How important are stats?

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Oct 15, 2013
727
63
Seattle, WA
I was talking to a coach last night about playing time and batting order etc and he told me he never looks at stats. He told me you have to go by your eye because stats lie.

I believe stats can be deceptive, if you have a small sample size, but that direct observation or "eyeballing" is subject to all sorts of inaccuracies, biases and prejudices.

What say you?
 
Oct 7, 2015
72
8
I think it's a combination of the two things. Stats can be deceiving but they can also provide insight. There have been times when a girl is 0 for in a tournament but then I remember that she hit the ball hard almost every time and really got hit with a little bad luck. The inverse can be true. A girl's 3 for 3 in a game with 3 duck farts.

To say you never look at them though is also wrong in my opinion. Sometimes you can have a perception of a girl that is outdated or unfair and looking at the stats can help you see that. Sometimes you just can't remember all the hits as well and stats help you remember.
 
Aug 29, 2011
2,581
83
NorCal
Stats can be useful but can also be misleading.
I think you need to use a combination of both but given the small samples of stats, the "eye" test is usually more important.
Though often times the stats tend to line up with what you see with your eyes.
 
May 20, 2016
433
63
I believe in stats. While they don't tell the whole story, they do give you the general gist of it. If stats weren't a proven element there would be no such thing as statisticians. Obviously you are not basing judgement off of a small sample size but once a reasonable sample size is accumulated, it tends to stay on that same trajectory.

Way is saw it this year is during the fall they compiled all the stats and really utilized them in the spring. And really what they did in the fall is what they tended to do in the spring.
 
Jun 11, 2013
2,619
113
I like stats to use as a backup to what I think I'm seeing. The 2 things that can be missed is a kid who has a couple of great hits every weekend that everyone remembers but has an OBP of 200 and the kid who is getting on a lot but doesn't have anything that you really remember but has a 500 OBP.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
Stats over the very short term (a game or two) aren't worth much. As observed above, someone can be 0-3 and unlucky with three rocket-shots, and someone else 3-3 with bloopers and seeing-eye grounders. However, that tends to normalize over the length of a tournament. Rolling stats sampled over 2-3 back-to-back tournaments tell a relevant and compelling story; if you ignore it in favor of what you "think" you see, you're short-changing your team.

A player who CAN hit the ball really well, but rarely does, isn't nearly as useful as someone who regularly hits solid singles, occasionally a double, and draws walks when they don't hit. Which would you rather have in a higher spot in the lineup...a player who went 1-4 with a triple / HR, or a player that went 4-4 with two base hits and two walks? Or even 3-4? Sure, if that HR comes with bases loaded and down by three in the final inning, it's pretty important, but if it's a solo shot, not so much.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
Why would you do such a thing? Why would a coach allow such a thing? Let the coach do the coaching, and you do the clapping/cheering.

Why is talking generally with a coach about how they think about playing time or batting lineup somehow off limits? A coach who is secure with his thought process shouldn't have any problem sharing it with a player, parent, or bystander. For the team AND parents, it really shouldn't be any sort of secret.
 

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