How important are stats?

[texasheat]

Then I realized it's almost entirely steals of second with a runner on third (at our level, the catcher is only throwing if the runner is pretty slow).

That's not a stolen base, that's defensive indifference. The problem you have is a scorekeeper that doesn't know how to properly keep score.

 

[texasheat]

You don't know who your best hitters are without looking at stats?

You can't tell if a hitter is improving or on a hot streak without looking at stats?

I can get a sense of it but use stats to confirm. And on a A ball team that plays TCS and PGF National tournaments, the lines get blurred with so many good hitters. It's not as obvious as it is on a rec team or lower class team where the gaps between your best and worst are much wider.

Use both stats and your eyes but not just one. That's the point.

 

[Westwind]

Quote #87 by my dd’s 10u coach: “Stats help me decide if what I think I’m seeing is really what I’m seeing”.

I always look forward to that moment in the season when I feel like there are enough quality opponents to look at stats. There are always surprises.

If you have correctly collected stats it can help you get the right hitter in the right spot. A good hitter in the right spot is better than a good hitter in the wrong spot.

It can also keep you from making the same mistake over and over. I assistant coached with a guy who really liked to talk about stats. Yet he insisted on batting two kids in the 1 and 2 because they were fast and one was left handed. They were .250 OBP. Seemed like we started every game with 2 outs. I could not convince him to get them out of the top of the lineup. Hitters 3-8 were pretty fearsome. He bragged how “clutch” those hitters were because his stats showed how much hitting happened with two outs, lol

 

[Westwind]

Another example: our new hs coach is pretty decent for a first year coach.

Yet she had an injured player try to keep stats with an iPad. Never gave her any direction or training. The stats were pretty jacked up to say the least.

Even those stats had value though. It showed that she kept a .200 hitter with no xbh that had twice as many strikeouts as any regular starter in the 3 spot for the entire season.

Next problem was at the end of the season. When you compare your players against all the other players in the conference, region, state, and your stat keeper doesn’t know a sac bunt from a hit, a sac fly from a fly out or a single with three errors from a hr, you have problems. What is strange in this case is you would assume you would have a bunch of hitters hitting .750. It was the opposite. Everyone was 100-150 lower than they should be.

 

[_MIA_]

What is strange in this case is you would assume you would have a bunch of hitters hitting .750. It was the opposite. Everyone was 100-150 lower than they should be.

Were walks being counted as ABs?

 

[3girls]

The woman that does stats for my daughters HS team records anytime someone gets on bas as a hit. No errors are ever recorded. No sac flys, no fielder indifference. Even a FC is considered a hit.

We had everyone on the team with close to .500. It was crazy.

The only reason I wanted to look at them was for fielding percentage in two spots and of course they had 1.00 fielding percentage.

 

[uncdrew]

Were walks being counted as ABs?

GameChanger (used almost exclusively) won’t do or allow that.

 

[_MIA_]

GameChanger (used almost exclusively) won’t do or allow that.

Ok, I have never actually been GC person for a team.

 

[Westwind]

That’s my understanding of gamechanger too.

I think a lot of the problem was bunts being scored like a batted ball instead of a sac bunt, never giving a kid a sac fly, inconsistent interpretation of hit vs fc vs e etc. Garbage in, garbage out.

My buddy scored all the games after we finally got his freshman dd moved up to varsity. His stats were accurate.

HS can be such a sh**show. I really had to work to get his kid moved up. Replacing a lifetime .150 hitter with a kid that ended up being all conf., all area, all State was like pulling teeth. I kind of piled on when I submitted her to the local paper and she got area player of the week. Coach I Ain’t Got No Stats “doesn’t believe in individual recognition” and in the interview acted like she had no idea the kid could hit like that. Duh! You can’t hear that bat all the way across the practice field or gym?

 

[uncdrew]

Yes, all kinds of ways to enter stats incorrectly in game changer. I really like the system and using it. But it can lead to goofy stats (on purpose or by inexperience).