Scoring rules

[Scorekeeper]

I see what you're saying, but I don't think the quality of a thread on scoring questions would improve if there were a separate section for that.

Its not so much that it would improve the quality of the thread, but rather threads on nothing other than scoring and/or stats wouldn’t get lost in among the myriad of threads about game conduct rules.

Maybe its just that I don’t understand the complexities of making and maintaining a sub-forum. But it seems to me that if you can have 29 sub-forums like there is now, a 30th wouldn’t exactly break the bank.

 

[Scorekeeper]

For most of us (at the youth level), the "official" scorebook is kept by the home team. Sometimes it's an official book provided by the tournament director, or sometimes it's the home team's own book. Usually (in my experience), it's a parent who volunteers to handle the scorebook duties for the team. In other words, there are no special qualifications necessary to be the team's scorekeeper (that I'm aware of).

As far as I can tell, that’s pretty much the way it is for all amateur baseball and softball.

There are a lot of reasons, both good and bad, for things happening that way. And again, I’m not at all familiar with SB, but I’m gonna ASSUME that the age of metrics has reached SB the same way its reached BB, and with it comes the need for more accuracy and validity of what goes into the book.

In BB we’ve seen an explosion of electronic scoring app use, and from what I hear, the same has happened in SB. The main reason for that explosion is the stats that come out coaches have never had access to. Unfortunately there’s a fly in the ointment. Those scoring apps don’t score the game, they only store the data so it can be later used to generate metrics. IOW, if the person using the app doesn’t know the scoring rules, the numbers generated will be no better than what there was before.

Believe me, since GameChanger and IScore have come out, I’ve had just as many, if not more, occasions where I’ve had to correct another scorer, than before. So no matter what method one uses to score a game, they still need to know and understand the rules in order to get accurate and valid numbers, and that’s the “special qualification” needed.

For my DD's All-Star team last Summer, I was that guy, and I kept a book no matter whether were the home or visiting team.

Out of curiosity, what did you do with that book? Did you generate stats for the coach, and did he use them for anything, did you generate stats for the players and parents, or were you just doing it for yourself?

 

[Eric F]

Out of curiosity, what did you do with that book? Did you generate stats for the coach, and did he use them for anything, did you generate stats for the players and parents, or were you just doing it for yourself?

It was our HC's book. I just ran the book during the game because I did did a pretty good job with it, and I was the one who volunteered (I enjoy it quite a bit). The HC reviewed the book at home between tournaments. She kept track stats and trends during our all-star season, and made a few adjustments along the way based on the data. If I was able to take the book home, I would have provided the data to the HC.

We had another parent simultaneously keeping score with GameChanger, but he did it begrudgingly, and didn't do a particularly accurate job.

Scorekeeping data is only as good as the human input.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Here are links to the 2 fastpitch SB scoring guidelines I use as references.
…
The NCAA has official scoring rules included in their rulebook. The other guidance is a generic FP compilation as best I can tell. There are indeed some subtle and not so subtle differences relative to baseball. Like others have noted, pre-NCAA, softball official score keeping is not standardized - arbitrary and capricious often come to mind - and inter-team statistical comparisons aren't worth the paper they don't get printed on.

I skimmed over those 2 links and downloaded the NCAA rule book as well, and I agree with the assessment “There are indeed some subtle and not so subtle differences relative to baseball.”

And just so no one gets the idea I believe BB scoring in general is superior to SB scoring, even at the college level baseball scorers leave one heck of a lot to be desired. One of the main problems is that no rule set, BB or SB, other than the Official Baseball Rules(OBR) has taken the time to make it clear what’s expected from scorers when judging whether something should be scored an error as opposed to something else. That depends on how “ordinary effort” is defined, and from what I can see in both SB and BB NCAA rules, its not defined at all.

Here’s the definition from OBR Rule 2.00.

ORDINARY EFFORT is the effort that a fielder of average skill at a position in that league or classification of leagues should exhibit on a play, with due consideration given to the condition of the field and weather conditions.

Rule 2.00 (Ordinary Effort) Comment: This standard, called for several times in the Official Scoring Rules (e.g., Rules 10.05(a)(3), 10.05(a)(4), 10.05(a)(6), 10.05(b)(3) (Base Hits); 10.08(b) (Sacrifices); 10.12(a)(1) Comment, 10.12(d)(2) (Errors); and 10.13(a), 10.13(b) (Wild Pitches and Passed Balls)) and in the Official Baseball Rules (e.g., Rule 2.00 (Infield Fly)), is an objective standard in regard to any particular fielder. In other words, even if a fielder makes his best effort, if that effort falls short of what an average fielder at that position in that league would have made in a situation, the official scorer should charge that fielder with an error.

Without that definition, literally every scorer can have a different standard, and that causes problems.

There are a few here at DFP that like to wrestle with FP SB scoring interpretations, but no hardcore experts and no guarantees on the answers. I don't know where else you could find a larger group with that specific interest.

Well good on that group! Someone like myself who has a great deal of experience scoring and generating metrics would spend some time trying to pass on what help I could, but I’m not gonna search through 29 sub-forums looking. And that’s why I suggested a separate sub-forum. I could go straight to it with a link, and if there was anything there to comment on, I probably would, even if it were only once every couple of weeks.

That said, what do you have to lose? Try your luck here and see what happens. Generate enough interest and there's a good chance that a Scorekeeping sub-forum could be created.

Well, with 2 pages of comments, you can’t say I haven’t made an initial effort. Unfortunately, this time of the year is the low ebb of both BB and SB, so it would be difficult to get a lot of interest. But ya never know what I might do.

For anyone who love to look at numbers, BB or SB, here’s links to what I do for our HS team. Those particular numbers are from 2013 only, but I also provide the combined numbers from 2007-2013. Take a look and see if there’s anything there you find interesting. I’m always ready, willing, and able to explain anything I do, even when I’m wrong!

http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/batting13.pdf
http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/pitching13.pdf
http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/defense13.pdf

 

[Scorekeeper]

It was our HC's book. I just ran the book during the game because I did did a pretty good job with it, and I was the one who volunteered (I enjoy it quite a bit). The HC reviewed the book at home between tournaments. She kept track stats and trends during our all-star season, and made a few adjustments along the way based on the data. If I was able to take the book home, I would have provided the data to the HC.

That seems to be “normal” in amateur ball. I think a lot of it is because the generation of coaches now are a mixed bag of diehards who don’t trust anyone to do anything, younger folks who have grown up with technology and don’t mistrust it out of hand, and those coaches who have been ignorant in the past about what metrics could do for them but are slowly coming around.

I’ve been doing this so long, I have a rule when I score. I score the game, I take the book home and make sure everything’s correct, generate any metrics asked for as well as many I do for my own reasons. If the coach wants to “discuss” something with me, I’m all ears. But in nearly 20 years of scoring, there haven’t been a lot of times I’ve changed something in the book. That way everyone can count on consistent scoring from game to game, and that’s an extremely important thing. I also have an advantage in that my son’s been out of the game for almost 10 years now, so I have no dog in the fight, and that keeps a lot of folks who are stat watchers off the coach’s back.

We had another parent simultaneously keeping score with GameChanger, but he did it begrudgingly, and didn't do a particularly accurate job.

That’s really a bad idea for a couple reasons. If you’re keeping the book the coach is using to make decisions and someone else is looking at what this other person does, there’s no way it isn’t gonna be a problem sooner or later. But the biggest reason is, someone who really doesn’t want to do it in the 1st place is very likely gonna do a poor job, and that doesn’t help anyone.

Scorekeeping data is only as good as the human input.

Very true, and I wish more people understood that.

 

[Eric F]

That’s really a bad idea for a couple reasons. If you’re keeping the book the coach is using to make decisions and someone else is looking at what this other person does, there’s no way it isn’t gonna be a problem sooner or later. But the biggest reason is, someone who really doesn’t want to do it in the 1st place is very likely gonna do a poor job, and that doesn’t help anyone.

Agreed. However, at the 8U rec league all-star level, it isn't really a big deal.

 

[CoogansBluff]

Well good on that group! Someone like myself who has a great deal of experience scoring and generating metrics would spend some time trying to pass on what help I could, but I’m not gonna search through 29 sub-forums looking. And that’s why I suggested a separate sub-forum. I could go straight to it with a link, and if there was anything there to comment on, I probably would, even if it were only once every couple of weeks.

You make a good point there.

re: Ordinary effort -

When I score hit/error, my first question is typically: Did the fielder get herself into position to make a play on the ball? If not, then I typically rule a hit - no matter what the level, from MLB to little league. Being slow or awkward to the ball, or taking a bad angle, is not an error in my scorebook (with some exceptions, I'm sure, if I thought hard about it, but as a general rule).

However, failing to catch the ball once you're in position, or making a wild throw, is typically where I'm charging errors.

So the hardest calls - the ones where you are forced to define ''ordinary effort'' -- become those plays where the fielder must exert effort to get to the ball (wasn't hit right to her), but does get there, and then fails to make the play. Making a running catch, for example. This is routine at some levels, very difficult at others. That's where I would use the 'ordinary effort' rule.

My daughter a couple of weeks ago hit a fly ball to left center. Not a can of corn, but one that would get to the fence if nobody catches it. The RF was running 3/4 speed and backhanded it, but it dropped, while also negotiating the CF, who was bearing down on her, and the two then have a minor collision. DD gets to third. That's a triple in some leagues, an error in others, depending on what the scorer deems to be ordinary effort for the level in question. And the effort, IMO, doesn't apply to how well she got to the ball, but how well she handled the ball once getting there.

 

[BadMonkeys]

Scorekeeper-the threads you are looking for come up from time to time. This one http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-fielding/16538-errors.html popped up yesterday. It was posted in the fielding forum, not rules, so adding another forum wouldn't have gotten it there anyway.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Agreed. However, at the 8U rec league all-star level, it isn't really a big deal.

Well, it is and it isn’t a big deal. It isn’t because literally nothing that happens relative to stats makes much direct difference to the end result of a player. However, here’s the reality. Players who get better “numbers” will always be given more and better opportunities. That’s the way the world works. But that happens in every field of endeavor. What’s different in sports is this. When numbers for little kids are unrealistic for whatever reasons, that transfers to their parents, and shapes how they treat that child’s career moving on.

You might think you know how many parents have unrealistic expectations about their child, but trust me, no matter how bad you may think it is, its worse! I hear people at literally every HSV game I go to, go on about how their child did this at 10YO, that at 12, or this other thing when they were on the Fr. team. That would be a perfectly valid discussion if the scorers a those other venues were actually scoring games correctly, but that’s something rare rather than normal.

So, while the numbers for an 8YO SHOULD mean very little, the reality is they have a great deal to do with what happens later on.

 

[Scorekeeper]

CoogansBluff,

The main thing bearing on how something is scored, is the experience of the scorer at the level the games being played. FWIW, ALL HSV is not the same any more than all 12U is the same. There are subgroups, and most people don’t realize it. FI, someone will say HS SB or BB never once having it dawn on them that HSFr ball is still HS ball, but HSFr and HSV are very different animals.

Then inside that sub-group are other levels as well. FI, here in NorCal we have 7 different divisions. DI-DVII. I can tell you with all confidence, the “average” player in DI is different than the “average” player in DVII. Its not that there aren’t great players in every level, but when comparing schools with say 2,000 students to schools with 500 students, the depth of talent is very different.

Because of that, it really makes a difference how much experience the scorer has watching that level of ball. I have no doubt that if I decided to become familiar with the SB scoring rules, I could score a SB game. But I’m also very sure the 1st game I scored would be very different than say the 50th, and it would be because I have absolutely no idea what the average fielder is like at any level of SB.

I currently score for a big school with a great program. We’re almost always ranked in the top 500 teams in the country. That’s the only level of ball I’d scored, other than MLB for the last 4 years or so, so to give myself a little wake-up call, this past summer I scored for our incoming Fr/last year’s JV team. WHOA! It took me a few games to calibrate my mind to a level far below what I was used to. Its not that that team stunk at all. In fact, they had a great season, losing very few games. But things that would be normal play at the V level were often misplayed, and thus not errors. When fall ball came around and I started scoring for the V again, it was like night and day.

Another thing that happens to scorers, is they begin measuring all players based on the players they see every day. FI, let’s say you have a SS that’s on every college’s radar, with a group of ML scouts ogling him every game. Measuring the play of the “average” SS against his play is unfair to both.

In the end, all anyone can do, is the honest best they can, and that’s why its important to get scorers who want to do it.