Scouting opponents

There are A LOT of different levels of amateur baseball...I think it's too broad of a question to get a good answer. Do you mean elite level DI schools, or HS, or somewhere in between?

Well, personally I’d be interested to see how even “elite level DI schools” do it, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s say high school varsity at any level or in any state.

We scout every league opponent minimum of one time prior to league transpiring. We also keep the charts from the previous year. As it pertains to playoffs we attempt to get out and see any top ten teams play throughout the year. We also will call every opponent that has played our playoff opponent.

In regards to what we do with the information we use it as follows. We will talk to our pitchers in catchers about how we are going to attack the hitters. We also will post an opposing hitter's chart in the dugout. We will list any count in which a pitcher throws a specific pitch 80% of the time or more.

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Originally posted by IEBSBL:
We scout every league opponent minimum of one time prior to league transpiring. We also keep the charts from the previous year. As it pertains to playoffs we attempt to get out and see any top ten teams play throughout the year. We also will call every opponent that has played our playoff opponent.

Now that’s a great example to use as a baseline. Now don’t get me wrong here, because it may sound as though I’m not a believer in the numbers, but all I’m gonna do is play devil’s advocate.

Let me tell you about our team’s general progress from tryouts until the league games begin. The 1st few weeks after tryouts are spent looking to find the best way to put the pieces together, along with working on specific things for individuals to try to raise parts of their games considered “needing improvement the most”. Different combinations are tried for almost every game, looking to find that combination which will produce the most consistently. But in the end, if you scout one of our teams in the 1st half of the season or rather prior to league games, chances are you won’t find the team you’re playing looking a great deal like the one you scouted.

I’m not sure what you mean about keeping the charts from the previous years. Is your meaning that it gives you a better insight into the coaching “style”, that it gives you better insight into the player’s capabilities, or both?

When you say you attempt to get out and see any top 10 teams play throughout the year, how do you make that determination? Here, the rankings don’t show up until at least the 1st half of the season is over. So that only leaves about 5 weeks to look at possible opponents. And considering the way teams bounce up and down in the rankings, it could mean more than 10 teams.

Calling opponents to get scouting reports makes sense on its face, but I gotta tell ya, it would have me shakin’ in my boots to be making decisions based on what I learned from that. Of course I’m the eternal cynic, so of course I expect someone might give me some “tainted” information.

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In regards to what we do with the information we use it as follows. We will talk to our pitchers in catchers about how we are going to attack the hitters. We also will post an opposing hitter's chart in the dugout. We will list any count in which a pitcher throws a specific pitch 80% of the time or more.

Very interesting. I get the feeling you believe what you learned from 1 or maybe two games about the opposing hitters is strong enough information that its worth making a game plan on. That’s cool, because you have to start somewhere, but doing that for every player on the roster who might play seems like a bit of overkill. I could see aiming the plan at maybe the “best” 3-5 hitters on the team, but IMHO, spending time planning how to attack players who are at best a bit above average seems like overcomplicating things. But heck, it wouldn’t be the 1st time I was wrong!

I’m really curious about how you collate and present the data you gather on pitchers. The impression I get is, for every pitch, the “umpires” count and the type of pitch is marked, and if the ball is put in play, the result is also marked. Then at some time after the game, someone either enters all that into some piece of software that kicks out numbers, or someone goes through it with a pencil and paper and counts everything.

You must forgive me here. When I see things like that happening, I get into my “How would I do that to make it easier and more efficient” mode. There used to be a pretty phenomenal program called “Chartmine” from Competitive Edge that did some pretty amazing things along those lines and was fairly popular at the college and independent ball levels. I’m just wondering what’s being used now. (And I’m always lookin’ for a way to kill a little time and maybe help someone at the same time.)

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But in the end, if you scout one of our teams in the 1st half of the season or rather prior to league games, chances are you won’t find the team you’re playing looking a great deal like the one you scouted.

I am looking specifically at how the hitter swings the bat, what he is over matched by and what gets him out. IMO the average HS baseball player and program does not work hard enough to change bad habits a get rid of weaknesses. If it is there in February it is there in April.

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I’m not sure what you mean about keeping the charts from the previous years. Is your meaning that it gives you a better insight into the coaching “style”, that it gives you better insight into the player’s capabilities, or both?

It shows what pitch they hit and where they hit it. Again, if a player is a pull hitter in 2012 e is most likely a pull hitter in 2013. Also if he chases CB in the dirt in 2012 he does it in 2013.

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When you say you attempt to get out and see any top 10 teams play throughout the year, how do you make that determination?

We have a preseason poll and it runs through the end of the season.

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Calling opponents to get scouting reports makes sense on its face, but I gotta tell ya, it would have me shakin’ in my boots to be making decisions based on what I learned from that. Of course I’m the eternal cynic, so of course I expect someone might give me some “tainted” information.

If you are cynical about this I feel bad for you. I have done this for the 11 years of being a head coach and I have never had ANYONE give me tainted information. Nor have I heard of this ever happening. IMO this would be taboo in our industry. There has even been times when the scouting report was so accurate that they saw things that I would have missed.

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Very interesting. I get the feeling you believe what you learned from 1 or maybe two games about the opposing hitters is strong enough information that its worth making a game plan on. That’s cool, because you have to start somewhere, but doing that for every player on the roster who might play seems like a bit of overkill.

Your way over thinking this. It is a simple as we tell our pitchers stuff like. No change ups.....We are going to bust this guy in.....All fastballs until he can prove he can hit it....This guy will chase fastballs up.

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I’m really curious about how you collate and present the data you gather on pitchers.

I look at the chart that we keep and do simple division. For instance if the pitcher has thrown 10 pitches in a 1-1 count and 8 of them were curve balls, this equals 80%. We post a chart on a wall that had any known pitchers from the team we are facing and it shows any counts that a pitch is thrown 80% of the time.

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Originally posted by IEBSBL:
I am looking specifically at how the hitter swings the bat, what he is over matched by and what gets him out. IMO the average HS baseball player and program does not work hard enough to change bad habits a get rid of weaknesses. If it is there in February it is there in April.

Don’t get angry here, I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. When you say “HS”, are you including Fr and JV teams along with the V? Remember, I put the restriction of HSV on the discussion, and I just want to make sure that’s what we’re talking about.

Having said that, I’ll definitely agree that its unlikely the “average” HSV player is going to change a lot once within the confines of one HS season. I also agree that the “average” HSV program isn't going to make changes to the “average” player in that same time frame. But then again, one must keep in mind what “average” means. Your philosophy will likely work beautifully in at least 2/3rds of the cases, but that still leaves a lot of room to be wrong.

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It shows what pitch they hit and where they hit it. Again, if a player is a pull hitter in 2012 e is most likely a pull hitter in 2013. Also if he chases CB in the dirt in 2012 he does it in 2013.

From that I take it that you’re one of those who believe sample size doesn’t have a great deal to do with what the data shows. IOW, when something is true based on facts, its true whether it happens 1,000 times or only once. And that’s fine because it means you’re playing the odds, plus when you have a history, it only increases the odds that you’re conclusions are correct.

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We have a preseason poll and it runs through the end of the season.

Really? We have nothing like that other than our local rag’s poll done by their people. But its really pretty poor because the teams change so much from pre-season to mid-season. If you use MaxPreps, which is a “national” service, they don’t start posting rankings until around the halfway point. There’s just way too many teams to get a very accurate poll.

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If you are cynical about this I feel bad for you. I have done this for the 11 years of being a head coach and I have never had ANYONE give me tainted information. Nor have I heard of this ever happening. IMO this would be taboo in our industry. There has even been times when the scouting report was so accurate that they saw things that I would have missed.

Well, I never said I couldn’t be wrong, but I honestly find it hard to believe there’s an accurate scouting HSV database running around out there, or that all HSV coaches never makes scouting mistakes. Please don’t get me wrong here. I honestly wish there were a good national database like they have for the ML/MiL, but I just don’t know of its existence.

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Your way over thinking this. It is a simple as we tell our pitchers stuff like. No change ups.....We are going to bust this guy in.....All fastballs until he can prove he can hit it....This guy will chase fastballs up.

Really? I’m overthinking it? Actually, I was thinking much the same thing about you. After all, how far off would you be to tell you pitchers to do that with every single hitter, sight unseen? I mean that is pretty much the quintessential pitching philosophy for every level from kid pitch to the ML. So its not that I disagree with the philosophy at all! Its that I don’t know if its worth all the time and effort at the HSV level to come up with a “better” philosophy for opponent hitters, when that one would work on at least 85% of all HSV hitters.

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I look at the chart that we keep and do simple division. For instance if the pitcher has thrown 10 pitches in a 1-1 count and 8 of them were curve balls, this equals 80%. We post a chart on a wall that had any known pitchers from the team we are facing and it shows any counts that a pitch is thrown 80% of the time.

Hmmmm. From that I take it you aren’t using a spreadsheet or some kind of database manager to help you out. Do you also chart pitch locations? Again, please don’t mind me. Its like a puzzle to me to try to come up with a way to make the computer make your life easier. I’ve done similar things a few times over the years, and the actual machinations of making it work aren’t actually all that difficult. But it almost always comes down to actually entering the data into the computer that things fall apart.

It’s a shame, but there’s no way around data entry. If it isn’t done “real time” or when it happens, it has to be done at some later time. That can be a daunting task, especially considering there are so many data points to enter. FI, on any pitch there’s the pitch type(FB,CU,etc.), the pitch location(1-thru 9, quadrants, or something else), what the result was(ball, SwM, SwF, Miss, BIP), what the scoring result was(S,D,T,HR,FO,etc..), and the field location the BIP went(7,7s,9d,56,etc….), and of course the trajectory of the BIP(F,L,G,P).

That’s at least 6 pieces of data for any 1 pitch, and depending on how sophisticated the software was, it could be anywhere from 6 keystrokes, mouse clicks, or whatever, to maybe 15 for every pitch. When you consider anywhere from 150 to 400 pitches for any individual game, that represents a heck of a lot of time. That’s time many coaches just don’t have, and rather than spend it getting the data put into a form it could be manipulated, they’ll generally stick with pencil, paper, and calculator. That works, but it means a lot of possible information is missed.

As I get more info from you, I’ll add it to my little “project”, and show it to you later on. Maybe it’ll gove you some ideas you hadn’t thought of before. Ya never know!

Hey IEBSBL, while I was working on trying to come up with something for you, a little “issue” came to light that I thought I’d ask about for discussion’s sake.

When your scouts are charting, how do they differentiate between several pitches on the same umpire’s count? You said: “For instance if the pitcher has thrown 10 pitches in a 1-1 count and 8 of them were curve balls, this equals 80%.” Using that as an example, let’s say the count was 1-2 after 3 pitches, and the 4th pitch was curve that got fouled, the 5th was a FB that got fouled, and the 6th was a CU that got fouled, and the 7th was a curve that got put into play.

When you do your calculations, do you only include the final pitch or do you count each one separately?

Very interesting question. I have always only calculated that first pitch and disregarded the rest if the count remained the same. My reason behind this is due to the fact that I believe that every pitch predicates the next pitch. Therefore the only pitch I consider in this equation was the first pitch in the count. In order to differentiate between pitches we circle a strike called, we box a swing and a miss, we triangle a ball put in play, and we put a dot next to anything that was fouled.

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Originally posted by IEBSBL:
Very interesting question. I have always only calculated that first pitch and disregarded the rest if the count remained the same. My reason behind this is due to the fact that I believe that every pitch predicates the next pitch. Therefore the only pitch I consider in this equation was the first pitch in the count. In order to differentiate between pitches we circle a strike called, we box a swing and a miss, we triangle a ball put in play, and we put a dot next to anything that was fouled.

I believe the same thing, and that’s why I’ve always kept track of what took place by both the umpire’s count and the REAL count. At one time I did a lot of work on BA on count, and the numbers really change when you look at what happens on 2 strike umpire’s counts as opposed to the sequence of the pitch.

I wasn’t asking because I thought what you would come up with would be invalid if you did it the way you said, because if I had the computer do it, it would do it both ways automatically. The real difference is, when the computer is doing the scoring, as happens when I score a game now-a-days, all that stuff is done automatically. In your case, every single thing is done manually. So if I did come up with something, I’d have to try to find a way to input what you’ve written down, in as efficient manner as possible, and that’s where the wicket gets sticky.

If you wouldn’t mind helping me out here, I could use a bit of guidance. Picture yourself scouting a game. What’s the order of the information you put down on paper? I’m ASSUMING its pitch type, location, ball/foul/miss/called/BIP, result, location of BIP. But since I don’t “chart” pitches, I’m only guessing, and that guess is a logical progression for me.

As I’m messing with this thing, I’m seeing a lot of ways to make it really “tight”, but in order to do that, there has to be some “housekeeping” up front that most people don’t want to mess with. But we’ll see.

On the left hand side of the paper there is a column running down in which we list all of the players in the lineup. Each lineup box is gridded with for smaller grids to the immediate right for at bats. This allows us to write the situation i.e 1st inning bases loaded 1 out. Going across the top of the paper is the counts. 0-0, 1-2, 3-2, etc. Under each count we record the pitch. We list the numerical number of the pitch throw and if the pitch misses the location we use an arrow to indicate where it missed.

I think I can picture it, but would it be possible for you to e-mail me a pic or better yet a copy of one of those sheets? I’ll PM my email address to you.

The biggest problem for me is, I'm going by what your saying, which is OK, but if I misinterpret anything, of course what I'll come up with would be wrong. Also, there are things you wouldn't have to do if the computer were to do it, and that makes a difference as well.

Check your PMs.

Stats check your PM

Doc-K,

I looked and found one from you from Jul 13, and I answered it. I apologize to you and anyone else who’s sent me a PM and didn’t get a response. I found 2 others in there I hadn’t noticed as well, and all I can say is, the notification system hasn’t caught my eye. Now that I’m aware what it looks like, I will be more vigilant. Again, I hope you accept my humble apologies for seeming so rude.

No worries stats, I know how difficult it can be to catch the notification.

Thanks for the help.

Forgive me if I screw this up. I've never tried to directly post a pic.

OK IEBSBL, since I haven’t gotten a copy of one of your “charts”, I have little choice but strike out(that’s a pun) on my own!



Now don’t be frightened! Its only a toy and can be changed at will. I use lots of bright colors to make sure things stand out. Its just something I need in order to get where I want to go.

The 1st thing I see getting marked is the “zone”. That’s the 4 boxes on the left. All 4 are white to begin, and a simple mouse click will change the selected zone to red. I original had it set up in ( boxes in the strike zone and another 16 outside of it, but to me it looked way too complicated, and without having access to a Pitch(f/x) machine, there’s no way in heck to narrow down a pitch to one of 25 specific spots. This way its 1,2,3,or 4, and the other choices will narrow it down with more precision.

To me, the next logical thing to mark would be a pitch type. They all start out with the same background color, but making a choice will turn the background of the choice yellow. You can make as many different choices as you want and the last one will always show. That’s how all of the other choices will work as well. So if you choose a curve and decide it was a slider, just change it.

The next thing that should be marked as far as I’m concerned, is how the pitch was called or was handled by the batter. If the ball was put into play, the next thing to mark would be the “trajectory” of the BIP. The next thing was something a coach recently told me was important to him, and it made sense to me so I put it in. Notice I kept it as simple as possible to avoid spending more time trying to figger out if it was routine or not than necessary. Next came the end result of the BIP, and finally the location it was hit. I could have made the location a lot more complex, but I figgered for what we were doing, you didn’t need to know if a line drive single was hit to right, short right, deep right, right center, or down the line.

So, this particular record shows a pitch down and in to a RHB was a 4 seamer, the ball was put into play as a routine popup in the area near the 2nd baseman, and it was caught for an out. Of course if it wasn’t put into play, none of those items need be marked. If I were to continue, I’d have it automatically keep track of both the umpire’s and the “real” count too.

I know its pretty crude, but I haven’t gotten to spend a great deal of time on it, so no laughter please, and keep the derision down to levels that won’t make me cry.

Jeez folks, is it that bad?

Stats, just 4 zones?

Intentional ball? Sinker vs. just 2SFB? Bunt? SAC? Speed? What if it's hit to LF, but the CF catches it? What if AB 'ends' on pickoff/CS? Hit into DP/TP?

Now, if you could save this in Pitch F/X xml format...

/ I'm bored, watching the Mets flail about tonight.

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
Stats, just 4 zones?

As I mentioned earlier, I also did one with 15 zones, but it made absolutely no sense to me. Who can tell the difference in pitch location within 6”? I could do it, but the truth is, for this application, which is scouting, who really cares? What will the added precision do to help any of the hitters, even if they believe whoever’s doing the charting has eyes that good?

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Intentional ball? Sinker vs. just 2SFB? Bunt? SAC? Speed? What if it's hit to LF, but the CF catches it?

I never differentiate between a ball and an intentional ball, but even if I did, In HS, I can count the number of intentional balls I‘ve seen in the last 15 years on 1 finger. Remember, HSB doesn’t require the pitcher to throw the ball.

I originally had it as 2 seam FB/Sinker, but the label was too long. Besides, again, this is supposedly a scouting tool, and I seriously doubt many HS scouts could tell whatever difference there might be between a sinker and a 2 seamer. I know I couldn’t because to me they’re the same thing. I don’t know what a bunt or a sac could add to the mix for these scouting purposes. But even if they could, I’ve found that when things get too complicated looking for minute precision, it flat out takes too long and when that happens, people tend to get sloppy.

Who cares who catches the ball? Its only a very general location of where the ball was hit.

By speed, I assume you mean velocity. Its another one of those things that to me makes no sense as a data point for scouting purposes. But like any of those items, it could be put in if the user really wanted it. If I were making it for use on my team’s pitchers to try to find things that might help them, it would look a little different.

Stats, is this a program you are writing?

stats, I was trying to get your stuff to match up with (ex. tonight's game) Pitch F/X.

The Dad version could add 5 mph to velocity!

I was a software product manager once so forgive me ...

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Originally posted by Stats4Gnats:
I never differentiate between a ball and an intentional ball, but even if I did, In HS, I can count the number of intentional balls I‘ve seen in the last 15 years on 1 finger.

We see lots of IBB in HSV to create a force at 1B/2B. Plus, your program would lock up if you cant close out the batter.

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I originally had it as 2 seam FB/Sinker, but the label was too long. Besides, again, this is supposedly a scouting tool, and I seriously doubt many HS scouts could tell whatever difference there might be between a sinker and a 2 seamer.

Pitch F/x just uses '2sfb' which includes sinker (down) and tailing (across), and combos.

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Who cares who catches the ball? Its only a very general location of where the ball was hit.

Just trying to clarify the RH column, in case a different user was entering data.

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By speed, I assume you mean velocity. Its another one of those things that to me makes no sense as a data point for scouting purposes.

Wouldn't you want to use speed for 'scouting purposes'? Every scout that I see has a radar gun.

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Originally posted by Ametsman: Stats, is this a program you are writing?

I don’t know that I’d characterize it as a “program” as much as tinkering around with something IEBSBL and I were talking about to see how I might be able to make his efforts a little easier and more efficient. At this point it works, but its more like a work in progress.

If it were me, I’d put it on a laptop and hand it to my “scout” and let him do it real time, thus skipping all the later data entry. But, it could just as easy be done by letting the “scout” use paper and pencil just as they are now, then entering the data later on. But the main point is, once its in the computer, all kinds of things can be done with it, just like any other statistic.

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat: stats, I was trying to get your stuff to match up with

The Dad version could add 5 mph to velocity!

I doubt that my stuff would ever match up perfectly with pitch(f/x) because I don’t sit there trying to be perfect. I’m sitting in the living room with the game on, switching between it and watching recordings of Bones or checking out what’s going on on MSNBC, while answering phones, doors, carrying on conversations with people in the house, and having my life shattered by the guys putting on a new roof.

When I do ML games, what I’m doing is testing my scoring program to see what things could be improved, and finding things that aren’t working as intended, not trying to provide perfect information that could easily be gotten elsewhere. But, what are you finding that’s wrong? I’d be interested in knowing if it was intended as something I didn’t care about, or if it was just me being distracted.

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
We see lots of IBB in HSV to create a force at 1B/2B. Plus, your program would lock up if you cant close out the batter.

I doubt that you see “LOTS” of them, but I agree they do happen. But what’s that got to do with anything? I’m not seeing your point.

Since you don’t know how my program functions, you couldn’t possible know if it would “lock up” or not, but if it worked the way you THINK it does, it probably wouldn’t work well.

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Pitch F/x just uses '2sfb' which includes sinker (down) and tailing (across), and combos.

I guess I got that one right by accident.

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Just trying to clarify the RH column, in case a different user was entering data.

I haven’t tried to label anything to clarify use, because its only a bunch of random thoughts thrown together quickly to try to get some kind of “vision” about how the final product would look. Plus, its intent was very specific in that I was basing it on one specific person’s specific needs. That means it many not be what I’d do for myself, and it certainly wouldn’t be what I’d come up with for an application that would be used by many different people.

But, the next time I play around with it, I’ll go ahead and stick some labels on it.

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Wouldn't you want to use speed for 'scouting purposes'? Every scout that I see has a radar gun.

You’re confusing a scout who’s looking for talented players to possibly draft or offer a ‘ship to, with a scout who’s gone to a HSV game to see how the other team plays, and maybe get some idea about player and coach tendencies. Does it really make any difference to a coach if one of his future opponent’s pitchers throws his BF at 82, 86, or 91? Now if I was seeing this thing up for a ML scout, it would look and act entirely differently because the goal was entirely different.

I did something similar for a local pitching coach, and its goal was very different from what a HS scout or ML scout was looking for, and so it was very different in its operation too.

I appreciate your interest and comments, but this is why I got out of the software development racket. Its difficult to make something very simple and easy to use for many different people because they almost all have something they want that no one else does. So, instead of ending up with Notepad that does just a few things very well but is simple to use, you end up with Word, that has more bells and whistles than the a railroad, and ends up being something only a few people in the world can use to its full capabilities.

I’ve run into some unforeseen difficulties with my scoring program that take priority over everything else, so it may be a while before I get back to this, but rest assured, I’ll get back to it. I’m thinking of a couple specific local coaches here who might like to have a copy to toy around with.

Woah, I thought you were asking for comments/critiques. Whatever.

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Originally posted by SultanofSwat:
Woah, I thought you were asking for comments/critiques. Whatever.

I WAS! I hope you don’t think I didn’t appreciate what you said. I was only replying to those comments.

You should know better than most, that there are always some ruffled feathers in the early stages of program creation, especially when there are no written specs, which there aren’t here. I’m just trying very hard not to end up wasting my time on something I’ll never earn a dime from.

I do this all the time for people who’ve never considered having someone create a piece of custom software for them to make something a lot easier. It almost always starts out small, then grows into something that takes up so much time, its impossible to do it for nothing, and few are willing to pay anything because they have no concept of what their or my time is worth.

I figgered I’d spend 15-20 hours messing around with it off and on over the next few months, and it wouldn’t be any big deal because there’d be no rush. But if I try to do it the same way I’d do it for a real customer who needed something comprehensive and in a hurry, all I’d be doin’ is spinnin’ my wheels for nothing. This way I might be able to help someone who won’t be using it to make $$$$, but rather using it to further a good cause, and the only way to do that is KISS. As long as I don’t try to make it do everything possible, I can keep goin’ and won’t mind a bit.

So keep on with the comments. They cost nothing, always help with the thought process, and for sure I don’t claim to be able to think of everything.

Article, Putting Together a Scouting Report, by GA Tech pitching coach

Like everything, there are templates for what works best in general, but the ability to do it varies greatly depending on the program. I’d venture a guess that not many college programs have the resources Ga Tech has, and for sure not a lot of HSs do. That means coaches like IEBSBL have to do whatever they can that’s within their means and they feel works for them.

Stats...Sorry it took me so long, I went on vacation. Check your email for the chart you had requested.