Sabermetrics

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Originally posted by Nicholas25:
Have any of you studied these, and if so, have you thought about relating them to high school baseball?

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “studied these”. Do you mean Sabermetrics in general, or something specific?

As for relating anything having to do with statistic analysis to HS ball, I’ve been doing probably it to a higher degree than most people in the country for several years. There is a huge problem that is impossible to overcome at the current state of HSBB, and for all of amateur baseball for that matter.

Unlike ML and MiL baseball, there is NO, let me repeat that so its very clear, NO central depository for the statistical data. To the best of my knowledge, the place with data on the most schools is MaxPreps, but the last I checked they were only servicing about 5,000 HS team out of the over 30,000. Not only that, of that 5,000, very few report all of the possible data MP can handle, and very few even bother to just record game scores.

However, the good news is, someone like myself who’s willing to do a lot of work on his own, can generate a lot of things similar to what available for ML and Mil players, and even a few more they haven’t thought of yet. If you’d like, you’re welcome to take a look at what I have. Go to http://infosports.com/scorekeeper/ and look on the left side of the page for the different stats. If you have any questions, you can contact me through that web page. I’m always willing to discuss HS numbers!

Wow, great job with the stats, and I thought I was the only guy who kept up with JV statistics. As a baseball man, I want to learn more about sabermetrics, because I do not like feeling uninformed about something in the game when it is brought up in conversation or mentioned in some form of media. As a head coach one day (only an assistant now) I would like to get someone involved with our program who could really "crunch" the numbers.

The main problem with using statistical information for HS players is the very small sample sizes you will have to go off of....even if you took all ab's from the 1st 15 games of a season, what would that give you on a kid? 30-50 AB's? Far too few to make any sort of conclusion that would help you as the year goes on.

Also, when evaluating MLB #'s they are all against a relatively similar strength of schedule....a HS team playing their top team in the division compared to the bottom one is a much greater gap than the difference between the Yankees and the Pirates. Hope that makes sense.....

I would encourage you to emphasize the things that sabermetrics tends to emphasize (OBP/SLG/K to BB rates) knowing that you won't be able to measure them as well.

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Originally posted by bsballfan:
The main problem with using statistical information for HS players is the very small sample sizes you will have to go off of....even if you took all ab's from the 1st 15 games of a season, what would that give you on a kid? 30-50 AB's? Far too few to make any sort of conclusion that would help you as the year goes on.

Also, when evaluating MLB #'s they are all against a relatively similar strength of schedule....a HS team playing their top team in the division compared to the bottom one is a much greater gap than the difference between the Yankees and the Pirates. Hope that makes sense.....

I would encourage you to emphasize the things that sabermetrics tends to emphasize (OBP/SLG/K to BB rates) knowing that you won't be able to measure them as well.

I don’t want to give the impression that sample size means nothing, but just because the sample size is small doesn’t mean the conclusions one can draw are useless. It all depends on what one is trying to do. If you’re looking to pay someone $25M a year, you better have a heck of a sample size. But those things don’t happen very often on a HS team during the season.

If a coach uses the number to help him make decisions on a game by game basis, it makes little difference if he has a 5 or 500 game database. If the scoring is correct and the “keypunch” errors are kept to a minimum, the numbers are absolutely valid.

As an example, the very 1st stat I run on the batting stats shows the strength of the schedule. If someone isn’t smart enough to look at that and consider its meaning, of course the numbers mean little. And when considering stats like BA on BIP by BPOS, what difference does the sample size make? Its an average of all players in a given BPOS. If a coach looks at that and sees something he doesn’t expect, he should look into it whether it’s after game 5 or game 25.

People get the crazy idea that unless the data covers 100 games, it can’t be counted on, and that just a pantload. It all depends on the stat one’s looking at, and what they’re trying to do with it. And consider this. Unless one looks at all the numbers, how do they know what good or bad number? And how does one build up a database to use to measure performances? You have to start someplace, and the sooner one starts, the more data they have to use.

I’ve been grabbing HS data for over 7 years now, and while its only been for 1 team a season, I’m pretty sure for its complexity, there’s no other HS database in the country that even comes close. Without data like that, its really impossible to do more than make the most general guesses about things possible. When I say things like most HBPs take place on the 1st pitch of an at bat, I’m not just throwing my opinion out there as a guess based on perception. I’m basing my “opinion” on over 9,000 HS plate appearances. There are scads of other bits and pieces of information available, but one needs to have the data.

Not sure how a stat like that would help a HS Coach...I assume the OP was looking for a way to look at his team's stats differently for the purpose of setting lineups, strategy, etc....stats from teams he's never played don't do much for that.

It's obvious you're proud of your database (which is great and all) but with programs like stat crew, etc many schools have every game they've played with more complex stats built in...team stats can help (winning % when scoring X number of runs, etc) over a long haul can be useful just not sure you are going to get much on individuals on small sample-size.

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Originally posted by bsballfan:
Not sure how a stat like that would help a HS Coach...I assume the OP was looking for a way to look at his team's stats differently for the purpose of setting lineups, strategy, etc....stats from teams he's never played don't do much for that.

Thinking like that’s a big reason coaches don’t use stats to a greater degree. Every piece of information is a positive to someone willing to see it. As for that precise piece of information, doesn’t it make sense that one a coach know and understands it, he can do something to help his pitchers mitigate it, or make sure he pays special attention to the pitches that get called on 1st pitch? Information doesn’t have to change the world to be useful.

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It's obvious you're proud of your database (which is great and all) but with programs like stat crew, etc many schools have every game they've played with more complex stats built in...

Yes, I’m proud of it, but its only a means to an end for me. Programs like what you mentioned are great, but I guarantee you they don’t track many of the things I do, or if they do, don’t generate stats using it. Do you think in 15 years I’ve never used or investigated literally dozens of those software packages?

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team stats can help (winning % when scoring X number of runs, etc) over a long haul can be useful just not sure you are going to get much on individuals on small sample-size.

What do you want on individuals, and why wouldn’t you have it, even if after only 1 plate appearance? I understand your thinking because I’ve witnessed it thousands of times over the years, but what wrong with it is, it condemns something without defining why it doesn’t work. What folks like yourself don’t seem to take into consideration, is that no matter whether they believe it or not, coaches are using stats all the time in almost every decision they make about the team. But I don’t hear a hue and cry when a coach makes some kind of move after only one game. And, when folks such as yourself refuse to use “real” numbers because of some belief that they’re no good, then use their perceptions about what’s taken place to base their decisions on, they’re doing not just themselves a disservice, they’re probably cheating some player out of something he rightfully deserves in favor of some player doesn’t.

IOW, if for no other reason, stats give a true picture of what’s taken place. Every time I score a game on TV, whether it’s a LLWS game or MLB game, it never fails that the perceptions of the announcers and the facts of what’s taken place are different, and there’s nothing that makes me believe its any different for coaches, since I’ve proven it hundreds of times.

Here’s the bottom line. A coach who gets himself #1 a good scorekeeper, #2 a good statistician, and #3 is willing to take the time to not just look at, but to analyze the numbers, will be better for it, not worse, and that applies to coaches of all levels.

I did the stats for my boys travel ball teams and shared the data with the coaches. It was amazing to me how much their perceptions differed from the information. Quite often the ringing double with the bases loaded overshadowed the other stuff going on.

I also think things such as how wrapped up they were in the game as it was being played or how they thought of a particular player were factors.

The tricky part is when you have a kid who kills the poor teams but does nothing against better than average competition. In HS over 20+ or so games you can have a guy go 22-40 in games against bad eams and 6-30 against good ones and end up with a .400 batting average. I see it all the time where a kid gets fat on 79 MPH fastballs and then is 0-3 with 2 K's and a weak groundball against 85mph with a curveball. As people walk out the park I hear about how off Johnny was when in fact Johnny isn't really that good a player when the decent pitching is out there.

As far as Sabermetrics goes it has raised the value of the OBP and SLG significantly over the last 20 years. In my opinion what that tells you is that a player knows strikes from balls so he swings at good pitches to hit and when he does he hits it hard. Ted Williams wrote this book 50 years ago and it's old fashioned basic baseball just the way I like it!

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Originally posted by luv baseball:
I did the stats for my boys travel ball teams and shared the data with the coaches. It was amazing to me how much their perceptions differed from the information. Quite often the ringing double with the bases loaded overshadowed the other stuff going on.

That’s an observation very much the norm rather than the exception! Coaches especially, but fans as well really have poor perception vs reality, and for exactly the reason you noted. Without a scorebook in front of them, the best most people can do is to remember only the things which for some reason they FELT were important at the time. They will often remember Joey hit 2 screaming line drives right on the nose and Billy never hit the ball very hard at all.

But when you look, you see Joey struck out the other 2 times, with runners on 3rd and only 1 out, looking. Meanwhile Billy was 4x4 with 3 RBIs, 3 runs scored, and 2 SBs! Its not because people are stupid or have poor memories, but rather that a hard hit ball is much more memorable than a seeing eye grounder.

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I also think things such as how wrapped up they were in the game as it was being played or how they thought of a particular player were factors.

That’s another very good observation, and exactly why coaches should concentrate on coaching, not trying to keep track of what happened. That’s why there are scorekeepers and statisticians. Our HS coach is an extremely successful one over the last 20+ years. He has a habit of carrying around 4X6 cards in his pocket, on which he keeps track of things he feels are important, and they’re almost all things about our hitters.

But here’s the thing. He coaches 3rd when we’re up, so what he has to do is catch up between innings. Don’t get me wrong, he’s got it down to an art, but still, after an extremely long inning for us, the “quality of his notes drops significantly. To tell the truth, I have to give him one heck of a lot of credit for doing as well as he does with he has to work with, but I shudder to think how well he COULD do if he’d just stick to coaching and let me track whatever it is he wants to track.

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The tricky part is when you have a kid who kills the poor teams but does nothing against better than average competition. In HS over 20+ or so games you can have a guy go 22-40 in games against bad eams and 6-30 against good ones and end up with a .400 batting average. I see it all the time where a kid gets fat on 79 MPH fastballs and then is 0-3 with 2 K's and a weak groundball against 85mph with a curveball. As people walk out the park I hear about how off Johnny was when in fact Johnny isn't really that good a player when the decent pitching is out there.

That’s always been an issue in amateur ball at all levels. The range of player/team skills varies so much though, its darn near impossible to factor the opposition, where in the ML, there’s little need to do that because the level of the worst player is so close to that of the best. Over the years I’ve tried to use the opposing team’s Winning Percentage as a factor. But although that valid to some degree, at the HS level it can get you in trouble too.

You see, no matter how bad a team is, how low the level they play, or how small the school is, very often the #1 pitcher on a HSV team is very good indeed, and it happens a lot more than people would believe. Like last season here locally, there was a DIII or IV team, with D1 being the largest schools, who had a very poor W/L record. But, they had a super stud of a #1 pitcher, who eventually signed out of HS for $750,000. He was only a .500 pitcher, but only because his team only scored something like 1 run per game for him. If we played that team and he pitched, our hitters would show up very poorly because an 0-4 against a team like that would really drag down the numbers when a factor was added in.

And that’s why its always a good idea to use averages.

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As far as Sabermetrics goes it has raised the value of the OBP and SLG significantly over the last 20 years. In my opinion what that tells you is that a player knows strikes from balls so he swings at good pitches to hit and when he does he hits it hard. Ted Williams wrote this book 50 years ago and it's old fashioned basic baseball just the way I like it!

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Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:

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Originally posted by bsballfan:
Not sure how a stat like that would help a HS Coach...I assume the OP was looking for a way to look at his team's stats differently for the purpose of setting lineups, strategy, etc....stats from teams he's never played don't do much for that.

Thinking like that’s a big reason coaches don’t use stats to a greater degree. Every piece of information is a positive to someone willing to see it. As for that precise piece of information, doesn’t it make sense that one a coach know and understands it, he can do something to help his pitchers mitigate it, or make sure he pays special attention to the pitches that get called on 1st pitch? Information doesn’t have to change the world to be useful.

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It's obvious you're proud of your database (which is great and all) but with programs like stat crew, etc many schools have every game they've played with more complex stats built in...

Yes, I’m proud of it, but its only a means to an end for me. Programs like what you mentioned are great, but I guarantee you they don’t track many of the things I do, or if they do, don’t generate stats using it. Do you think in 15 years I’ve never used or investigated literally dozens of those software packages?

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team stats can help (winning % when scoring X number of runs, etc) over a long haul can be useful just not sure you are going to get much on individuals on small sample-size.

What do you want on individuals, and why wouldn’t you have it, even if after only 1 plate appearance? I understand your thinking because I’ve witnessed it thousands of times over the years, but what wrong with it is, it condemns something without defining why it doesn’t work. What folks like yourself don’t seem to take into consideration, is that no matter whether they believe it or not, coaches are using stats all the time in almost every decision they make about the team. But I don’t hear a hue and cry when a coach makes some kind of move after only one game. And, when folks such as yourself refuse to use “real” numbers because of some belief that they’re no good, then use their perceptions about what’s taken place to base their decisions on, they’re doing not just themselves a disservice, they’re probably cheating some player out of something he rightfully deserves in favor of some player doesn’t.

IOW, if for no other reason, stats give a true picture of what’s taken place. Every time I score a game on TV, whether it’s a LLWS game or MLB game, it never fails that the perceptions of the announcers and the facts of what’s taken place are different, and there’s nothing that makes me believe its any different for coaches, since I’ve proven it hundreds of times.

Here’s the bottom line. A coach who gets himself #1 a good scorekeeper, #2 a good statistician, and #3 is willing to take the time to not just look at, but to analyze the numbers, will be better for it, not worse, and that applies to coaches of all levels.

The reality is you don't know me, anything about me, or the way I use stats to Coach. My only original point was that sample sizes matter, and they matter a lot...if you don't understand that I would encourage you to read the top sabermetric guys out there and see what they have to say on the subject.

The only thing worse than making decisions without informations (stats) is making decisions with bad information (stats).

to follow-up with your example...i'm sorry, but the fact that pitchers hit the batter with the 1st pitch more than others has nothing to do with this pitcher pitching to this hitter UNLESS you have a larger sample of how often this pitcher hits the batter on the 1st pitch and/or how often this hitter gets hit on the 1st pitch...there are so many variables in just making a blanket statement about when people get hit that it's not even worth paying attention to.

I coach at a college where every Fall/Spring AB is put into a computer system that produces L/R splits along with nearly every meaningful statistic that is out there and I can assure you that in nearly every case the information we have after 40 ab's is much different than the information we have after 400 ab's.

I did not intend to argue with you about this....but I don't appreciate your smug responses or your general attitude towards me or others.

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Originally posted by bsballfan:
The reality is you don't know me, anything about me, or the way I use stats to Coach. My only original point was that sample sizes matter, and they matter a lot...if you don't understand that I would encourage you to read the top sabermetric guys out there and see what they have to say on the subject.

Well, you’re wrong about a couple things. Seeing you capitalize the word “coach” is a bit of a Freudian slip, saying you think your position as a coach is a very important one to you, and I’m not at all saying that’s a bad thing.

Had you said that about sample size, I would have made a different reply, but what you did was all but say that because the sample size is small, the numbers are worthless, and that simply isn’t a fact.

I do know what the top Saber guys think about sample sizes, and if you talk to them directly, you’ll understand that what I said is true. What is trying to be looked at and why makes all the difference in the world. If one is trying to choose between making a blockbuster trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars, you’d certainly want the largest sample size possible. But, if you’re simply trying to get a read on a pitcher you’ve never seen before, each piece is a huge plus, so that by the time the 4th and 5th batters come up, you’re getting a “working” read on that pitcher.

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The only thing worse than making decisions without informations (stats) is making decisions with bad information (stats).

I totally agree.

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to follow-up with your example...i'm sorry, but the fact that pitchers hit the batter with the 1st pitch more than others has nothing to do with this pitcher pitching to this hitter UNLESS you have a larger sample of how often this pitcher hits the batter on the 1st pitch and/or how often this hitter gets hit on the 1st pitch...there are so many variables in just making a blanket statement about when people get hit that it's not even worth paying attention to.

You’re doing what’s typical of folks who refuse to accept that all good data is useful. I picked that particular thing off the top of my head to show there’s info there that people seldom see. I wasn’t’ trying to suggest that it was a world changing stat as you seem to be implying. I could have chosen any one of a hundred different things, but rather than see the point I was trying to make, you choose to ty to degrade the information to make me and my philosophy look wrong. Trust me, you aren’t the 1st person to do that, and you won’t be the last.

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I coach at a college where every Fall/Spring AB is put into a computer system that produces L/R splits along with nearly every meaningful statistic that is out there and I can assure you that in nearly every case the information we have after 40 ab's is much different than the information we have after 400 ab's.

And there you have the problem in a nutshell. How is it that you’re the one who determines what statistics are meaningful and which ones aren’t? What you’ve just done is to say in so many words that I don’t know jack, and that you’re superior to me in analyzing statistical information. Well, I got news for you. No one in the world knows everything, and those who think of themselves and others in that way are simply showing how much they have to learn.

Of course what the numbers show after 40 ab’s is much different than after 400! Who said it wasn’t? All I said was, just because its only 40, you don’t ignore it. Going by your supposition, until a player gets 400 ab’s you totally ignore his numbers. Maybe I’m all wet here, but to me that means most of your players will have to wait for close to 3 years before you decide their numbers are worth looking at.

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I did not intend to argue with you about this....but I don't appreciate your smug responses or your general attitude towards me or others.

You take my attitude as being smug, and I take yours as being superior and patronizing. But here’s the deal. Tell me, do you win every ballgame? Is every decision you make on the ball field proven to be correct? Does every player who comes through your program go on to stardom in MLB? Are MLB teams beating down your door to sign you to a multimillion dollar contract? If not, there are alternatives to your way of thinking and what you’re doing that might well be considered. It might just be that

What’s happened here, is nothing more than me saying people can learn a lot from baseball statistics, whether those numbers represent decades of information, a career of information, or simply one game of information. Statistics are simply a measure of something, and you can’t manage what you don’t measure. What you’re saying is, you can manage better with a larger sample of data, something with which I’ve never disagreed, and in fact have advocated myself over the years. The difference between us is, I don’t think there’s some magic minimum number that means the stats suddenly become usable, and I seriously doubt that you or anyone else does either, if you think about it.

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As for relating anything having to do with statistic analysis to HS ball, I’ve been doing probably it to a higher degree than most people in the country for several years.

I'm the superior and patronizing one?

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Originally posted by bsballfan:
I'm the superior and patronizing one?

Why to use something totally out of context. That’s another tactic to try to put someone down that’s used a lot by people unsure of themselves. But let’s look at that statement IN CONTEXT. I was responding directly to the original question, and stating the basis upon which I was making my statement. That isn’t bragging, putting anyone else down, or saying I’m right and everyone else is wrong. It simply stating what I believe to be true, and in case you didn’t notice, I didn’t claim anything definitive. That’s why I used the adverb “probably” in that sentence. I was trying to convey the idea that not a lot of people do HS stats in depth, but that I have been doing it for quite some time.

I haven’t dabbled very much in college stats since my son quit playing, and that’s why I’m very reluctant to comment very much on college numbers. So tell me, how much time do you spend analyzing HS stats. I'd honestly be interested in any analysis you've done on HS numbers so I could compare what you've done with what I've done.

I think you guys are both correct in certain ways. Let's lay off the name-calling and contentious tone, because this is a great topic and I think a productive discussion.

I'm the head coach of one of the top programs in our state. I read Moneyball when I was still playing in college and it opened my eyes. Currently I check in on sites like Baseball Prospectus, the Hardball Times, Fangraphs, etc because I am a fan of MLB.

But I do use some of these principles in my coaching, and here are some examples:

1) Fielding percentages in high school are much lower than in professional baseball, so a ball in play is a much bigger plus for the offense in HS than in MLB. So we work on being aggressive at the plate and working on our 2-strike approach. In terms of playing time, we take into account K/PA, and try to get as many strikeout-averse hitters in our lineup as possible, while also considering many other factors. Hitters with a high pop-up tendency are also bigger drags on the offense, relatively speaking, than in MLB.

2) On the flip side, high-K pitchers and pitchers who induce infield pop ups (both of these are repeatable skills) are even more important in HS than MLB. Ground balls aren't the great event for pitchers that they are in MLB, even with the strong infields we've had over the years. HS fields are more prone to bad hops, double plays are much harder to turn, HS infielders have less range, etc.

3) Before planning our pitching rotation for a big tournament, I'll look at our opponents' scores, not just their record. Last year we played a team that was 12-0 but they had an uncannily high # of 6-5, 4-3 type wins against some good teams but also some average teams. The coaches' poll had them ranked up high but I thought they weren't as good as the hype. (search: "Guts and stomps", a legendary Football Prospectus article on margin of victory) Sure enough I was right, as they were a decent team but we handed them their first loss in 10-run-rule fashion.


PS, the reason more HBP (and everything else for that matter) happen on the 1st pitch, is because there are more 1st pitches than any other pitch. Now, if you mean as a percentage of total pitches thrown, that would be significant.

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Originally posted by CoachRunPrevention:
I think you guys are both correct in certain ways. Let's lay off the name-calling and contentious tone, because this is a great topic and I think a productive discussion.

I'm the head coach of one of the top programs in our state. I read Moneyball when I was still playing in college and it opened my eyes. Currently I check in on sites like Baseball Prospectus, the Hardball Times, Fangraphs, etc because I am a fan of MLB.

But I do use some of these principles in my coaching, and here are some examples:

1) Fielding percentages in high school are much lower than in professional baseball, so a ball in play is a much bigger plus for the offense in HS than in MLB. So we work on being aggressive at the plate and working on our 2-strike approach. In terms of playing time, we take into account K/PA, and try to get as many strikeout-averse hitters in our lineup as possible, while also considering many other factors. Hitters with a high pop-up tendency are also bigger drags on the offense, relatively speaking, than in MLB.

2) On the flip side, high-K pitchers and pitchers who induce infield pop ups (both of these are repeatable skills) are even more important in HS than MLB. Ground balls aren't the great event for pitchers that they are in MLB, even with the strong infields we've had over the years. HS fields are more prone to bad hops, double plays are much harder to turn, HS infielders have less range, etc.

3) Before planning our pitching rotation for a big tournament, I'll look at our opponents' scores, not just their record. Last year we played a team that was 12-0 but they had an uncannily high # of 6-5, 4-3 type wins against some good teams but also some average teams. The coaches' poll had them ranked up high but I thought they weren't as good as the hype. (search: "Guts and stomps", a legendary Football Prospectus article on margin of victory) Sure enough I was right, as they were a decent team but we handed them their first loss in 10-run-rule fashion.


PS, the reason more HBP (and everything else for that matter) happen on the 1st pitch, is because there are more 1st pitches than any other pitch. Now, if you mean as a percentage of total pitches thrown, that would be significant.

Very good points. Another thing that is more important in HS baseball is being able to utilize the bunting game. Bunts are BIP, which are not converted into outs nearly as often as often in HS baseball.

Some of the things that I do differently...as far as SABR goes, is to not bring the IF in very often at all. HS defenses just aren't as strong, and playing back prevents big innings. Big innings happen far more often in HS baseball than they do at the next level.

I also sub much more often than the normal team does due to the re-entry rule. I typically start my best defensive team possible, and pinch-hit in high leverage offensive situations...even if we are already ahead. I can then re-enter my best defensive players.

The points about strikeouts are very important...not enough emphasis is put on avoiding strikeouts and finding strikeouts (from the mound) in HS baseball.

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As people walk out the park I hear about how off Johnny was when in fact Johnny isn't really that good a player when the decent pitching is out there.

Golden quote. This goes for teams as well. "We had an off night", etc. No, your team can't hit 87mph fastballs, or balls thrown on the outer half, or curveballs, etc.

My view is that any HS pitcher that can throw a curve or breaking ball for a strike about 40% of the time and hit the outer half within 3 inches of the knees consistently with the fastball is a dominating HS pitcher even if his fastball is 82-83. If he can do that at 87-88 then he is almost unhittable for about 75-80% of HS hitters. That brings it back to putting the ball in play. A kid that routinely strikes out 10-12 hitters and pops up another 4-6 is making his defense play only a handful of grounders and maybe 2-3 hard hit balls per ballgame.

On the other hand, I've seen those guys beat a mess of times by teams that work counts, strike out 3-4 times and make the opponent field the ball. Pitcher tries for more K's so either he gets over the middle or starts missing at the edges and walks a few. Toss in a few bloops and couple of errors and is on the south end of a 5-3 score and only gave up 2 solid hit balls the whole game.

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Originally posted by CoachRunPrevention:
…1) Fielding percentages in high school are much lower than in professional baseball, so a ball in play is a much bigger plus for the offense in HS than in MLB. So we work on being aggressive at the plate and working on our 2-strike approach. In terms of playing time, we take into account K/PA, and try to get as many strikeout-averse hitters in our lineup as possible, while also considering many other factors. Hitters with a high pop-up tendency are also bigger drags on the offense, relatively speaking, than in MLB.

Gotta be careful when you use descriptive phrases like “much lower”. For sure to those of us who understand the real meaning of the numbers, a FPct of .980 is MUCH lower than .990. But when someone who doesn’t really grasp how that percentage is derived looks at it, a difference of 0.01 isn’t a significant number at all.

That’s why many times rather than use the standard representation, I’ll go ahead and make it a true percentage by multiplying it by 100. For those who don’t really understand, its much easier to see a 1% difference than 0.01. Not being critical here, but just sayin’ there are other people who look at the numbers besides those with great baseball acumen.

However , on your point about a BIP being a much bigger plus in HS than the ML, I’ll have to think about it for a bit. Now if what you mean is, since the fielding is not as good, it means more runners which of course means more runs, I completely agree.

You’re mixing terms on me when you qualify “playing time” with “K/PA”. To me, “playing time” means the number of batters a player is playing defense against, and “K/PA” is talking about numbers of at bats. If I may rephrase, it looks to me as though you’re saying the number of at bats a player is allowed to take, depends on his rate of striking out. I have to admit that that’s my kind of thinking! I can’t figure out how any coach can find anything positive about a player not putting the ball in play, but many do.

I also have to congratulate you on being one of the few HS coaches I’ve come across who tracks BIP trajectories! I always wanted to do that, but I always had so many other things to track I thought had a higher priority, I never did it. But with the automatic scoring programs becoming more popular, I can see how more and more people will start looking at it. In fact, since I’m in the process of converting my stats program over to a scoring program as well, I should be able to relate the trajectories to many other things. My hat’s off to ya!

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2) On the flip side, high-K pitchers and pitchers who induce infield pop ups (both of these are repeatable skills) are even more important in HS than MLB. Ground balls aren't the great event for pitchers that they are in MLB, even with the strong infields we've had over the years. HS fields are more prone to bad hops, double plays are much harder to turn, HS infielders have less range, etc.

Another great point often missed by all but the most knowledgeable of folks. I believe the misconception that a ground ball in HS has the same value as one in the MLB, is that more people see MLB games than HS games! Unfortunately, getting to see Omar and Robby work magic on ESPN on a perfectly groomed Jacobs Field, isn’t even close to what is seen on a HS field on a regular basis.

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3) Before planning our pitching rotation for a big tournament, I'll look at our opponents' scores, not just their record. Last year we played a team that was 12-0 but they had an uncannily high # of 6-5, 4-3 type wins against some good teams but also some average teams. The coaches' poll had them ranked up high but I thought they weren't as good as the hype. (search: "Guts and stomps", a legendary Football Prospectus article on margin of victory) Sure enough I was right, as they were a decent team but we handed them their first loss in 10-run-rule fashion.

Can’t even comment on that one. I don’t scout. I wouldn’t scout if asked. And more importantly, I don’t believe there’s a great deal one can learn about an opponent that isn’t already common knowledge. I can soy though, that I do agree that the “normal” polls on HS teams in all sports are pretty much BS once they start including teams the pollsters aren’t very familiar with.

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PS, the reason more HBP (and everything else for that matter) happen on the 1st pitch, is because there are more 1st pitches than any other pitch. Now, if you mean as a percentage of total pitches thrown, that would be significant.

Now that’s something I’m willing to take a shot at with numbers. But just for future reference, unlike most people, I understand that more opportunities for something almost always means more of that something will happen. It’s a lot like saying batting averages are lower on 0-1 and 0-2 counts than any other counts. Gotta look a little deeper for meaningful conclusions.

As far as the HBP’s go, here’s the data I have. Perhaps I missed looking at it in a way that makes you believe the chances of a 1st pitch in the at bat doinking a hitter are significantly higher than any other pitch in any other at bat, and if that’s true I hope you point it out to me.

Now while I would be the 1st to point out that there are many factors that go into a pitcher hitting a batter, I truly believe the main reason is that its harder for a pitcher, especially an inexperienced one as most HS pitchers are, to be very accurate on a 1st pitch. Think of a dart thrower. The 1st dart is of course intended to be thrown at a specific spot, but its much easier to do that with the 2nd or 3rd dart because adjustments can be made.

If you have a kid who isn’t exactly able to hit a gnat in the nads on command, and may well miss “in” on a RHB, asking him to throw a 1st pitch on the inside black is just looking for trouble. I would probably never have noticed anything about it if my kid hadn’t been a pitcher. Although he was extraordinarily accurate for a HS pitcher, he was a RH, low arm angle pitcher, who if he had a “common” mistake, it was opening up a bit too quick, allowing the pitch to miss right. And if it was his 2 seamer which moved tremendously as most sidearm 2 seamers will, that batter better not be too close to the plate.

So to me, it isn’t so much a matter of a pitcher just not being as accurate on a 1st pitch as it is the person calling the pitches being aware of a pitcher’s tendencies. So for my son it was a matter of not calling for a 1st pitch FB to RHBs who liked to crowd the plate. The same effect could be gotten with a CU or a sharp slider or cutter inside, and that would at least mitigate the problem.

9,239 HSV in season at bats - 33,772 pitches - 403 total HBPs – 1.19% of all pitches
1,302 abs ended on 1st pitch - 136 HBPs – 1,302 pitches – 10.45%
1,486 on 2nd pitch - 66 HBPs – 2,972 pitches – 2.2%
1,615 – 80 – 4,845 – 1.65%
1,784 – 57 - 7,136 – 0.8%
1,536 – 36 - 7,675 – 0.47%
1,029 – 21 - 6,174 - 0.34%
317 – 5 - 2,219 - .23%
111 – 2 – 88 - 2.27%
39 - 0 – 351 - 0.0%
21 (10 or more) – 0 - 210 - 0.0%

Thanx for the mind exercise! I’ve been so wrapped up with my program, I haven’t spent much time at all with the data all summer. This gave me a change to look at the numbers rather than trying to figger out how to develop them.

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Originally posted by realteamcoach:
Very good points. Another thing that is more important in HS baseball is being able to utilize the bunting game. Bunts are BIP, which are not converted into outs nearly as often as often in HS baseball. [QUOTE]

I agree, but the truth is, there just aren’t a lot of players, even in the ML who are very good at bunting. In order to get good at it, it has to be practiced and tried in games. IOW, it’s a skill only honed by opportunity. Trouble is, most HS kids aren’t very good hitters in the 1st place, and that’s a skill needing opportunity to develop too, and the same can be said for taking pitches to learn the strike zone.

Its too bad more people don’t understand that HSB is not MLB, but rather just one of many very important steps to the higher levels of the game.

[QUOTE]Some of the things that I do differently...as far as SABR goes, is to not bring the IF in very often at all. HS defenses just aren't as strong, and playing back prevents big innings. Big innings happen far more often in HS baseball than they do at the next level.

I can’t comment very deeply on that because I don’t coach. However, I do talk about it with our coaches, and I do a lot of data mining to help them prove/disprove some of their theories. For 3 years our team was lucky in having the father of a 14 year, very highly successful ex-ML 2nd baseman on the team, ans that guy did more hands on defensive coaching than you could imagine. Of course that helped the team immensely, but I think his overall philosophy was one I agree with, and judging by the great defenses our coach who agrees with him has put on the field for over 20 years, it’s a sound philosophy.

They both feel that its more important for players to learn what they SHOULD do and why, than to make some kind of adjustment for the sake of making up for a flaw. IOW, they want the boys to do things the “right” way, assuming that as they get older and more experienced, they’ll develop into better fielders. I know that won’t work in every case because there’s such a wide range of skills, but I can understand both your thinking and theirs. Its just a matter of coaching “style”.

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I also sub much more often than the normal team does due to the re-entry rule. I typically start my best defensive team possible, and pinch-hit in high leverage offensive situations...even if we are already ahead. I can then re-enter my best defensive players.

Yeah. You’re another one of those guys who makes life miserable for the scorers! LOL!

I’ve never minded all the subs, but as God is my witness, I sure wish baseball was like basketball, where the incoming players had to “check in” at the scoring table. I think I do a pretty good job of keeping up with our guys, but I know I still miss defensive changes. And forget keeping up with opponent changes! The only reason I can keep up with ours so well, is that I learn to recognize the players by their body language. That doesn’t happen when you only see a team once every year. And because of that, I know that in general HS fielding numbers blow, and its really too bad because it would be so easy to fix.

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The points about strikeouts are very important...not enough emphasis is put on avoiding strikeouts and finding strikeouts (from the mound) in HS baseball.

I think a lot of that came when OPB became such a highly valued number, and when pitch counts became such an important part of the game. Something a bit more cerebral that messes with it, is the onslaught of QABs.

Wanting players to see more pitches so they can either walk, hopefully get the perfect pitch to hit, or run up the pitcher’s count so they’ll have to leave are ok and all have their merits. But I see far too many coaches actually reward a batter for striking out by giving them credit for a QAB if they do something like see 6 pitches or more or foul off more than 2 pitches after 2 strikes.

To me that’s just foolish! A strikeout is an out, period. Making the pitcher throw 3 more pitches, then not putting a ball in play isn’t helping anyone, other than the opposing defense! Like a walk or a HBP is a “Free Pass”, allowing a runner to reach base without having to hit, a strikeout is a “Free Out”, giving the defense a precious out without making them work for it.

I also have an opinion as to why the number of K’s seems to have gone up in the last 2-3 decades all over baseball too.

Modern day baseball to old time baseball comparision:

Joe DiMagggio had more HR's than strikeouts for his career until his final season. Over 13 seasons he had 361 HR's and 369 K's. That's making contact! In the span of 1937-1939 he had 108 HR's and 68 K's.

Compare that to Mark Reynolds who between 2008-2010 hit 104 HR's and had 638 Strikeouts.

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Originally posted by luv baseball:
Modern day baseball to old time baseball comparision:

Joe DiMagggio had more HR's than strikeouts for his career until his final season. Over 13 seasons he had 361 HR's and 369 K's. That's making contact! In the span of 1937-1939 he had 108 HR's and 68 K's.

Compare that to Mark Reynolds who between 2008-2010 hit 104 HR's and had 638 Strikeouts.

What do you attribute that to? Is it much better pitching, much worse hitting, a more diluted talent pool, or do you think its just a change in the general philosophies of how to approach the game?

Biggest Reason: Aceptance of the strikeout particularly as a trade off for homeruns.

Other factors:

1) While Dimaggio played most of his career in the segregated era baseball had far less competition for athletes from basketball, football etc. so I would be hard pressed to say that the pitching was diluted.
2) I do think the proliferation of relief pitching with specilized pitches is a factor. For example Mariano Rivera gets by with essentially one overpowering pitch. He is able to do it because the most he is likely to face any individual batter is a once or twice times a year. In the pre expansion days everyone played everyone 22 times a year with 4 man rotations pitching the predominance of innings. So Dimaggio probably got 20+ At bats against Feller or Purnell. That helps.
3) Labor agreement. Arbitration and Free Agency have created the avenues to become weathly people based primarily on HR's and RBI's. The difference between 30 homers and 40 homers in the one long term contact you can sign is probably in the tens of millions of dollars.

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Originally posted by luv baseball:
Biggest Reason: Aceptance of the strikeout particularly as a trade off for homeruns.

I agree in spirit, but I’d say it was more of the acceptance a walk being worth as much as a hit, which makes batters go deeper in the count, which makes batters get 2 strikes on them more often, which makes it possible for K’s.

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Other factors:
1) While Dimaggio played most of his career in the segregated era baseball had far less competition for athletes from basketball, football etc. so I would be hard pressed to say that the pitching was diluted.

I was talking about the talent pool being more diluted today.

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2) I do think the proliferation of relief pitching with specilized pitches is a factor. For example Mariano Rivera gets by with essentially one overpowering pitch. He is able to do it because the most he is likely to face any individual batter is a once or twice times a year. In the pre expansion days everyone played everyone 22 times a year with 4 man rotations pitching the predominance of innings. So Dimaggio probably got 20+ At bats against Feller or Purnell. That helps.

I believe you’re onto something there. Back when there were 8 teams in each league, and only 2 leagues, pitchers and batters got very familiar with each other. Now-a-days, there’s far fewer games against each team, especially outside of divisions. That’s mitigated a bit though by players being fare more “mobile”. I’m guessing it wasn’t uncommon for a regular MLB player to never face a particular team in a career, let alone specific players.

Can you imagine if they’d had the technology back then we have today?

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3) Labor agreement. Arbitration and Free Agency have created the avenues to become weathly people based primarily on HR's and RBI's. The difference between 30 homers and 40 homers in the one long term contact you can sign is probably in the tens of millions of dollars.

In the past it was always a matter of how many butts you put in the stadium seats, but today’s ML game is a lot different. Now its how many eyeballs you can attract, and it doesn’t make any difference if its on CATV, the radio, or the WWW. And, it has a lot to do with how many jerseys, caps, etc. you can make leave the shelf.

In the end, what you’re saying is, in general today’s players aren’t at all hungry, and it shows.

You left out an important piece of the puzzle. Video analysis. Years ago, we did not have the video and video departments each team has now. Once a player has been around for a while, teams can find that pitch and that zone that gives a hitter fits and exploit it routinely. Sometimes a young player comes up and hits well for a while, until the video gets out and a hole in the swing is found. Then life gets a little harder. This is a HUGE change in the game on both the pitching and hitting ends in the last few years.

hsballcoach - You are right. In the old days they used to say wait until the second time around the league to see if rookies were going to make it.

Like everything else that whole cycle is speeded up with the communications technology available. It's to the point that you hear stories about changes from At bat to At Bat for some guys. I gotta think that guys like Joe D, Williams and Ruth would still be able to swing the stick pretty good.