend whose cousin was on opposing team, all went to dinner afterwards and they told son they had a scouting report and that is why he was not given anything good, after walks, he made adjustment and lined a very low inside fastball to LF for a go-ahead RBI.
A few top players around here experience the same,
bottom 4 in order get meatballs, while they get walked 3 times and pitched around.
My takeaway with son is keep your batting eye and do what you're doing.
We evaluate hitters based on BP and live game at bats. We have experienced scouts watch BP closely, making notes on everything from swing mechanics to contact. Then each player is graded on hitting and power.
we also use Zepp, Trackman and radar to compile as much info as possible on each hitter. We will now use Zepp in stations and TrackMan in games where we have TrackMan available. In the end we have a pretty good assessment of each hitter and his Potential. I would say we probably spend more time evaluating hitters and pitchers than anything. Another thing that helps is we tend to see the top players (hitters) several times. We also get to see these players develop from one year to the next.
So we have a good system in place to evaluate hitters. But even with that we have made some mistakes. One thing about evaluating baseball players, everyone makes mistakes at times. Predicting the future is not always easy.
PG, you do a fine job.
We evaluate hitters based on BP and live game at bats. We have experienced scouts watch BP closely, making notes on everything from swing mechanics to contact. Then each player is graded on hitting and power.
we also use Zepp, Trackman and radar to compile as much info as possible on each hitter. We will now use Zepp in stations and TrackMan in games where we have TrackMan available. In the end we have a pretty good assessment of each hitter and his Potential. I would say we probably spend more time evaluating hitters and pitchers than anything. Another thing that helps is we tend to see the top players (hitters) several times. We also get to see these players develop from one year to the next.
So we have a good system in place to evaluate hitters. But even with that we have made some mistakes. One thing about evaluating baseball players, everyone makes mistakes at times. Predicting the future is not always easy.
Yes it shows bat path, but not always upward.
yes, bat speed at contact
yes, max bat speed
yes, exit velocity
yes, spray chart
yes, spin rate
yes, path and angle of the ball
yes, where the pitch was
I don't think it shows top half or bottom half. But I would think the launch angle would tell us that.
Is most of that data from Trackman? We've used the Zepp a few times and I like it for swing speed. The bat path piece is a little shaky to me, although there is an outstanding chance I'm not doing it right.....
My 2019 played a game last night against a very competitive team. I checked game changer after the game and the opposing team had scored his clean double as a walk to first and a walk to second. Oh well.
My 2019 played a game last night against a very competitive team. I checked game changer after the game and the opposing team had scored his clean double as a walk to first and a walk to second. Oh well.
A couple of weeks ago at the Connie Mack, son hit an HR, but the person running the Game Changer apparently didn't make the substitution, so another kid got credit. It happens all the time. That is why high school and tournament stats don't mean a whole lot..
My buddy tracked his dropped on-target throws down in the 'tag zone' that beat the runner as 12 so far.
(weak 2nd basemen here, wide range of talent levels in HS ball)
Twelve dropped throws in 16 games? The team would be better if they went against "the book" and had the SS handle the throws.
I said the same thing all thru HS. There's a reason the SS is the SS....I don't know how many times our catcher made good or even great throws and the 2B blew it either by missing the throw altogether or not getting the tag down. I know our catch didn't like it....
@Buckeye 2015
absolutely.
happens occasionally in summer ball too.
the takeaway is was the throw good/in the tag zone?
if so he did his part of the job
Originally Posted by too.tall:
My 2019 played a game last night against a very competitive team. I checked game changer after the game and the opposing team had scored his clean double as a walk to first and a walk to second. Oh well.
What do you care about how the other team’s scorer marked something? There’s no system I know of other than what goes on in MLB/MiLB where the official scorer is the only one submitting stats to the database. FI, in MaxPreps the home team could have their pitcher as throwing a no hitter and the visiting team as having it hitters with 15 hits, and both would be right because the team submitting stats only submits stats for the players on their roster.
Originally Posted by rynoattack:
A couple of weeks ago at the Connie Mack, son hit an HR, but the person running the Game Changer apparently didn't make the substitution, so another kid got credit. It happens all the time. That is why high school and tournament stats don't mean a whole lot..
It only happens more than rarely when the scorer stinks on ice, the umpires don’t announce every change, or the coaches don’t have enough respect for their scorers to make sure they get the change. It can be any one or any combination of those reasons.
Guys like Ironhorse is why I left here. He's an ASS.
Agreed. He's the worst!
Ironhorse - I see you have been causing more problems. Irondad - i concur. Ironhorse - for once i agree with your comment.
Zepp 'attack angle' is what you should be interested in. This is the swing angle of the bat just before contact. It should be 5-20 degrees. (The ball arrives at 5-10 deg or so)
This measurement may be one of the greatest things to come along in decades for individual hitter development.
Trackman 'launch angle' is the angle of the ball off the bat, and should be between 30-40 degrees for max distance.
Zepp 'attack angle' is what you should be interested in. This is the swing angle of the bat just before contact. It should be 5-20 degrees. (The ball arrives at 5-10 deg or so)
This measurement may be one of the greatest things to come along in decades for individual hitter development.
Trackman 'launch angle' is the angle of the ball off the bat, and should be between 30-40 degrees for max distance.
You'll like this one:
http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/7...is-towering-home-run
That said, I continue to believe that good HS players of average size and strength will hit many more fly ball outs than HRs if they emulate that approach. But we can agree to disagree on that.
Zepp 'attack angle' is what you should be interested in. This is the swing angle of the bat just before contact. It should be 5-20 degrees. (The ball arrives at 5-10 deg or so)
This measurement may be one of the greatest things to come along in decades for individual hitter development.
Trackman 'launch angle' is the angle of the ball off the bat, and should be between 30-40 degrees for max distance.
Guys like Ironhorse is why I left here. He's an ASS.
Agreed. He's the worst!
Ironhorse - I see you have been causing more problems. Irondad - i concur. Ironhorse - for once i agree with your comment.
Sad, sad little man. (I thought you left here?)
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
Albert Einstein
