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These are questions for anyone who’s scored for a HS team for more than a couple seasons in a row.

About what percentage of returning players will change uniform numbers, and about what percentage of the jersey numbers will be found on different players than the season before?

If you are the statistician and you do combined stats for the different seasons, how do you do it?
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Stats, my experience is that 75% or so keep the same number.

At my son's HS, numbers are chosen in rank order based on years of varsity experience. He is the only returning senior with three letters so he gets first choice and will be #7 for the third straight year.

The only reason numbers change are because a returning letterman decides to make a change based on his favorite number becoming available in a later year. I've seen a lot of kids make varsity the first time as a junior, do well with the number they are handed and keep it for good luck as a senior.

I don't keep stats across multiple seasons, but if I did, I'd 'tag' the stats to a unique ID I'd assign to each player. His name and number would be attributes associated with his unique ID and be used to identify him in any given year. Name is unlikely to change but other attributes are (number, switch hitting, primary position, etc)
Last edited by JMoff
quote:
Originally posted by JMoff:
Stats, my experience is that 75% or so keep the same number.

At my son's HS, numbers are chosen in rank order based on years of varsity experience. He is the only returning senior with three letters so he gets first choice and will be #7 for the third straight year.

The only reason numbers change are because a returning letterman decides to make a change based on his favorite number becoming available in a later year. I've seen a lot of kids make varsity the first time as a junior, do well with the number they are handed and keep it for good luck as a senior.


That many huh? I can’t say for sure, but it seems like here, a lot has to do with whether or not the kid returning was a starter or not. But your answer brings up another question. How does that team award letters?

quote:
I don't keep stats across multiple seasons, but if I did, I'd 'tag' the stats to a unique ID I'd assign to each player. His name and number would be attributes associated with his unique ID and be used to identify him in any given year. Name is unlikely to change but other attributes are (number, switch hitting, primary position, etc)


Maybe I was just lucky in that when I started scoring seriously, I had a strong data base background, so applying that “tag” was only natural. It wasn’t very long before I was glad too, as kids left teams in the middle of seasons, only to have that number scarfed up by another player. Then too, there was the kid who forgot his jersey and needed to borrow a new one. It was early on too when I got fed up with coaches giving me lineup cards with no last names on them! Wink

So why don’t you keep combined numbers? To me its fascinating to be able to compare players from different seasons, and I’ve found that by keeping combined stats, the old complaint about the sample size being too small, it very much mitigated. Its not unusual to have players with more than 150 PAs, pitchers with over 100 IPs, or fielders with over 200 chances. Its not like college or the pros, but its far far better than having only 1 season’s numbers to work with.

You hit on something else I never felt the need to do, and that’s track switch hitters, or pitchers by their throwing hand. But I got the position thing easy enough because I’m so careful about defensive moves. I’ve always track the number of batters players were in positions for, and to do that, it was pretty easy to see who was where at what point in the game.
Last edited by Stats4Gnats

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