I am not sure why some coaches don't want team stats publicly available, at least to the immediate players on the team. I have been keeping stats this year and off and on for several years also for the teams I coached. I have always been a proponent of making the stats known. Stats are a very important part of the game when kept right (no favors).
We have local sports writers who have never ever got the stats right and so it is important to actually know the truth and that can only be done by accuratly marking each ball and strike and each play correctly. Parents and a lot of coaches are also unaware of how stats are actually calculated and so it helps to keep things straightened out if dissension arises (and it does) to know how to score correctly. For instance- we had a game this year where one of the pitchers got into a jamb, had runners on base and because of 2 infield errors (one by the pitcher himself) 7 unearned runs scored in that inning. A lot of people want to blame the pitching in this scenerio and yet had the defense been playing soundly it would have been a 17 pitch inning and stranding 2 runners on base with no one scoring. Even something as simple as the stat- ERA the majority of people have no idea how to even calculate it.
I even had a coach from our team (brilliant man) ask me this year how a sacrafice bunt is calculated to a batter. So even when you have the greatest minds coaching your kids, they may not know too much about "official scoring".
Coaches that win keep stats. And more importantly, coaches that are very good live by what the stats say.
When I became head coach several years ago I took over a program that never kept records (or at least ones I could find). My first two years I did everything in my power to keep meticulous stats because I felt it mattered. We won two district championships those two years. Got to the finals and semi - final of the region. Had two really good years.
Then I would go to the coaches meetings for All Whatever trophies and All Star games. I would put my guys stats up there against the other teams we were either competing with or beating and they weren't close. My guys never got any recognition because their stats weren't close to the other guys although they weren't any better.
Then around this time I was working on my masters degree and had to take a stats class. I despised that class because it just stunk. The teacher was a nice guy and the one thing that stuck with me was he said "you can make stats do or say whatever you want given enough variables".
At that point I stopped putting as much emphasis in stats. I went to these all whatever meetings and would look at what the other coaches put up and I would put my guys name up there. Then I would put numbers up that were comparable to the ones up there already. Now my guys started getting all whatever and making all star teams. Were the stats right I put up there? No but based on what I saw in the past neither were there's but I had to do something to get my guys to compete with the other players.
My last two years as head coach I didn't even keep stats. Either my guys didn't care about stats or they kept them on their own but I never did one thing to figure them up. We won the district each year and advanced to the regional semis again. In those two years I never used stats to make out my lineup card. Whoever was swinging a hot bat got to hit third and whoever was doing a good job putting the ball in play got to hit fourth to protect him.
So in my 9 years as head coach I went from one end of the extreme to the other and the only change was when I made up stats my guys actually got recognition for being successful.
Do stats have an entertainment value? Yes but the people who take enjoyment out of them I don't have to make them happy. They are the fans and as long as they pay their $5 they can say whatever they want about me - even if that is to criticize me for not doing stats.
Can you use stats to position people in the line up? Yeah but at some point you still have to have some baseball sense to go along with it. You can make the argument a weak coach will use stats to say why so and so is in that position in the lineup and not much can be said. But if you have baseball sense and know what kind of pitcher you're facing can put that guy hitting .143 in the lineup because he matches up well.
Can you win without stats? Yeah I truly believe so because I have.
Then I would go to the coaches meetings for All Whatever trophies and All Star games. I would put my guys stats up there against the other teams we were either competing with or beating and they weren't close. My guys never got any recognition because their stats weren't close to the other guys although they weren't any better.
Then around this time I was working on my masters degree and had to take a stats class. I despised that class because it just stunk. The teacher was a nice guy and the one thing that stuck with me was he said "you can make stats do or say whatever you want given enough variables".
At that point I stopped putting as much emphasis in stats. I went to these all whatever meetings and would look at what the other coaches put up and I would put my guys name up there. Then I would put numbers up that were comparable to the ones up there already. Now my guys started getting all whatever and making all star teams. Were the stats right I put up there? No but based on what I saw in the past neither were there's but I had to do something to get my guys to compete with the other players.
My last two years as head coach I didn't even keep stats. Either my guys didn't care about stats or they kept them on their own but I never did one thing to figure them up. We won the district each year and advanced to the regional semis again. In those two years I never used stats to make out my lineup card. Whoever was swinging a hot bat got to hit third and whoever was doing a good job putting the ball in play got to hit fourth to protect him.
So in my 9 years as head coach I went from one end of the extreme to the other and the only change was when I made up stats my guys actually got recognition for being successful.
Do stats have an entertainment value? Yes but the people who take enjoyment out of them I don't have to make them happy. They are the fans and as long as they pay their $5 they can say whatever they want about me - even if that is to criticize me for not doing stats.
Can you use stats to position people in the line up? Yeah but at some point you still have to have some baseball sense to go along with it. You can make the argument a weak coach will use stats to say why so and so is in that position in the lineup and not much can be said. But if you have baseball sense and know what kind of pitcher you're facing can put that guy hitting .143 in the lineup because he matches up well.
Can you win without stats? Yeah I truly believe so because I have.
quote:Originally posted by Mizzoubaseball:quote: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.
And believe it or not, I think you both have good points, There are usually good reasons people think the way they do, and for sure both of the above are good reasons. There are others as well, but I really do think those are the main bug-a-boos. As I keep trying to say, its all a matter of perspective.
quote:Originally posted by Sandman:
Then please enlighten all us ignorami?
I don’t have a clue as to what you are referring.
quote:Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:quote:Originally posted by Sandman:
Then please enlighten all us ignorami?
I don’t have a clue as to what you are referring.
I was referring to this:
quote: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.
quote:Originally posted by coach2709:
When I became head coach several years ago I took over a program that never kept records (or at least ones I could find). My first two years I did everything in my power to keep meticulous stats because I felt it mattered. We won two district championships those two years. Got to the finals and semi - final of the region. Had two really good years.
Then I would go to the coaches meetings for All Whatever trophies and All Star games. I would put my guys stats up there against the other teams we were either competing with or beating and they weren't close. My guys never got any recognition because their stats weren't close to the other guys although they weren't any better.
Believe it or not, that’s not something that uncommon. But why blame the numbers for people lying and cheating, then becoming a liar and a cheater yourself? I don’t blame you at all for doing it, because I’m sure you weren’t doing it for yourself, but rather to give your player the recognition you felt they deserved. I don’t blame you, but there isn’t any level I can think of where it’s the way people should act. It’s a darn shame the truth is no longer good enough for so many people.
quote:Then around this time I was working on my masters degree and had to take a stats class. I despised that class because it just stunk. The teacher was a nice guy and the one thing that stuck with me was he said "you can make stats do or say whatever you want given enough variables".
He was correct, and that’s why the metrics people like the most, are the most simple ones they can pretty much do in their head. But someone looking for the “truth” or answers to questions won’t consciously manipulate the numbers. They’ll do what I do. Present the numbers and let those looking at them come to their own conclusions.
quote:My last two years as head coach I didn't even keep stats. Either my guys didn't care about stats or they kept them on their own but I never did one thing to figure them up. We won the district each year and advanced to the regional semis again. In those two years I never used stats to make out my lineup card. Whoever was swinging a hot bat got to hit third and whoever was doing a good job putting the ball in play got to hit fourth to protect him.
As soon as you used some form of measurement, you used stats! Swinging a hot bat and putting the ball into play are both valid metrics, especially if you define what “hot bat” and “putting the ball in play” means. I do a few metrics that measure putting the ball in play. The only difference between us is, my numbers never lie because they aren’t “perceptions”, they’re facts.
After every game, I send the coach not just the old fashioned numbers, I send the following.
http://www.infosports.com/scor...r/images/streak2.pdf
The 1st one only includes the last half of all the games each player played, and is different for each of them because they may or may not have played lately, but it doesn’t matter. The 2nd one is exactly what it says. Since everyone is getting scored by me, it’s a real list of who’s hot at the moment. Neither of those metrics is of any use to anyone other than the guy making the lineup, but everyone loves to see them. They may not be in the same form as you were using, i.e., only your eyeballs and perception, but they in essence show the same thing, except there’s no guesswork.
Be honest. If you had those two metrics given to you after each game, would you have just tossed them in the garbage without looking at them?
quote:So in my 9 years as head coach I went from one end of the extreme to the other and the only change was when I made up stats my guys actually got recognition for being successful.
I sure hope you’re suggestion isn’t to just lie and cheat because everyone else is doing it?
quote:Can you win without stats? Yeah I truly believe so because I have.
No one, and I mean no one ever said it wasn’t possible to win without using stats. I don’t think any manager has ever done it using no measurements what-so-ever, but I will say this. If you’re right, then you did the best you could and couldn’t have gotten one bit more out of anyone. But if I’m right, you still had everything you had before, but might have gotten a bit more out of them because you’d have been better able to pick the best choice when two choices were very close together. To me, its always better to have the possibility of being able to get more out what you have available.
I’ve noticed something new I’ve never noticed before. Its in this statement. “My first two years I did everything in my power to keep meticulous stats …” I’m taking it that you were the guy spending all kinds of time going through the scorebook, gleaning the numbers out you decided to track. Were you the guy trying to reconstruct innings to see which runs were earned or trying to figure out who got RBIs?
I get the feeling that you were also the guy putting the numbers into a spreadsheet or whatever, spending time on something you could have used to better advantage. If you still have a sample of those “meticulous stats” you were generating, I’d like to see them, but I’m gonna guess they’d look a lot like what someone sees when they got to Baseball-Reference, minus the splits, logs, and Vs pitchers or batters, or with any reference to history, and with little more than POs, Assts, and Errors for fielding numbers, that is if you had any fielding numbers. IOW minimum basic stats, much like the 50 or so items MaxPrps or any of the on-line services make available.
If I’m correct, even partially, I’m sorry I wasn’t there to let you do what coaches are supposed to be doing, but being able to have access to things you very likely didn’t know were available. And if I’m way off-base, and it was only taking you a few minutes after each game to get all the things you needed or wanted, I apologize for thinking some like me might have been of some service to you.
quote:Originally posted by Sandman:
I was referring to this:quote: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.
OK. So what you wrote was intended for someone else.
We just saw our sons stats for the 2012 season and he did real well.
That being said, they were all messed up. He was missing input for 3 AB, didn't get credit for at least 4 RBI's and two doubles and his ROE stats were so far above the rest of the team, it was laughable.
Oh well, that's why summer ball was invented.
That being said, they were all messed up. He was missing input for 3 AB, didn't get credit for at least 4 RBI's and two doubles and his ROE stats were so far above the rest of the team, it was laughable.
Oh well, that's why summer ball was invented.
quote:Originally posted by ranger689:
We just saw our sons stats for the 2012 season and he did real well.
That being said, they were all messed up. He was missing input for 3 AB, didn't get credit for at least 4 RBI's and two doubles and his ROE stats were so far above the rest of the team, it was laughable.
Oh well, that's why summer ball was invented.
Now I’m curious. How many ROEs were there for your boy’s team, and how many hits were there? We just finished our season of 28 games and had 27 ROEs and 127 hits in 385 ABs. That makes the team BA .330, but even if I were wrong in every instance, it would only be .400, or a little over .002 per hit/error.
Missing 3 ABs is definitely not a good thing, but its also not going to skew things a whole lot. But even if it did, it would only make the numbers worse. The RBIs is a very different thing though. I’m not saying you don’t know what the scoring rules are for crediting RBIs, but to tell the truth, most people get fouled up on RBIs and earned runs unless they have a scorebook in their hand.
The doubles are something else too. I usually score a dozen or so of these each HS season. Batter hits the ball and ends up on 2nd, but only gets credit for a single. Most of the time what happens is, the outfielder muffed the ball somehow, allowing the batter to get an extra base, and many times its when the batter goes to 2nd on a throw trying to get another runner. What usually happens is, while everyone else is watching the kids running all over the place, I’m watching the ball and where the runners are in relation to it.
I’m not at all saying the stats you saw weren’t faulty, but I am saying there are usually pretty sound reasons for there being a discrepancy between what a parent sees take place, and what a competent scorer sees. If I were your scorer and you asked me why those things happened, I’d get out the scoresheet and the rule book, and we’d get answers.
quote:Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:quote:Originally posted by ranger689:
We just saw our sons stats for the 2012 season and he did real well.
That being said, they were all messed up. He was missing input for 3 AB, didn't get credit for at least 4 RBI's and two doubles and his ROE stats were so far above the rest of the team, it was laughable.
Oh well, that's why summer ball was invented.
Now I’m curious. How many ROEs were there for your boy’s team, and how many hits were there? We just finished our season of 28 games and had 27 ROEs and 127 hits in 385 ABs. That makes the team BA .330, but even if I were wrong in every instance, it would only be .400, or a little over .002 per hit/error.
Missing 3 ABs is definitely not a good thing, but its also not going to skew things a whole lot. But even if it did, it would only make the numbers worse. The RBIs is a very different thing though. I’m not saying you don’t know what the scoring rules are for crediting RBIs, but to tell the truth, most people get fouled up on RBIs and earned runs unless they have a scorebook in their hand.
The doubles are something else too. I usually score a dozen or so of these each HS season. Batter hits the ball and ends up on 2nd, but only gets credit for a single. Most of the time what happens is, the outfielder muffed the ball somehow, allowing the batter to get an extra base, and many times its when the batter goes to 2nd on a throw trying to get another runner. What usually happens is, while everyone else is watching the kids running all over the place, I’m watching the ball and where the runners are in relation to it.
I’m not at all saying the stats you saw weren’t faulty, but I am saying there are usually pretty sound reasons for there being a discrepancy between what a parent sees take place, and what a competent scorer sees. If I were your scorer and you asked me why those things happened, I’d get out the scoresheet and the rule book, and we’d get answers.
Define a "competent" scorer and we would probably solve a lot of problems. Three separate and different scorers confirm my suspicions.
The majority of this thread is exactly what is detrimental to a lot of baseball players- they worry about their stats.
quote:Originally posted by 2013 Dad:
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.
Uh oh. That could be dangerous.
"Let's see. My boy Johnny deserves a hit on that one so he was 5 for 5. Oh, that wasn't an error. My boy never makes errors."
quote:Originally posted by J H:
The majority of this thread is exactly what is detrimental to a lot of baseball players- they worry about their stats.
I'm sure 99% of minor leaguers hoping to make it into the big leagues don't worry about their stats. LOL
quote:Originally posted by bostonbulldogsbaseball:
I'm sure 99% of minor leaguers hoping to make it into the big leagues don't worry about their stats. LOL
I sure hope they don't.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/c...adio--steve-springer
quote:Originally posted by bostonbulldogbaseball:
I'm sure 99% of minor leaguers hoping to make it into the big leagues don't worry about their stats. LOL
I'm guessing they're slowly learning not to. Hopefully it's less than 99% by now.
quote:Originally posted by ranger689:[QUOTE]Define a "competent" scorer and we would probably solve a lot of problems. Three separate and different scorers confirm my suspicions.
Are you saying the team used 3 different scorers, or that 3 different scorers scored each of the team’s games?
A “competent” scorer has plenty of experience scoring, and in general understands the scoring rules. But the most important trait is to try to be as impartial and consistent as possible. A “competent” observer should have those same traits and understandings. The best example I can offer on something you mentioned is on RBIs.
Some years back, the son of a recently retired 14 year veteran MLr was on our HS team. He’s almost always sit near me during games, and we were always talking/arguing/discussing baseball. Like most people, he had a habit of often hollering out when a run scored that so-and-so got a nice RBI, or some other such chatter. More often than not he was correct that an RBI had been created, but there were more than a few times he was wrong too.
One game after I’d gotten to know him pretty well, he made one of those comments when there wasn’t an RBI, and I told him he was wrong. We went back and forth and round and round for about 5 minutes, and I finally brought out OBR and showed him where he was wrong. This was a guy who had played baseball for well over 30 years, many of them at the highest level of the game, yet he still didn’t understand the scoring rules. He did for the most part, but he didn’t understand all of them. I really like that fellow, and over the 3 years he was at almost every game, I beat him out of about $500 in sodas, beer, hotdogs, burritos, and other miscellaneous things we’d bet on about scoring, while never losing a bet myself.
And that’s why I say that there were likely good reasons what you perceived as happening, what actually happened, and what a scorer perceived aren’t necessarily the same thing. Heck, something as simple as you sitting in the bleachers along one side or the other and the scorer sitting in the dugout, behind the umpire, or up in a press box will often cause differences because of the vantage point.
If you really believe the scorers are incompetent, a scorebook, sit as close to whoever’s scoring as possible, and score the game along with them. Every time there’s a disagreement, highlight it and when you can. Get out the rulebook and look it up. I think you’ll likely find only a few plays each game where you don’t agree.
quote:Originally posted by bostonbulldogbaseball:
I'm sure 99% of minor leaguers hoping to make it into the big leagues don't worry about their stats. LOL
If they didn’t they’d be foolish. Players don’t get moved up to the show because they “look” good. If there’s no tangible proof of what they’re doing, who would move them up?
That was my point (tongue in cheek).
Stats- Why on earth would a player worry about their stats? The game of baseball is difficult enough mentally, adding the pressures of statistical analysis would take away from the focus and preparation that is required to succeed. I provided a link above of the interview from HSBBWeb Radio with Steve Springer, I would highly recommend it.
MLB teams and their usage of stats is absolutely crucial in player development and roster building. I am 100000000% behind samermetrics and its continued progression. However, from a player's standpoint, worrying about stats can do you no good.
MLB teams and their usage of stats is absolutely crucial in player development and roster building. I am 100000000% behind samermetrics and its continued progression. However, from a player's standpoint, worrying about stats can do you no good.
quote:Originally posted by bostonbulldogbaseball:
That was my point (tongue in cheek).
You did good job of convincing me you were serious.
quote:Originally posted by J H:
Stats- Why on earth would a player worry about their stats? The game of baseball is difficult enough mentally, adding the pressures of statistical analysis would take away from the focus and preparation that is required to succeed. I provided a link above of the interview from HSBBWeb Radio with Steve Springer, I would highly recommend it.
MLB teams and their usage of stats is absolutely crucial in player development and roster building. I am 100000000% behind samermetrics and its continued progression. However, from a player's standpoint, worrying about stats can do you no good.
Not all players “worry” about them in the sense that they agonize over every percentage point or whether or not their OPS is a ten thousandth’s of a point lower than some peer. Some do, but then again there are rich people who believe they need to make more $$$$ to be happy, and poor people who are as happy as clams.
You’re obviously using one of many possible definitions of “worry” that has an extremely negative connotation, but I’m using one that concentrates more on awareness and measurement. How you take the leap from a player “worrying about his stats” to “the pressures of statistical analysis”, I have no idea. I’d think there were more than enough statisticians running around to do the in depth analysis.
I don’t care about Steve Springer because he isn’t in this conversation. But since you used him as an example, I’ll throw Dustin Pedroia out there as an opposite. I’ve been around him in private situations with no press or fans around, and I can tell you he might be the most **** baseball player I’ve ever been around when it comes to his stats. I’m told by many who knew him then, that in HS he was even worse!
You see, what one person sees as negative, another might see as encouragement or attempting to reach goals. Would you start saying Hail Mary’s and making the sign of the cross if a player mentioned he was 5th in the league in batting?