Tracking Pitching Stats

[jonnypar]

My main concern when tracking pitching stats is the total pitches per inning. I like it to be between 12 - 15 pitches per inning. If daughter meets this target then I know she's throwing quality pitches resulting in outs. All the other numbers should be pretty exceptable if the average pitch per inning stays where it should.

 

[starsnuffer]

Eh, pitch count per inning can often have very little to do with how well the pitcher is doing. Remember that the pitcher is just one aspect of the defense. She's there to get outs, not necessarily strike-outs. Often the most successful pitchers are the under appreciated ones. These are the pitchers that are able to force ground balls and pop flies, but may not always get the K's.

That said, I've had innings of 12u travel ball where the pitcher has had 7 strikeouts in one inning. Maybe she pitched 35 pitches to get it. Is she doing a bad job, or is it the catchers fault for letting that many drop balls get by her?

I had a girl on my fall team who was a very un-spectacular pitcher. She threw a great drop, but it wasn't too fast. Most batters would swing at it on the first or second pitch and connect, and be out every time with a groundball to short or second. (depending on an inside or outside pitch). If the shortstop wasn't playing great, then those outs would turn into hits. Pitcher's fault?

The only thing the pitcher can do, and that you can make sure she's doing by tracking stats, is to throw the pitch that is called for and hit the spot that is called for as consistently as possible. In most cases (unfortunately) the pitcher isn't deciding which pitches to throw, maybe the catcher or the coach is. Therefor, if she's throwing her awesome riseball and hitting that inside corner and it's getting the snot smacked out of it, it isn't the pitchers fault. She's pitching the pitch she's being called on to pitch. THAT'S what you need to track, that way you know if batter X can hit that riseball, or if the drop or change works better against them.

-W

 

[WiZ]

For me it's VERY simple.....

During the game: Pitched called w/results of pitch & then results of that batter

After the game: I total pitches, balls, strikes, strikeouts, hits, walks, runs allowed, & hit by pitch

 

[jonnypar]

I agree starsnuffer, many things come into play and girls will have bad days. I was using our team as my example. Our pitchers are not strike out pitchers. They put the pitch in spots that forces the batters to hit the ball into our defensive positioning and our catchers are good at keeping the ball in front of them. In my case pitches per inning is a good gauge on how our staff is doing. The other stats are looked at and taken advantage of as well.
And if a pitcher has 7 strike outs in one inning and the catcher is still in the game then fault lies with the coach for leaving his daughter behind the plate. LOL!

 

[fastpitch]

We use the iPad application which tracks a lot of different things. Besides standard era, K's, walks hits, I like the ball/strike ratio and first pitch strikes. The numbers don't lie.

 

[chinamigarden]

My wife bought the Game Changer app for her Ipod touch and she scores the game with it. You can upload the data to the central website and it takes the info and calculates a ton of stats for hitting, pitching and fielding. The stats that I found most useful for my daughter and her pitching are % of first pitch strikes and % of pitches for strikes. The rest are fun to see, era, whip... but at 12u I didn't think they were really indicative of what she did, as they were too dependent on how good the opponent was/is.