How important are stats?

[NBECoach]

I agree that HS stats are far from exact. When the all conference meetings are held and some coaches submit their nominees and supporting stats sometimes it becomes a head shaker.

Spoke to an AC at the college level recently about this and he indicated stats are only a small piece when looking at HS players.

 

[_MIA_]

Spoke to an AC at the college level recently about this and he indicated stats are only a small piece when looking at HS players.

Unless you know the area well, e.g. the level of competition, I would think that stats would be the last thing a college coach would look at, if they did at all.

 

[joe720]

Kind of two different things gong on in this thread. Most of the arguments i see against using stats is because of someone who is doing them is fudging them. That's not the stats fault, that's a bad book keeper. Stats in themselves have no bias.

 

[cnardone]

Why would you use MLB data when there is fastpitch data readily available? What kind of straw man nonsense is is that?

I could be very wrong, I never looked too deeply at it. I've just assumed (Poor decision on my part) that getting quality data, across age groups, that reflects the level of play you org / team is at might not be be all that easy. I get it, maybe the TOP orgs that play at the highest level. but there are a lot of orgs and teams that play at all different levels, with all sorts of wonky scoring (as been noted many times in this thread), that would not be reflective of the level of play.

More importantly, I am not sure that the average org has the resources on hand to do the regression analysis on any data (MLB, fastpitch or whatever), to glean any real insight. Being in the recruitment industry for the last 14 years, I assure you this is a skill set that is not readily available. I am not talking about using at stats, I am talking about MLB style analytics referenced earlier in the thread.

 

[uncdrew]

The main problem I had with stats is highlighted by this example.

Little Sally plays SS on the team and has a fielding percentage near 1.000. It's because she never moves a single step in any direction and tons of balls get by her. They really don't qualify as errors but she's simply not a good player.

 

[_MIA_]

The main problem I had with stats is highlighted by this example.

Little Sally plays SS on the team and has a fielding percentage near 1.000. It's because she never moves a single step in any direction and tons of balls get by her. They really don't qualify as errors but she's simply not a good player.

Not that you would use this in 10U softball, but there are fielding metrics which would place a low value on this player...

 

[bmakj]

The main problem I had with stats is highlighted by this example.

Little Sally plays SS on the team and has a fielding percentage near 1.000. It's because she never moves a single step in any direction and tons of balls get by her. They really don't qualify as errors but she's simply not a good player.

actually, they should be errors, if the play should have been made with reasonable effort, it should be an E. a rocket GB midway between SS and 3B is not an error, but a hard but not rocket GB three steps away from SS, yes that is an E.

 

[Westwind]

I have not figured out defensive stats but that’s probably on me.

When I look at fielding percentage it doesn’t seem to correlate to value in a defensive player at all. At least I can’t put the two together. Again, that’s probably on me.

The other thing is with younger kids we spend so much time teaching them to be quicker to get to more balls and get a glove on them but then we slap an E on them when they get to those tough balls and don’t catch them. I know, “ordinary effort” and all but the two ideas seem to conflict.

 

[joe720]

but a hard but not rocket GB three steps away from SS, yes that is an E.

Agreed. I did the books for a team this year. If i felt someone could or should make a play and they didn't, i marked it as an error. And my DD was the first to get an error in a case like that.

 

[_MIA_]

Agreed. I did the books for a team this year. If i felt someone could or should make a play and they didn't, i marked it as an error. And my DD was the first to get an error in a case like that.

If I was doing the book the criteria for my DD being charged with an error would be "Could Ozzie Smith have made that play??"