SportStats

For many of you, perhaps you don't have a central reporting site for your stats. In the St. Louis area including the Metro East, we report to sportstats. The system if flawed at best but it is free. As SKeep pointed out, there is a flaw on OBP. The bigger flaw is that not all teams use it OR submit inaccurate stats. You might question why inaccurate stats are submitted. I don't know. However, at the end of the year during All Conference Meetings, coaches will walk in with stats that are totally different than the ones on sportstats. These stats are important in that they are used by two major newspapers for our various All-Area Teams. One other thing, you might believe that using such a service would enable a coach to pad the stats of their players. Believe me, that kind of stuff makes the rounds quickly around here.

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Originally posted by CoachB25:
For many of you, perhaps you don't have a central reporting site for your stats. In the St. Louis area including the Metro East, we report to sportstats. The system if flawed at best but it is free.

There are a lot of different opinions by HS coaches about reporting their team’s stats, and although I believe its great for the players for a lot of reasons, if a coach doesn’t want to do it, that decision has to be respected.

I’m definitely not pushing anything here, but a couple of years ago CBS bought out the prep stat gathering organization that was doing a great deal of California, and when it did, it created a place where any school anywhere in the country can submit its stats, upload pictures and videos, and do a few other things.

Its called MaxPreps and can be seen here. http://www.maxpreps.com/FanPages/aboutus.mxp

Personally, I don’t care if people use MaxPreps, SportStats, or any other organization, but I really do think its in everyone’s best interest find a central place, rather than all the local places. I don’t think it’s a good thing because its would be a place recruiters could go, but rather that it would be a place people could go to to see how other Prep athletes all over the country were doing.

There’s another current thread here about a pitcher who was under the radar. I wanted to see what I could find out about him, and had one devil of a time doing it! For me it would have been nice to go to a central place I knew how to navigate around, pop in the lad’s name, and presto, been able to get all kinds of information.

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As SKeep pointed out, there is a flaw on OBP. The bigger flaw is that not all teams use it OR submit inaccurate stats.

That statement is right on target! As the scorekeeper and statistician for a HS team, I know how much of a pain in the rear it can be to glean all the information out of a scorebook, then get to the web site and submit it in the format they want it in.

Part of the reason is, it takes time, but a bigger part of the reason is, not all scorers track all the things that are asked for. Here’s my team’s MP stat page.
http://www.maxpreps.com/FanPages/TeamFrame.mxp/AreaID-d...ing_07-08/California

If you notice, I’ve made sure that every field available has the numbers, but I guarantee you that is a rare instance. Many teams report nothing, and many more only report partial numbers, and worse, many do just as CoachB25 says, and submit inaccurate numbers.

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You might question why inaccurate stats are submitted. I don't know. However, at the end of the year during All Conference Meetings, coaches will walk in with stats that are totally different than the ones on sportstats.

Right now I think baseball at the prep level is really going through a lot of growing pains. Believe it or not, there are a heck of a lot of coaches out there who are really ignorant about the use of stats in the modern game, and they simply don’t trust them. Then there are a lot of coaches who believe they’re a source of information for opponents that will cost them some ball games.

Well, the only way to learn to trust the numbers is to make sure they’re valid, and that’s with the coach’s control. As for being a source of information for opponents, of course they can be! So what? As long as there’s an equal opportunity for everyone to do it, what’s the big deal?

And think of this. Who would be able to exploit anything found in the numbers better than ML teams? But everyone’s on equal footing because there is a central place for all the numbers, and everyone has equal access. Learning to use those numbers to help your team is perfectly fine, but purposely submitting false numbers to mislead or confuse people, is walking the line between cheating and using a technicality to gain an advantage.

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These stats are important in that they are used by two major newspapers for our various All-Area Teams.

Not only that, they’re also used to some degree by recruiters and/or scouts. Of course they’re not good enough numbers to draft someone or give them a full ride at a $90K per year college, but they definitely can be used to identify someone who might otherwise not get much notice.

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One other thing, you might believe that using such a service would enable a coach to pad the stats of their players. Believe me, that kind of stuff makes the rounds quickly around here.

Many a coach has been exposed padding stats to give his players a helpful boost, and its getting easier to do that all the time. Its shameful and dishonest, but let’s face it, its gonna happen. When a player’s BA can be helped by a teeny manipulation, the temptation is always there to take advantage.

Here’s an example. Last season we had a player get 33 hits in 94 AB’s for a .351 BA. Just changing 2 of his ROEs to hits would raise his BA by 21 points to .372! Adding 2 more walks and taking away 2 of his ABs would raise it by another 8 points to .380, and his OBP would go from .429 to .464 for a nice little 35 point hike.

Pitchers can be helped just as easily, and so can runners or fielders! IOW, if someone wants to cheat, its pretty simple. I’m really ashamed to say this, but here in Ca, there were 17 players who batted more than .600 last season, and 19 teams that had a team BA over .400! Let it sink in and think about that. Of course there are a lot of reasonable explanations, but c’mon!

Although I turn in my stats to the local Daily Herald which does a leader board in various categories I have not turned my stats in to some of these online stat programs as yet. Im torn a bit but 1 reason is I don't want my opponent having all my stats at his disposal before I play a 3 game series. I don't believe any college coach is recruiting athletes based on stats. Not with only 11.7 scholarships available to him. The level of competition we all play makes these stats dubious from the start in alot of cases. If I'm playing a great schedule my kids .300 BA is more impressive than some kid who is hitting .400 against weak competition. I understand some of the positives but I'm just not there yet. I hope you don't paint all coaches as lazy for not posting their stats. Some of us just haven't bought into it yet. Maybe in the future but I'm not convinced on the benefits at this point. And I understand that there may be some coaches out there that lie about stats. I agree it will catch up to them when they lose the trust of their fellow coaches in all conf / all area / all state selection meetings.

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Originally posted by GBS25:
Although I turn in my stats to the local Daily Herald which does a leader board in various categories I have not turned my stats in to some of these online stat programs as yet. Im torn a bit but 1 reason is I don't want my opponent having all my stats at his disposal before I play a 3 game series.

Why? What are you worried about? Do you think an opponent is going to be able to glean some information about your team that you haven’t already seen and taken steps to correct? Just out of curiosity, what do you think another coach could find out from stats?

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I don't believe any college coach is recruiting athletes based on stats. Not with only 11.7 scholarships available to him.

Agree 100%! But its not that anyone uses the stats to give away anything sight unseen, but some good numbers might just get a kid a chance at getting a look that he might not have gotten.

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The level of competition we all play makes these stats dubious from the start in alot of cases. If I'm playing a great schedule my kids .300 BA is more impressive than some kid who is hitting .400 against weak competition.

Again, very true. But who’s in control of the schedule, at least to some degree? YOU ARE! CoachB25 told me about how one of the 1st things he did when taking over the program at his school, was to make sure he scheduled more good teams. Many good coach es do exactly the same thing. There’s nothing anyone can do about their conference because those are games that have to be played. But there’s a lot of leeway non-conference games.

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I understand some of the positives but I'm just not there yet.

That’s ok and easy to understand, at least for me. Change takes time!

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I hope you don't paint all coaches as lazy for not posting their stats.

Absolutely not!!!!!!! I’ve learned how many things are drawing on a HS coach’s time, and they have to prioritize. I’ve also become painfully aware that I’m an aberration.

Not only do I keep score, I’m the guy who posts the roster and keeps it updated on the school site, and all the other sites. I’m the guy who posts the schedules on those sites too. I’m the guy who makes sure there are maps to every away field we’ll play at, plus to and from any hotels we may have to stay at. I also maintain the phone and e-mail roster so the coach can get hold of whoever he needs to.

I’ve only missed scoring 1 game in 6 years of scoring regular season HS games. Not only do I keep score, I double check the book and enter all the numbers into a program I wrote. Then I print out game stats after every game and send them to all the coaches. I print out all the pitching stats for the pitching coach, hitting stats for the hitting coach, and defensive stats for the fielding coach. Then I post all the stats on my web site, plus do a play by play newsletter of every game so that people who can’t make it to the games get some sense of what happened. After all that’s done, I send in the numbers to the main newspaper and the little local paper too. then I get into MaxPreps and enter all the data for the game.

I do that 3 games a week from the start of the season in Feb until the last game of the season. That isn’t a brag, its to show that of all people, I do understand how long it takes to do all that stuff! If our coach had to do it all, it would be at least 15-20 hours a week he would be able to devote to the team or his family, and that’s why a lot of coaches don’t make it a high priority.

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Some of us just haven't bought into it yet. Maybe in the future but I'm not convinced on the benefits at this point.

And that’s perfectly ok, as long as you’re being intellectually honest about being open to the benefits.

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And I understand that there may be some coaches out there that lie about stats. I agree it will catch up to them when they lose the trust of their fellow coaches in all conf / all area / all state selection meetings.

That’s exactly what eventually happens in many of the cases, but if I wanted too, I could cook the books and no one would ever know! Like I said, if one truly understands the numbers, they can do wonders.

But all anyone has to do is look at our team numbers and they can pretty well tell our books are pretty straight. Although our team was ranked in the top 20 in the state for most of the year this past season, our team BA was .297, 59 points lower than the #100 team in BA in the state. And, our team ERA of 3.20 was a full 80 points below that of the #100 team’s ERA in the state.

Speaking of stats. Usually my players only get a chance to see the stats at our end of the year banquet. I give each a copy of conference and overall stats. I personally think that kids get too wrapped up in their stats and forget about what the most important stat which is the record. I see our kids almost rip apart the Daily Herald sports section when the leader boards come out. I just want them to be focused on helping the team win, which doesn't always translate into more points on the batting average, etc.

I will however let players see certain team stats that I feel are important.
Examples: Percentage our 1st batter in the inning reaches base vs. opponents, 1st batter on scoring percentage, walks that score for and against us, etc.

I just feel if someone wants to find out something about my team (scout us) they should work at it and come to a game to scout us. In one of our tournament games this spring (and I wont name the team) our #3 hitter came to the plate with a man on 2b and no score with 2 outs and they pitched to him and he put us ahead 1-0 early in the game. A few innings later he came up with 2nd & 3rd and 2 outs/they pitched to him and he doubled in 2 more runs. If they(a team not from our newspaper area) had access to stats they would have known that this kid had 12 home runs and 60 RBIs against great competition and would have walked him. Who knows if we would have won. I know I know, if they're too lazy to scout us they're probably too lazy to hunt for stats on the net and their is probably some truth to that BUT if their is a parent or someone close to the team who sniffs around and is resourceful like you SKeep then who knows. I want every advantage I can get. Thats just my philosophy. Alot of teams in 3A want to play each other in the season now so they can say they beat this team or that team for seeding purposes and scout at the same time. I would rather play the bigger schools to get the best competition I can find and I know ill put the extra time in to scout all those teams. I understand that I'm an old school guy and maybe need to keep more of an open mind so i'll kick back and listen more and post less. I dont have an Ipod or know how to text message on a cell phone so obviously I need help.

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Originally posted by GBS25:
I just feel if someone wants to find out something about my team (scout us) they should work at it and come to a game to scout us.

Please have patience here. I’m not trying to trap you, but I am trying to get to the thinking that goes on in a coach’s mind.

I have no problem with you feeling that if the other team wants to know something about your team that they should come and scout in person, but what is it you think can be deduced from looking at stats that could help another coach? Remember, we’re not talking about stats the Sabermetricians do from MLB data, but the normal run-of-the-mill data available for most HS teams, it they do stats.

Also, what kind of information can an opponent get from scouting a team in person.

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In one of our tournament games this spring (and I wont name the team) our #3 hitter came to the plate with a man on 2b and no score with 2 outs and they pitched to him and he put us ahead 1-0 early in the game. A few innings later he came up with 2nd & 3rd and 2 outs/they pitched to him and he doubled in 2 more runs. If they(a team not from our newspaper area) had access to stats they would have known that this kid had 12 home runs and 60 RBIs against great competition and would have walked him. Who knows if we would have won.

If you were the other coach and had that info, would you have IW’d that same batter?

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I know I know, if they're too lazy to scout us they're probably too lazy to hunt for stats on the net and their is probably some truth to that BUT if their is a parent or someone close to the team who sniffs around and is resourceful like you SKeep then who knows. I want every advantage I can get. Thats just my philosophy.

Actually, IMHO, there aren’t a lot of people who are willing to take the time necessary to actually pull a lot of USEFUL data from even the most meticulously kept data, with the widest variety of presentations, for a HS game. I can tell you a great deal about our players, but remember, I watch every game, and every pitch, so I can put everything in context. Could I look at someone else’s NORMAL data and get a lot? I doubt it.

I can tell who’s got the most hits, who’s likely to strike out more than another player, who might be most likely to steal, and likely a few other things, but they’d all be taken out of context.

I have to wonder about you really wanting every advantage you can get. If you don’t have your stat guy/gal producing good numbers for you, I honestly believe you’re missing a lot of opportunities to plug holes and exploit opportunities. However, that’s a pretty normal thing at the HS level.

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Alot of teams in 3A want to play each other in the season now so they can say they beat this team or that team for seeding purposes and scout at the same time. I would rather play the bigger schools to get the best competition I can find and I know ill put the extra time in to scout all those teams.

How a coach schedules his team is up to him. I know I’ve seen a lot of schools who do just as you’ve said, then seem to freeze up at crunch time, while other teams may not have had the greatest record, but because they were playing very good competition, seem to pound ya in the dirt before you know what happened.

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I understand that I'm an old school guy and maybe need to keep more of an open mind so i'll kick back and listen more and post less.

I certainly hope you don’t do that! No matter whether you’re an old school guy or one who carries around Bill James’ books like they’re scripture, you have a lot to offer! That’s why I’m trying hard not to put you down, but to understand what you do, why you do it, and hopefully pass on a bit of info to you. We’re not in a competition here, we’re supposed to be trying to help each other.

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I dont have an Ipod or know how to text message on a cell phone so obviously I need help.

looking at and understanding baseball statistics isn’t magic! I’ll bet that on some of the most complicated stats I generate, you’d completely understand them with just a minimum of effort. That’s because I don’t do anything new, but just present it in a different way.

Do me a favor and go to http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/cbatting.pdf
Page 19 and page 45. Do you see anything useful in either of them? Please also look at page 45 and page 142 of http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/cpitching.pdf. Is there anything on either of them you don’t understand? And finally look at page 5 of http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/ccounts.pdf. Is that at all interesting?

Is there any statistic you’ve always wanted to see, but never been able to get?

Well just a couple of things. #1 if I was facing our team I would have walked this young man intentionally in both instances. His offensive stats were off the charts compared to the rest of our team and including the kid who bats after him. As for scouting I had at least 2 and in some cases 3 scouting reports on everyone we played in the tournament including 1 team I scouted 3 times personally. I dont think its an advantage to see someone just once but 2-3 times can provide some good information on how to pitch to certain hitters, opponents strengths and weaknesses, pick plays, etc. You'd be suprised. As for stats I use turbo stats and have the last 10 years. It provides me with more information about our team than I could ever imagine using. I input all the games myself but still have to dissect the book at night as my scorekeeper is not an adult.

I used to post stats online, until I had a parent complain about their son's batting average and how he has three hits in his book that we had as ROE. I haven't posted them since that day.

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Originally posted by GBS25:
Well just a couple of things. #1 if I was facing our team I would have walked this young man intentionally in both instances. His offensive stats were off the charts compared to the rest of our team and including the kid who bats after him.

Well, that would be your prerogative as the coach. Personally, I’d rather see the pitchers face the toughest hitters and the hitters face the toughest pitchers.

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As for scouting I had at least 2 and in some cases 3 scouting reports on everyone we played in the tournament including 1 team I scouted 3 times personally.

Its relatively easy to scout at tournaments because you often have everyone close at hand, and a lot of free time. What about during the regular season? Do you go out and personally scout anyone, or get reports from your scouts?

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I dont think its an advantage to see someone just once but 2-3 times can provide some good information on how to pitch to certain hitters, opponents strengths and weaknesses, pick plays, etc. You'd be suprised.

No, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

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As for stats I use turbo stats and have the last 10 years. It provides me with more information about our team than I could ever imagine using. I input all the games myself but still have to dissect the book at night as my scorekeeper is not an adult.

Turbostats is a good program. Personally, I like to do things a little more off the beaten path though, and like having the ability to program them myself.

I have no problem at all with not having an adult keeping score. Where I have my problem is with having a scorer who doesn’t understand the scoring rules. I’ve had to dissect more than a few books others have done, and trying to get good information out of them is often impossible. Trying to compute things like RBI’s and ER’s are extremely difficult, but there are a myriad of other things that are really hard to get out of a scorebook you didn’t keep.

Out of curiosity, why wouldn’t you try to use some of the information turbostats provides?

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Originally posted by BCRockets:
I used to post stats online, until I had a parent complain about their son's batting average and how he has three hits in his book that we had as ROE. I haven't posted them since that day.

Really? You allowed one parent to have that kind of control over you and ruin what maybe 500 other parents actually enjoyed? I’ve heard that from coaches before, and frankly don’t understand why they get so bothered. As the teams scorer, as you can guess, I’ve had similar things happen to me hundreds of times, even during games when I’m trying to do my job.

Most often I’ll whip a rule book on them and show where they were wrong. In cases where judgment’s involved, I’ll simply say that I’ve been studying the scoring rules and keeping score for every level from LL to semi-pro for well over 45 years, and I used my best judgment and experience. If they disagree, that’s just he way its gonna be.

Would you change the way you coach because some parent didn’t like it? I don’t mean to come off as being snippy or lecturing, but I honestly don’t get why anyone would get upset about such things as long as they knew they were doing the best job possible. The numbers are what they are, end of story.

I think it's admirable to want to see those matchups but in the "state tournament" I will make my decisions based on what gives me the best chance to win. I'll allow for those matchups during non conference games or in the summer. I only scout for the state tournament because as you said the schedule begins to lighten up a bit and I have my lower level coaches available as well when their season ends. I do use some of the info Turbo Stats supplies but 1 major issue in the spring is time so I pretty much stick to the traditional stats. If you don't stay right on top of inputing the games you can get backed up. I try to make it as easy for myself as possible with all the things I have going on during the season. As the season progresses I have alot of responsibilities within the coaches association and my conference. All area conference rep, Plainfield South Camp conf rep and coach, All State chairman. Of course Im sure you know that 5% of the people do 95% of the work in just about any business. I'm hoping some others in our conference and state will step up and get involved in our association.

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Originally posted by GBS25:
I think it's admirable to want to see those matchups but in the "state tournament" I will make my decisions based on what gives me the best chance to win. I'll allow for those matchups during non conference games or in the summer. I only scout for the state tournament because as you said the schedule begins to lighten up a bit and I have my lower level coaches available as well when their season ends.

I guess what I’d like to see is something closer to what MLB has to offer by having a centralized place where anyone could see the numbers for any other team. Once that happens, its entirely on a team whether or not they want to take advantage of the numbers or not.

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I do use some of the info Turbo Stats supplies but 1 major issue in the spring is time so I pretty much stick to the traditional stats. If you don't stay right on top of inputing the games you can get backed up.

I guess I don’t understand why it is people tend to not want to stray too far from traditional stats. I realize any change is difficult, but I guess that’s the difference between someone used to looking at different stats and one that isn’t.

I guess I also don’t understand why you don’t just have the SK input the data too. Remember, I’m someone who’s always done that and volunteered, so I really don’t know how difficult it is to find someone trustworthy.

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I try to make it as easy for myself as possible with all the things I have going on during the season. As the season progresses I have alot of responsibilities within the coaches association and my conference. All area conference rep, Plainfield South Camp conf rep and coach, All State chairman. Of course Im sure you know that 5% of the people do 95% of the work in just about any business. I'm hoping some others in our conference and state will step up and get involved in our association.

Which is why I don’t get why you wouldn’t delegate as much of the grunt work as possible. I don’t mean this in a bad way so don’t get angry, but it seems a lot like the same mindset that makes so many coaches feel like they have to call pitches rather than just teach the catchers and pitchers how to do it for themselves.

Everything so easy when lookin’ from the outside in, isn’t it. LOL!

Actually, I’m very pleased to say that in the last 20 years, statistics have taken on a heck of a lot more prominence in the game at the lower levels, and are taking on more importance all the time. As that happens, the need to have good SKs is also being understood more and more too. Its just the game evolving a bit more.

I don't call pitches nor do i blame my catchers/pitchers if they make a bad call. i might call 7-8 pitches a game. It's my job to teach them the strategies behind calling a smart game. As for allowing a kid to input the stats I just don't want the kids handling a $2000.00 laptop that is loaded with programs such as a video analysis program, sound director for my sound system and others. I have had a few parents in the past that have done the book and it was great but usually try to keep the parents at a distance to be honest when it comes to game day. I may play around with turbostats and call the company to see what other things it has to offer that i might be able to incorporate. You have at least convinced me of that.

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Originally posted by GBS25:
I don't call pitches nor do i blame my catchers/pitchers if they make a bad call. i might call 7-8 pitches a game. It's my job to teach them the strategies behind calling a smart game.

You’ve just made my list of heroes!

Understanding that you can only speak about the coaches you see, what percentage of HS coaches would you say do what you do? Maybe its just something in the water(or water pipe) out here, but I’m gonna guess 1 coach in 20 doesn’t call pitches. It just happens to be something I look for because it interests me, and I can only remember 4 coaches in the last 2 seasons who didn’t do it.

We already know I agree with your approach, but I just gotta ask something. Do you think its easier on you as a coach being able to concentrate on other things instead of trying to deal with pitch calling, or is it more time consuming trying to teach a bunch of knuckleheads how to do it for themselves?

Do you find you get more incoming players who have been coached to call their own games, or do you feel you’re starting from scratch with most of them? Do you start them on the road to ‘wisdom” in your Fr program, or do you wait until they get to the V?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but its really darn difficult to get coaches to talk about this particular subject.

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As for allowing a kid to input the stats I just don't want the kids handling a $2000.00 laptop that is loaded with programs such as a video analysis program, sound director for my sound system and others.

OOPS! My bad again. Here I was putting you into my experiences.

The times I’ve seen turbostats used, a copy of the program was on a server, and anyone who could get on the net could use it. Also, I don’t know if the version you have has the capability to import files. If I remember correctly, you can get the format, then literally use a text editor to create the files.

I got all PO’d at MaxPreps because they only allowed imports from a couple different stat programs, TS being one of them. But when I asked, they had no problem giving me the file format, and rather than have to input each stat for each player for each game, I just made my program create a text file that I tell MP to import. I realize it might be a bit scary if you’re not familiar with such things, but I’ll just bet those folks could help you in a heartbeat. Anyway, those are just a couple of thoughts that might help.

[/QUOTE]I have had a few parents in the past that have done the book and it was great but usually try to keep the parents at a distance to be honest when it comes to game day. [/QUOTE]
Honest, I completely understand! On a game day, I’ll get to the field about an hour and a half early for home games and an hour early for away games. I do that to give the coach all the time I can to get whatever he needs to do done, plus if he needs me to do something I’m not rushed. Other than that, I’ll generally say hello and that’s the end of my contact with him. Of course I don’t have a kid on the team either.

After the game, when that last pitch is thrown and play is made, I’m outta there within 5 minutes! It takes me at least a half hour to get home, and when I do, I start on the things I do. I try to get the game numbers done and off to him before he gets home, and except for a few times in the last 2 years, I’ve been able to do that. He gets the batting, pitching, and defensive numbers for the game.

Other than that, I don’t really have much to say to him. If he needs something he’ll call or e-mail, and if I need something, I’ll do the same.

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I may play around with turbostats and call the company to see what other things it has to offer that i might be able to incorporate. You have at least convinced me of that.

Yahoo! That’s all I ever try to do, and I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t convinced that there were things that should at least be investigated. If you check it out and feel there’s nothing there for you, that’s fine, but at least you checked it out to see if there was something there that might give you that little edge.

I really appreciate you taking the time to answer a bunch of whacky questions from some nut you don’t even know. Thanx!