One example of how HS stats become questionable.

Stats4Gnats posted:

Attended the awards ceremony for the season today. When the JV coach was handing out trophies for outstanding performances, I got that there were so few on a team the was 0-16-1 with 10 games not reporting a score, and the coach was looking for anything positive. But one team “highlight” was too tough to swallow, even with that understanding.

 

In those 17 reported games, a total of 36 runs were scored, so I almost had my Diet Coke coming out of my nose when he proudly announced they’d stolen 147 bases and only been caught 15 times. That’s not a typo. 162 attempted SBs with only 15 CS.

 

When people see that kind of stat, of course they question all HS stats, and that’s reasonable. But the truth is, even though certainly not all HS scorers can tell the difference between a wild pitch and a stolen base, most do a better job than that.

It makes sense to me...they had a negative RISP.

I've learned from our government officials that if you tell a lie big enough that most people won't question it. 

My son's Varsity baseball coach was caught cooking the books for his son after one game.  Which led most to believe how many other games his 5'-6" son led the team in hitting and fielding.   I know for a fact that half of his son's throws to 1B were being dug out of the dirt by my son.  

Our team plays at the 4A level in North Carolina. 4A is our highest classification.  We just made the 3rd round of the playoffs and are 22-3 on the year.  We do not steal a lot of bases.  Here is our stats for the year the only error is the actual stolen bases and attempts are in the wrong columns. We have played 25 games and are only 33 of 46 on stolen bases.  Our coach has always kept an accurate book.  He is also the Pitching Coach for the Evoshield Canes 17U National team. 

http://www.maxpreps.com/high-s...9/baseball/stats.htm

baseballdad65 posted:

Our team plays at the 4A level in North Carolina. 4A is our highest classification.  We just made the 3rd round of the playoffs and are 22-3 on the year.  We do not steal a lot of bases.  Here is our stats for the year the only error is the actual stolen bases and attempts are in the wrong columns. We have played 25 games and are only 33 of 46 on stolen bases.  Our coach has always kept an accurate book.  He is also the Pitching Coach for the Evoshield Canes 17U National team.  

The link didn’t work for me. What school is it? I’ll look myself.

If you’ve swiped 33 you’re way above the national average.

Nothing against your coach, but when it comes to SB’s especially I’ve found very few coaches who score them accurately. It may be that the. It may be that they are well versed in the stolen base scoring rules, but that’s only half of what’s necessary when it comes to scoring SB’s correctly.

The biggest problem is having to pay close attention to the runners in relation to the pitcher. FI, runner on 1^st and the ball gets by the catcher. Most would score it a PB or WP, but it very well could be a SBA. If the runner takes off before the pitch is delivered and gets to 2^nd safely, it doesn’t matter how rotten the pitch was, it’s still a SB. Likewise, if the runner doesn’t take off until he sees a pitch touching the dirt, if he reaches 2^nd safely it’s a WP.

Of course there’s gonna be some instances where those things aren’t true, but in general they are. I’ve found most people doing other things besides scoring, like coaching or even just watching the game will be concentrating on the pitcher and batter because that’s where the “action” is, and completely miss whether the runner takes off or not.

Hi Stats - 

We had similar circumstances at my sons school this year.  Kinda tough when the coaches dump-a-gate GC to an injured player, and the coach does not review the stats after the game.  

A number of SBs were really passed balls, or catcher's indifference on First/Third situations.  

We too had a No-Hitter where the other team scored it a one-hitter.  However, the kid pitched a heck of a game.

Honestly, we didn't think the kid (or coaches) were very familiar with GC yet those were the stats uploaded to MaxPreps.  

On Maxpreps in team search" CONLEY we are in Greenville, NC. We average just over 1 stolen base a game as a team.  Maxpreps says the average stolen base number nationwide per player is 2.72 and our top guy is not even in the top 350 in our state alone. So we are far below the national average not above it.

Wow, stats4gnats is making a case for why HS stats are not something that can be relied on.  Thought we've been trying to tell him that for years...  Guess we finally got to him.  

baseballdad65 posted:

On Maxpreps in team search" CONLEY we are in Greenville, NC. We average just over 1 stolen base a game as a team.  Maxpreps says the average stolen base number nationwide per player is 2.72 and our top guy is not even in the top 350 in our state alone. So we are far below the national average not above it.

The average player steals that per season. Forget where any individual player ranks. Look at your team. Believe me, as a team your team is above average.

Okay. You are obviously clueless so I will just leave it at that.

MaxPreps does show Conley as outperforming the national average in all offensive categories, including SB.  Not surprising for a team that has been very successful.  

Agree that SB is among the least reliable of HS stats for the reasons stated by stats.  Really all the moving pieces in that vicinity are problematic.  For example, you might see a pitcher for one team in a HS game get dinged for 5-10 WP that a catcher at the next level, or even the catcher on the other team, would have handled.

JCG posted:

…Agree that SB is among the least reliable of HS stats for the reasons stated by stats.  Really all the moving pieces in that vicinity are problematic.  For example, you might see a pitcher for one team in a HS game get dinged for 5-10 WP that a catcher at the next level, or even the catcher on the other team, would have handled.

A great thing about HS sports is in any given game you can see the best player in the area at a given position on one team and one of the worst on the other team. You can also see the best pitcher in the area on the worst team and a really poor one on the best team. That’s why I try very hard not to get caught up in individuals and just try to score the game as honestly as possible using the scoring rules developed over more than 150 years.

Stats4Gnats posted:

JCG posted:

…Agree that SB is among the least reliable of HS stats for the reasons stated by stats.  Really all the moving pieces in that vicinity are problematic.  For example, you might see a pitcher for one team in a HS game get dinged for 5-10 WP that a catcher at the next level, or even the catcher on the other team, would have handled.

 

A great thing about HS sports is in any given game you can see the best player in the area at a given position on one team and one of the worst on the other team. You can also see the best pitcher in the area on the worst team and a really poor one on the best team. That’s why I try very hard not to get caught up in individuals and just try to score the game as honestly as possible using the scoring rules developed over more than 150 years.

Very true and an appropriate way to handle it. If more SCs took this approach, HS stats may be much more telling. Not entirely, but more than they currently are. 

With the confusion from time to time on certain plays I guess I should just feel luckiy that our coaches report nothing.Can't get that wrong.We don't even have a roster on max preps.Is that the norm with schools in other states.I'm in Il.

Stats4Gnats posted:

Attended the awards ceremony for the season today. When the JV coach was handing out trophies for outstanding performances, I got that there were so few on a team the was 0-16-1 with 10 games not reporting a score, and the coach was looking for anything positive. But one team “highlight” was too tough to swallow, even with that understanding.

 

In those 17 reported games, a total of 36 runs were scored, so I almost had my Diet Coke coming out of my nose when he proudly announced they’d stolen 147 bases and only been caught 15 times. That’s not a typo. 162 attempted SBs with only 15 CS.

 

When people see that kind of stat, of course they question all HS stats, and that’s reasonable. But the truth is, even though certainly not all HS scorers can tell the difference between a wild pitch and a stolen base, most do a better job than that.

I don't even believe the number including wild pitches and passed balls. That would mean the team had  at least 147 runners in scoring position but scored just 36.

that could happen of course but at that level I would expect about 20 runs coming from wild pitches and passed balls alone with risp (because the other team doesn't suddenly stop throwing wild pitches if they threw that many before).

proudhesmine posted:

With the confusion from time to time on certain plays I guess I should just feel luckiy that our coaches report nothing.Can't get that wrong.We don't even have a roster on max preps.Is that the norm with schools in other states.I'm in Il.

I won’t bother to comment here on a coach who doesn’t make stats public, but I will weigh in on not posting a roster. I don’t know what possible reason there could be not to make a roster available other than pure laziness. When I score a game, the 1^st thing I do is go to MaxPreps and get the roster. It’s not scouting thing, it’s so I can get all the names and numbers ahead of time so I’m not trying to do it at the game. And what a PITA if your coach hasn’t posted a roster and you happen to have an exceptional player the scouts come to see. If they see another player that interests them they’ll bother the scorer for his information as though s/he’s the team press secretary.

Luckily, around here except for the very beginning of the season I never see a team that doesn’t post a roster at a minimum and it’s extremely rare not to post stats. As for the possibility of stats that aren’t 100% correct, all the coach has to do is get himself a team scorer that knows how to keep score! How difficult is that to do?

Stats, you will enjoy this one.  Earlier this season we are at opponent's field.  I get a copy of the lineup card so I can keep score in GameChanger, and the player's numbers are almost all different from the roster published in MaxPreps, plus there are several players not there and several new players. PITA but not that big a deal.  When the team comes to our yard, because I also announce home games and I don't want be scrambling or calling out the wrong player's name, I typed up their roster with the correct numbers from our first game.  Then right before the anthem, when I get a copy of their lineup -- guess what -- same numbers they had on MaxPreps, totally different from last game.

Turns out their new home unis were misprinted or something and they used an old set.

Our guy who does the stats for iScore does a pretty good job. His one downfall - or maybe it's the software? - is with stolen bases. Every time a runner tries to advance and is thrown out in any manner whatsoever, it shows up as a cs, so it looks like our stolen base percentage is ridiculously low and it looks like our catcher is a huge stud.

JCG posted:

Stats, you will enjoy this one.  Earlier this season we are at opponent's field.  I get a copy of the lineup card so I can keep score in GameChanger, and the player's numbers are almost all different from the roster published in MaxPreps, plus there are several players not there and several new players. PITA but not that big a deal.  When the team comes to our yard, because I also announce home games and I don't want be scrambling or calling out the wrong player's name, I typed up their roster with the correct numbers from our first game.  Then right before the anthem, when I get a copy of their lineup -- guess what -- same numbers they had on MaxPreps, totally different from last game.

Turns out their new home unis were misprinted or something and they used an old set.

Welcome to my world! Except for a few players, our HS team has different numbers for the road and home. My program is like GC and others that export the stats so they can be imported by MaxPreps. Now here’s a little quirk about MP. In order to do stats you need to put a roster in first. If you want to be able to import the stats, MP checks the uni number on the roster, then assigns the imported stats to it. Unfortunately, MP only allows for one uniform number, and here’s what will happen.

Let’s say Joey Jones has the uni number 5 on the MP roster which has the home numbers and Billy Smith has the number 6. The game is a home game and the stats get imported just fine. The next game however is an away game, and their numbers are reversed. The game gets played and the software generates the export file from the game, with the numbers reversed. When they get imported by MP, Joey’s stats will get put under Billy’s number and vice versa.

If it’s ever caught, it is one huge PITA to get corrected!

What I do is always use the home numbers for every game. It does cause a problem however because the umpire will say 20 for 13, so I have to look at the lineup card I was given to find out who 20 and 13 are, then make the appropriate changes. I also run into problems when the other team is the same way because I take the numbers from the MP roster. Then you’ve got problems when for some reason players change numbers during the season. If the appropriate changes aren’t made in the MP roster, you have more trouble.

I’ve tried to get MP to do something about this issue, but it’s not a priority of theirs. They leave it up to the person putting in the stats to make sure they’re put in correctly. In my program I use a player ID# that’s unique for every player, so it doesn’t make any difference what the uni number is. That would be a huge undertaking for MP with them having records for more than 10 years for some percentage of the 450,000 HS ball players every year.

One gripe I have with MP concerns rosters. Colorado uses MaxPreps for pretty much everything, including rosters and roster limits. I only noticed this particular quirk this season. We had a kid we had to take off the roster. He left for Marine boot camp right before the post season. When removed from the roster, his stats are also removed. Completely wiped off the team stats as if he never played.

stats what is your team name and state?

roothog66 posted:

Our guy who does the stats for iScore does a pretty good job. His one downfall - or maybe it's the software? - is with stolen bases. Every time a runner tries to advance and is thrown out in any manner whatsoever, it shows up as a cs, so it looks like our stolen base percentage is ridiculously low and it looks like our catcher is a huge stud.

Can’t help ya with that one because I’ve never used IScore. I know it was a convoluted affair when I made my program account for them though.

One of the problems I had to overcome was something I see almost all inexperienced scorers do. FI, let’s say there’s a runner on 1^st and 2^nd and there’s a wild pitch allowing both runners to move up. Technically they both moved up because of the WP, but the program would count that as 2 WPs. One for the runner moved from 2^nd to 3^rd and another for the runner moving from 1^st to 2^nd. But the scoring rules don’t allow that.

OBR 10.13 (a) The official scorer shall charge a pitcher with a wild pitch when a legally delivered ball is so high, so wide or so low that the catcher does not stop and control the ball by ordinary effort, thereby permitting a runner or runners to advance.

I took the easy way out and move each runner individually. I move the most advanced runner on the WP and move the other(s) with the annotation “NR” meaning no reason. I could have also used a “FC’ for fielder’s choice, but since it’s only for me I didn’t bother. I also made provisions for a PO(straight pickoff), POCS(Runner is picked off but put out trying to advance which is a CS), and POSB(runner is picked off but makes it to the next base in the rundown) to allow a bit more flexibility.

I won’t put the knock on any other software, but those are just a couple reasons why I wrote my own.