tracking pitches

Does anybody have a way of keeping track of what pitches were call on a batter when they were at bat?

We play a lot of the same teams over and over and would like to start keeping a chart on the different team players so I can find what their weakness are. Is there an easy way of doing this?

Who's calling pitches? You or the catcher? Or some mix? If you're calling pitches you should only need a pen/pencil and a notebook with a separate page for each team you play.

If your catcher is calling pitches, hopefully she can remember what pitches she called for what batter.

Gamechanger software allows you to track each pitch thrown to each batter and the result - the only drawback is that the pitches are labeled for baseball.

I record our games with a GoPro on the backstop. They score them from home using iScore. iScore has a nice feature to score pitch location, pitch type, and speed. I just store location, but if you are so inclined, the others are available.

From John Gay's site:
http://softballclinics.com/pitchingchart.pdf
Pitching Chart Explanation

You can visit Softball Excellence. They review different pitch calling systems numbers, hand signs, wrist bands, etc) and also have a few different examples of pitch calling sheets.

sbcowboy said:

Does anybody have a way of keeping track of what pitches were call on a batter when they were at bat?

We play a lot of the same teams over and over and would like to start keeping a chart on the different team players so I can find what their weakness are. Is there an easy way of doing this?

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Keeping track isn’t really the problem. All you need for that is a pencil and paper. The problem is getting all that data into a computer so you can get it back out in a way that makes it easy to analyze.

We tried doing it with Game Changer one time, but the person keeping the stats quickly tired of having to watch every pitch call. You also have to factor in if the pitcher is hitting their spots. You throw a batter a screwball that doesn't screw and she hits it 275 ft, do you never throw her a screwball again or do you tell the pitcher "that will teach you not to hang a screwball down the middle of the plate"?

A lot of colleges track pitches because coaching is their full time job and their livelihood depends on winning games. They usually have a extra pitcher sitting on the bench doing it for them. In TB and HS we do not have that luxury unless you have a psycho statistician on your team....

Scorekeeper said:

Keeping track isn’t really the problem. All you need for that is a pencil and paper. The problem is getting all that data into a computer so you can get it back out in a way that makes it easy to analyze.

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Agreed. It is a lot of work, and is prone to much subjectivity. No matter where you locate, the guy behind the plate has a better view than you.

But when I was scoring, I wrote an interface (that I am no longer supporting) to iScore that would let me query all pitch locations by any number of combination of variables: batter, pitcher, team, lh/rh pitcher/batter, etc. Color coded (Blue=ball, red=strike looking, purple=strike swinging, etc.). iScore has an add-on by a company called TruMedia that offers a similar solution.

Josh Greer said:

Agreed. It is a lot of work, and is prone to much subjectivity. No matter where you locate, the guy behind the plate has a better view than you.

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That’s pretty much why I’ve always stayed as far away from charting pitches as humanly possible.

But when I was scoring, I wrote an interface (that I am no longer supporting) to iScore that would let me query all pitch locations by any number of combination of variables: batter, pitcher, team, lh/rh pitcher/batter, etc. Color coded (Blue=ball, red=strike looking, purple=strike swinging, etc.). iScore has an add-on by a company called TruMedia that offers a similar solution.

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That really looks great, and I applaud you for doing it. I hope one day accurate technology to provide the locations for those at levels lower than MLB will be available.