Measuring Talent

Fungo

Baseball is a "team" sport. If a person is consumed by individual awards play tennis or golf. During my coaching tenure the school had an assembly for the sports where a MVP award was given. I hated it. If it was up to me I would not give it. It puts the coach on the spot. Think of it as a coach you say that player a means more than player B C etc. But that is just the way things are and you deal with it.
so how do you measure success. Well it is by going out everyday and making yourself better. Doing what needs to be done to make the "team" better. How many times have we read about kids not wanting to pitch or play a different position when asked by the coach? Why won't they? Unfortunately today success is measured by "tangible things. How much money you make. what kind of car you drive. How big your house is. This carries over to baseball. RBi HR Era etc etc. I coached many kids over the years. yes there were kids that were all league and got scholarships and I am proud of their success but I also had many kids who were as i say the grunts who while not as talented made themselves better by working hard everyday and doing whatever you asked them to do. No trophies no awards but a lot of success.

Ok, so people are going to hate me for this but we don't give out team awards. I serve on committees on two newspapers to select our All-Area Teams and so, those are based upons stats and various coaches opinions. All-Conference, at least in my experience, is just about as "fair" as it can be. All of the coaches know all of the kids and can make an educated vote based upon overall stats and conference stats.

I don't believe in TEAM AWARDS. I've seen and heard them all. In awarding these awards, typically you end up with a couple of happy players and parents while creating animosity on your team. I could go on for days on this. Can I make a suggestion? If you want to give something out, how about creating a PowerPoint Presentation with pictures and team experiences from this past year. I do this every year. We show it at our banquet and then I give the kids a copy. I'm currently making some copies for some kids today. This past year, we had over 120 pictures, 10 songs, and a ton of recollections from the year. One example, I was a jerk in one of our practices. I realized this when I went home. The next practice, I created a picture of me with a bullseye on it. I apologized to the team for being a jerk and put the picture up on the dugout wall. I told the kids to take their best shot on that picture. They spit on it, slapped it, and poked it with a bat. They had a good laugh. Well, I put that picture in the powerpoint and the kids just roared when we viewed it at our banquet. They can all have that for the rest of their lives.

All of the above is JMHO! My Opinion and $5+ will get you a chicken select's 5 piece value meal at Micky D's!!!

While players certainly should not play "for" the awards, there is no reason not to "reward" them for their success. To say every player on the team contributes an even effort is ridiculous in most cases and to say a team win is the only reward they should get is a copout.

It seems a few coaches need to more inventive in their awards. Since when did you have to create animosity by awarding awards, or only give out awards for to the players with the "best numbers"

How about those awards given out for the most improvement over last year, the awards given out for the most hustle, or even an award for being the most supportive from the bench - not all awards require a kid to be the most talented on the team.

There is nothing wrong with giving out awards for the highest batting average, the most rbi's or the lowest era. Many times the kids with these numbers have worked really hard outside of team practice as well.

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging individual success within the team. After all, the team requires the effort of each individual player, and the more effort each individual gives the better off the team is.

However, there is also nothing wrong with rewarding individual effort for things that have nothing to do with the numbers. Reward a player for becoming the best that HE can be even if his numbers do not beat out someones else's.

And if there is one player who made a huge difference in the teams overall success give him the MVP award, but if there is not - there is nothing wrong with handing out co-MVP awards. With a litte thought each person who REALLY DESERVES deserves an award can get one, all numbers aside.

Not giving our any award is not a FAIR alternative, it is just easier for the coach.

Back to something else on Fungo's original post. Lists and rankings. Funny thing about playing in a conference. By the end of the season you pretty much know which players on each team your team needs to get past.

You know which pitchers you would rather, or rather not face in the first round of play offs. You know which hitters you don't want to see up to bat when it's the bottom of the 7th and all they need is one run to win. (not to say that another player can't can't come through for them). And you don't need to see their numbers to know that either.

While I will admit they are not perfect, more often than not those post-season all conference awards go to those very same players (with just a very few exceptions).

As for those pre-season lists - most of us know which players we would prefer not to face again this year, which ones we are certainly hoping graduated and moved on.

And although we can name them without seeing their numbers from last year, their numbers more likely than not back up our gut feelings.

Awards for All-District, All-County, All-State, YES........

Individual awards when looking strictly at the team, NO........

Some people get this, and some don't......The ones who don't are the ones I can't sit by and watch a game......

When I became a head coach, I thought of when I played in high school. I led my team in just about every offensive category with the exception of walks. Granted, I was TERRIBLE on defense but made only 4 errors and played every minute of every game. I even played the last week with "walking pneumonia" and left the hospital to play in our District games. as a matter of fact, at our banquet, the head coach roasted me about not having anyone that would do mouth to mouth in the event that I "keel over" during our last games. I have never been able to get over not getting the MVP. Everytime I see the MVP, I think about stats: there is a substantial difference to say the least. I could go on. It shouldn't be that way but that is how it is. I'm a serious competitor and I just can't accept it. WELL, I GUESS YOU CAN SEE MY REASONING FOR MY DECISION.

BTW, how do you justify those awards when the kid that catches bullpens day in and day out with little playing time or the kid that ... Also, if anyone wants to talk about more awards or "cop-outs" as we used to say, then CO-MVP'S???????

Good players dont need an award to know their good, they dont care, they just play ball, and if you need an award to tell you your good then you most likely arent a good player. I mean what is a trophy anyway? a meaningless piece of plastic, stats are nothing, just play the game and enjoy it. since im a player i will tell you that most of us do not care about awards, its usually just the parents who wanna brag on their kids, so leave the awards alone, the kids could care less.

Life is not fair. In life the hard chargers get the prizes/perks.

Being afraid to give awards for fear of angering the parents or being unfair is just as bad as the parent who is angry that their son didn't win or the one who wears rose colored glasses.

It is just another of life's lessons. If you want the prize work harder. If you don't have the talent to be one of the chosen few. Deal with it and be the best team mate/ballplayer that you can.

Winning an award doesn't mean that the player is consumed with awards or a bad team player. It is validation for excelling at some part of the game.

I would stay away from the totally arbitrary awards. Leading in stats and getting award recognition is fine to me. MVP or co-MVP is fine. Things like best hitter or best pitcher are arbitrary and the problem comes when the stats leader doesn't get the award. Example: One pitcher faces all the cupcakes and finishes 10-2. Another faces the toughest teams in the district and is 7-5 with better k's, era, etc. Nobody will get angry if you give best record, best era, etc. Someone may get mad if you have cy young. Then the pick is arbitrary. jmo

My sons HS coach has the team vote on the various team awards.

The players know, and are pretty good about awarding them to the appropriate player.

As far as team awards go, my favorite recently is the kid who was awarded "Most Inspirational" by the coach. This award was decided on, and the trophy name plaque ordered, before the end of the season. Team makes the playoffs, wins their first game, goes into the biggest game of the season with the ace scheduled to start. Except--the ace pops off to his teacher, gets suspended from school for three days, meaning he's automatically disqualified from playing. So of course the team goes out without the ace, gets shellacked, season ends. Nevertheless, the ace is named "most inspirational" at the banquet the next night. Hmmmmmmm.....

What I get from Fungo's post is how do you measure, judge, rate a player.
I also hear the same things. You cant use W-L you cant go by stats, velocity is not a way to judge a pitcher and when you say a pitcher hits his spots and keeps a hitter off balance the first qustion you gets asked is yea but how hard dos he throw.
As a player gets older many of these qustions get solved, how do you judge a player, by results. That is how you and I are judged each day in our jobs. If a player gets consistantly "LUCKY" well he gets the credit lol he has an "instinct" for being in the right place at the right time.
My son was told by a few people, oh scouts dont look at size or velo or that stuff, they are looking for kids with potential. True enough they are looking for kids with potential.
I laughed one day at a showcase when John came to me and said dad the first qustion he asked me was how tall I was what I weighed and then took out a radar gun.
We all get evaluated every day and players will to, as they get oder it will be done by results. The real problem is the score keepers and just what REALLY is a hit or an error

I have observed that team awards/superlatives are nominated and voted on by the team members............

They know.............

Fungo,

What if a player doesnt want to be "measured"?

What if a player just wants to play - real hard - and then see what happens.

Way too many BS variables for the individual stuff. Way way too many.

Perhaps - just playing the game is good enough for some.

It’s,
That’s not the way it works. Playing well without recognition doesn’t happen. . . normally! And it’s also not the norm for a player to decline an award. All athletes want them and appreciate them but I also sense some players and MOST parents putting a lot of emphasis on these “trophies”. Have you not heard the parent describe all their son’s “trophies”? My question is: Are these people judging talent by these awards, stats, list. . . ?? While I think the awards are nice, I also think they are unfair and are useless in measuring talent. I can look behind me on the wall and see 13 awards my son received for HS football including two All-State awards but he had NO offers in football. . . . so. . . . I think these awards mean little in judging true talent. So, HOW do you measure talent?
For sake of discussion I make the assumption that each player wants to play at the next level. If so, an INDIVIDUAL EVALUATION is necessary to get there. I have always believed one of the toughest jobs a parent had to do was properly judge the talent of their son. I also know that parents view their sons thru “rose colored glasses”. So, what is the solution to this dilemma of judging talent??
Fungo

Fungo,

We always measured my son's ability by playing the best possible competition and trying to use an unbiased eye in evaluating. We also asked for people's opinions and asked them to be honest. Not everyone saw what I saw. Many did.

There was no such thing as an eval that we did not take serious. There was something to learn on every eval. Some people hae no clue how to eval and still their advice was welcome and there was something to learn.

Most of all, I had to have faith in my ability to evaluate talent and believe in what I saw. Listening to everyone's opinions with a hitter or a pitcher can make you believe that everything is wrong.

If a player is a top player, other coaches will let you know it by trying to recruit your son to play in different events or on their teams.

It is not an easy question to answer. You do this on purpose!

Fungo,

When you measure talent by offers received you get mixed up by interchaning talent and potential. That is a very messy situation at best.

If your goal with this thread was judging a players potential vs. his for sake of recruiting purposes that changes everything. Awards, stats and many of those things that measure SUCCESS vs. POTENTIAL are no longer an useful.

The number of phone calls a kid receives would be a better judge, the number of official visits offered, the number of coaches flying to their home, the number of scouts who have shown interest, the giving of psychological tests etc.

But, keep in mind at least from the college coach's view the best shortstop in town is not going to get any of the above if the coach has a strong middle infield, but he really needs a catcher.

Fungo,

There is much in your last post that is true - IMO - and obvious. Of course players don't turn down trophies - and of course many parents equate individual talent with awards/trophies etc...

And I agree with you that awards mean very little when judging talent. Particularly at the high school (and below) level.

To answer your question specifically, I believe very strongly in what Bighit posted in his first sentence.

Talent can be judged most clearly when the player is competing against the best competition possible.
I think true evaluators of talent can easily see quick hands, good speed, nice swing, strong arm etc... But none of that displayed physical skill means anything unless they are put into a truly competitive arena.

I know of many athletes that were gifted physical specimens, but when the competition got tough - they faded. Physical skill without the ability to use it under demanding conditions is useless.

Your topic - as always - is a good one. The message I would get if I were a parent of a younger player would be:

1) Play against the best competition you can find.
2) If the awards come - enjoy them - but dont use them as a basis for projecting your son's baseball future.
3) Tell your son to focus on the game and his improvement as a player - not on accumulating trophies and awards.

I agree with AParent here. Nothing wrong with rewarding individual success that was achieved by players that worked hard within the team concept.