I would love to hear from anyone on this....
How much weight do stats at the JV level carry? Do coaches even care or get impressed with stats at the JV level?
What do they look for when considering giving their JV a shot to crack the starting line up?
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JV stats — 0
Attitude, effort, the ability to make varsity better — 100%
I think it really varies based on the program. The JV coaches in the best programs will communicate to the Varsity coach full scouting reports on everything: hustle, how they look in practice, what kind of teammate they are etc. They also will have more advanced stats to pass along beyond just batting average, such as Quality At Bat percentage, Line Drive Percentage, Chase rate. Of course that requires some extra hands on deck at the JV level that many programs don't have.
I'm sure in many programs the Varsity coach only has basic stats to go on. And Little Johnny with his duck snorts and squibbers and ground balls to short that resulted in errors that got recorded as "hits" might get moved up to Varsity with his impressive batting average.
Here's the thing though: it almost all comes out in the wash. Either Little Johnny can contribute at the Varsity level, or not. And there is value in putting the ball in play, maybe those dinks & duck snorts turn into a hot streak of line drives.
I've also seen, many times, the disadvantage of kids getting moved up too early. I've seen Freshman & Sophs get moved up and their deficiencies get revealed and it really can get them moved down the depth chart in the Varsity HC's mind longterm. And I've seen Underclassmen moved up, go 0 for 11 to start their Varsity career and end up in the coach's doghouse for the rest of their time at that school.
JV? Our varsity coach told the boys that batting average didn’t matter.
I think the stats are only good to confirm what the coaches already see or feel
I do think the stats get to the point where it shows that player in question is beyond JV.
Kid is hitting .536 with 4 doubles and a triple. They wont steal against him any more. JV just isn't a challenge this year.
2022NYC posted:I think the stats are only good to confirm what the coaches already see or feel
What if they refute what the coaches see or feel?
Or in our case the JV coach isn't relying the proper information to the varsity coach..
Our coach had no idea T was hitting line drives over peoples heads.... JV coach is more than likely losing his job at the end of the year... LOL
Kevin A posted:I would love to hear from anyone on this....
How much weight do stats at the JV level carry? Do coaches even care or get impressed with stats at the JV level?
What do they look for when considering giving their JV a shot to crack the starting line up?
Which coaches and which starting lineup are you referring to? Do you mean what the V coaches look at from the JV kids or whether the JV coaches use their own stats in making decisions about the JV lineup?
As V coach, I talk to my JV coach after each of their games. I want to know who hit the ball hard, who threw strikes and had command of their pitches, who played aggressively and attentively, who was showing good instinct, who had a good approach, who is making the adjustments that are being taught/suggested. I want to know about strike/ball ratio and who is letting it go instead of aiming. I don't care about who had x number of hits or who got the W on the bump.
We talk about what stuff will likely translate to V and what won't. Right now, our best JV pitcher from a W-L and ERA standpoint isn't throwing the ball hard enough to be effective at V, so we are considering dropping him down with his arm slot. He is a junior and even though he is having JV success, this is probably the only way he can earn a spot to contribute next year at V.
This said, I do look at stats to see what matches up with what we talk about. It almost always does. I also encourage the JV coach to keep stats up to date if for no other reason, to show the complaining parents that everyone is at least getting a reasonable number of AB's and only those who are bottom performers see opportunities diminish. Still, sample size is problematic here and the numbers don't always tell the story that daily performance at practice does.
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I'm 100% certain that this is exactly how it works at any HS with a competent coaching staff.
Even if they're not as thorough as this, when V coach has a need it comes down to "We need an arm - who's throwing the ball well?" not "Who's ERA is good right now?"
I have to agree. I think the first thing a V coach would do is talk to the JV coaches, to see how kids are progressing. Who has potential and who needs work.
I would hope their would be an ongoing dialog.
JV Stats mean nothing. A junior playing JV that goes 4-4 against a freshman pitcher throwing 73 shows up as a good day in the stats....but is completely meaningless when considering whether to move him up. If your Varsity coach is relying only on JV stats to consider who to move up and when, he's not much of a coach. He needs to talk to the JV coach, watch some games or at least attend some practices and see the kids for himself.
Buckeye 2015 posted: JV Stats mean nothing. A junior playing JV that goes 4-4 against a freshman pitcher throwing 73 shows up as a good day in the stats....but is completely meaningless when considering whether to move him up. If your Varsity coach is relying only on JV stats to consider who to move up and when, he's not much of a coach. He needs to talk to the JV coach, watch some games or at least attend some practices and see the kids for himself.
Will JV numbers tell whether a player will perform well on the V? Not very likely. However, a JV player going 4-4 against a Fr pitcher throwing 73 can certainly tell the HVC something if he has the sense to look at how all the other players did against the same pitcher. If the V needs a bat, would it be wiser to bring up the player who was 4-4 against the Fr throwing the ball 73mph or one going 0-4 with 3 Ks against the same pitcher?
What has to be understood is, no system of prediction is worth a crap unless all the players are considered and comparisons made.
Well I do think when it is extreme it has some influence. It won't matter that much but if a pitcher has a 12 era or a batter has a .100 BA the coach probably will consider that at least in the back of his mind and vice versa if he hits .500 or has a 2 era and lots of strikeouts.
Stats4Gnats posted:Buckeye 2015 posted: JV Stats mean nothing. A junior playing JV that goes 4-4 against a freshman pitcher throwing 73 shows up as a good day in the stats....but is completely meaningless when considering whether to move him up. If your Varsity coach is relying only on JV stats to consider who to move up and when, he's not much of a coach. He needs to talk to the JV coach, watch some games or at least attend some practices and see the kids for himself.
Will JV numbers tell whether a player will perform well on the V? Not very likely. However, a JV player going 4-4 against a Fr pitcher throwing 73 can certainly tell the HVC something if he has the sense to look at how all the other players did against the same pitcher. If the V needs a bat, would it be wiser to bring up the player who was 4-4 against the Fr throwing the ball 73mph or one going 0-4 with 3 Ks against the same pitcher?
What has to be understood is, no system of prediction is worth a crap unless all the players are considered and comparisons made.
You don't know our coach. 
For me, overall stats are worthless. Stats against quality opponents and conference are very important. I would like to know who was doing what because I need to know who has earned a call up for a given weekend and who might need to be re evaluated for more time overall with the varsity.
CoachB25 posted: For me, overall stats are worthless. Stats against quality opponents and conference are very important. I would like to know who was doing what because I need to know who has earned a call up for a given weekend and who might need to be re evaluated for more time overall with the varsity.
I happen to disagree that overall stats are worthless, but let’s assume they are. How is a quality opponent defined? We play 27 games a season, with 14 being conference games. Tell me how I identify the quality opponents.
Evidently we’re really different here when it comes to flipping players back and forth from the V to the JV and back. Players can go back and forth until a player plays against a conference opponent. Once that happens he can’t go back to the JV for the rest of the season. Not only that, Jrs and Srs can’t play on any team other than the V. So the only players that will be flipping back and forth will be Frs and Sos.
I’ve been down this “quality” opponent road a million times over the years and it never changes. There simply isn’t any viable way to identify a quality opponent. The opponent might be a crappy hitting team with a great pitcher or a great hitting team with a crappy pitcher. The only way to evaluate the stats is to do it the same way they do it in the ML. it doesn’t matter who the opponent is, all the stats get thrown into the mix.
I don’t care about JV stats. All I care about is the guys are getting good quality instruction. I want them to see how we do things and learn what is and is going to be expected of them. I’m going to have plenty of time to evaluate them as potential varsity players. What they can or can’t do at that point is what will matter. Their JV stats won’t matter one way or the other at that point.
I happen to disagree that overall stats are worthless, but let’s assume they are. How is a quality opponent defined? We play 27 games a season, with 14 being conference games. Tell me how I identify the quality opponents.
My son likes me to keep his HS stats, so I do. After each game I put a comment on the spreadsheet - "pitcher threw gas", or "pitcher mixed and located pitches well", or "pitcher s*cked", or "the whole team s*cked".
Stats4Gnats posted:CoachB25 posted: For me, overall stats are worthless. Stats against quality opponents and conference are very important. I would like to know who was doing what because I need to know who has earned a call up for a given weekend and who might need to be re evaluated for more time overall with the varsity.
I happen to disagree that overall stats are worthless, but let’s assume they are. How is a quality opponent defined? We play 27 games a season, with 14 being conference games. Tell me how I identify the quality opponents.
Evidently we’re really different here when it comes to flipping players back and forth from the V to the JV and back. Players can go back and forth until a player plays against a conference opponent. Once that happens he can’t go back to the JV for the rest of the season. Not only that, Jrs and Srs can’t play on any team other than the V. So the only players that will be flipping back and forth will be Frs and Sos.
I’ve been down this “quality” opponent road a million times over the years and it never changes. There simply isn’t any viable way to identify a quality opponent. The opponent might be a crappy hitting team with a great pitcher or a great hitting team with a crappy pitcher. The only way to evaluate the stats is to do it the same way they do it in the ML. it doesn’t matter who the opponent is, all the stats get thrown into the mix.
The reason is that the quality of opponents in a JV Schedule set the stage for a lot of padding of stats. If you are playing some programs that are down year after year, teams tend to run up the scores, steal multiple bases, ... Also, while some programs have SKs like you at the varsity level, few if any I know of have the same at the JV level. So, a dad keeps score, a player who doesn't know how to do so properly keeps score, ... I know one area coach who once said, "show me the stud of the JV team and I'll show you a player who never plays varsity." The reason for that statement is that the guys who remain on the JV Team throughout the year without being called up have great JV stats but have never impressed the HC enough to call them up.
When I speak in terms of "quality opponent," there are schools that have teams and schools that have programs. When you play those school that have programs, you know that year in and year out, they are the best in the area. For us, that typically means schools more than twice our size. For us, that means schools that routinely are ranked in USA Today, Collegiate Baseball, ... and teams that make it to state from both Missouri and Illinois. When a player does well against them, they have faced better than average pitching and defense. Some schools remain on schedules due to conference affiliations or even old conference affiliations but seldom have a quality jv team.
CoachB25 posted: The reason is that the quality of opponents in a JV Schedule set the stage for a lot of padding of stats. If you are playing some programs that are down year after year, teams tend to run up the scores, steal multiple bases, ... Also, while some programs have SKs like you at the varsity level, few if any I know of have the same at the JV level. So, a dad keeps score, a player who doesn't know how to do so properly keeps score, ... I know one area coach who once said, "show me the stud of the JV team and I'll show you a player who never plays varsity." The reason for that statement is that the guys who remain on the JV Team throughout the year without being called up have great JV stats but have never impressed the HC enough to call them up.
LOL! The quality of opponents in many V schedules set the stage for a lot of padding of stats!
When I speak in terms of "quality opponent," there are schools that have teams and schools that have programs. When you play those school that have programs, you know that year in and year out, they are the best in the area. For us, that typically means schools more than twice our size. For us, that means schools that routinely are ranked in USA Today, Collegiate Baseball, ... and teams that make it to state from both Missouri and Illinois. When a player does well against them, they have faced better than average pitching and defense. Some schools remain on schedules due to conference affiliations or even old conference affiliations but seldom have a quality jv team.
Size of schools isn’t really something affecting our opponents’ quality since we’re in the largest school division. We’re DI and played 1 game this year against a DIII school. Other than that we played 4 DII teams and the rest all DI’s. Please see attached.
So do you go through the stats and hand pick the ones played against what you see as “quality” opponents?
Yes but also how they do in practice with the varsity. We are a school of 1,000. We play is a similar sized conference. However, we play a lot of out of conference games against schools 2,000 (up to 2,600) or more. Typically, but not always, those schools are in one of the top conferences in the largest classification in our state. So, they are very good. We hold our own against them and then some.
CoachB25 posted: Yes but also how they do in practice with the varsity. We are a school of 1,000. We play is a similar sized conference. However, we play a lot of out of conference games against schools 2,000 (up to 2,600) or more. Typically, but not always, those schools are in one of the top conferences in the largest classification in our state. So, they are very good. We hold our own against them and then some.
I get all that, but you still haven’t told me how to identify a team where the stats should count or how to do that.
In the end, it really doesn’t matter to me how strong or weak an opponent was. I don’t judge players stats in a vacuum. When I look at a report like the attached and a metric like Run Production(see attached), I see every player and know that most of the “regulars” have played against both poor and great teams, and in the end the better players’ numbers will always average out better than the weaker players.
I think it's interesting that so many people apparently have separate JV and varsity teams. Our games are JV/varsity double headers, two coaches handle both teams. The question at our school is what does it take to get from freshman or sophomore team to JV/Varsity?
Even more odd, we have a freshman team, jv and varsity. It is very rare that a freshman is on anything other than freshman team.
Most JV around here play 5-10 games and don't keep many stats. Our JV only had 3 games. In CIF-SS the rosters are submitted to CIF after the season is over, so everyone can move up and down during the season but they can't play different level games in the same day. At one particular D1 school they have 60 kids practicing with each other and only 3 coaches, with varsity helping out the JV/Fr players. So they get feedback from both coaches and the varsity players on how practices go.
Iowamom23 posted:I think it's interesting that so many people apparently have separate JV and varsity teams. Our games are JV/varsity double headers, two coaches handle both teams. The question at our school is what does it take to get from freshman or sophomore team to JV/Varsity?
Only JV and Varsity here as well, but when it comes to games, if the Varsity is home, then JV is away or vice versa. Only time there has been JV - Varsity doubleheaders is if one or the other had their game postponed.
hsbaseball101 posted: Most JV around here play 5-10 games and don't keep many stats. Our JV only had 3 games. In CIF-SS the rosters are submitted to CIF after the season is over, so everyone can move up and down during the season but they can't play different level games in the same day. At one particular D1 school they have 60 kids practicing with each other and only 3 coaches, with varsity helping out the JV/Fr players. So they get feedback from both coaches and the varsity players on how practices go.
How are you making the determination that “Most JV around here play 5-10 games and don't keep many stats”? Are you looking at something like MaxPreps or are you using some other way?
