To Post Or Not To Post??

[skipper5]

I"m strongly against posting stats.
Everything I know about baseball players tells me that the less the players are exposed to stats, the better they play as individuals and as a TEAM.
To the greatest degree possible, I want my players to have short memories, focus on the process, and pull for their teammates. Posting stats works against this.

Teams would play best if they were convinced that no one was keeping a scorebook--IOW, if you hid your scorekeeper in the stands and never revealed his existence.

But I'm into stats, like any other bb coach.

TG-- I follow the careers of those two young men.
But I don't know why anybody would be expected to have heard of them.

[tg643]

...both used by coaches to determine the players abilities and team standings ... and ... subsequently the lineup.

No

A pitcher can have one horrific inning and kill his ERA in a high school size season. He could still be the best pitcher despite having the worst ERA. This is why I buy into what I see, not stats in small numbers. But the 90+ throwing pitcher who can't find the plate will be a pro prospect before the 80 mph pusser with good stuff who is all-conference. The 90+ pitcher has a tool (his arm). 80 mph isn't a tool.

Kiely and Killeen were both pro prospects out of Trinity in Connecticut. Trinity won the D3 national championship while they were there. Since you're from Conneticut and talk so much about pros can come from New England I figured you would know who the are given they were high profile college players in the state. Kiely finished the season in AAA after graduating in 08 and being drafted in the 26th round. Killeen graduated in 09. He was signed as a free agent. He's in Low A. Kiely is a prospect. I don't think Killeen is given he's a back up first baseman/catcher already.

[tg643]

TG-- I follow the careers of those two young men. But I don't know why anybody would be expected to have heard of them.

It was directed at Jake since he's in CT. Are you?

[tg643]

4) College coaches don't care about most stats-the competition is too varied anyways.

Not one coach has asked my son his baseball stats. The stats they've asked for are his sixty time, throwing velocity, gpa, sat scores, height and weight. He has been asked if he has at least gap power. All this does is create interest. They still want to see the tools at a showcase.

[Ursa Major]

I feel the need to post stats increases with the level of play at which you are competing -
For example:
12U All-stars - I discussed and did not post averages. This gave the players a basic understanding of where they stood and the reasons we make the decisions we make. (I feel the coach should have a reason that makes sense when determining his line up)

At middle school I posted several times per season.
At the HS level I posted every week.
As the they climb the ladder it gets smaller and they should understand where they stand.

I think this is a pretty solid rule of thumb, subject to some tweaking by coaches if it looks like the stats are becoming a distraction. Below HS level, they should be a tool for the coach, though an individual player or parent should be welcome to look at his own kid's stats.

Our HS JV coach posted stats about every ten days, and it was a good tool in this way. There were 18 kids on the squad, all vying for playing time. But a quick look at the stats pretty much answered the kids' questions as to why some kids were starting and others weren't. There wasn't too much griping about playing time. The coach kept his own book, so there was no grumbling about inept scoring.

Yeah, there can be some obsessing over stats, but I think it also helps focus the kids on getting hits and good AB's. Some of the bruisers like to load up and aim for fences and are as happy with a massive (but caught) fly ball as they would be with a seeing-eye single. Keeping stats brings 'em back to earth, and some of the guys with big reps as hitters are unmasked a little when the numbers come out.

One semi-humorous issue on that. Ursa Minor was placed on the HS JV team last spring on a slot called "pitcher-only", and was told that position playing time would come solely at the grace of the coach. He got some AB's early in the season and rode a .385 batting average and a 450+ OBP, and the coach insisted later on that he'd have to get him more position playing time because he was making the 'stars' look bad. (He was only half joking.) To be sure, UMinor's average came down to earth a little, and he came to his last AB in the last game of the season needing a hit to get to .300 exactly. He fisted what normally would have been an easy grounder right down the first base line .... but then the ball hit the 1st base bag and jumped over the firstbaseman's head for a single. You could almost see the coach groan as the ball hopped away.

[Cannonball]

Mud,

NO. How do you intend to keep the posting up to date? Are you able to keep them up to date? Are you able to keep them up to date? You see, I know a team that posts their stats on line and did so for about half of a season. Posted fall stats that were absolutely bogus. Then, stopped. Yet, those stats are still on line and do not reflect player success at all.

What about the level of play? Say you post John's stats and you play a tough schedule. His stats will suffer some due to the quality of play. Do the colleges know the level of play? If not, John's chances are diminished.

Instead, have John list the teams he is interested in and, as the coach, provide any insights to schedule and John's performance.


Just my 2 cents. With today's economy really worth about nothing.

[Jake Patterson]

TG-- I follow the careers of those two young men. But I don't know why anybody would be expected to have heard of them.

It was directed at Jake since he's in CT. Are you?

TG, I do not follow every pro prospect that comes from CT, at least not any more - I've been out of coaching for over a year. There have been a number of CT players make it to the pros. Trinity, UCONN, Eastern, etc all have pretty good programs.

[tg643]

Casali and Esposito are probably the two best prospects from CT. They're both starting for Vanderbilt. Casali has had some reocurring arm problems which put his future as a catcher in question. He played a lot of 1b and DH when he was healthy. With Giobbi (Mariners) graduated Casali will get another chance to secure the position. Esposito is a stud. Without having seen any MLB scouting reports I'd guess he's a top ten rounds prospect.

[mudvnine]

Gentlemen,

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful contributions; you really gave me some excellent things to think about, reevaluate, and make a decision from there. While I can't respond to all of your thoughts, I'll try to answer some of the questions you posted and give my general thoughts of how I may proceed.

12U and Younger
Since I doubt I'll have any of the 12's and/or under again (or until if/when grand-kids show up), I'll only share my agreement with those, that from my previous experience with those younger age levels, IMO, releasing stats is more of a distraction and hindrance than benefit for most all concerned for the numerous reasons that were listed.

1. Quality/reliability of stats that are being collected by volunteer SKers.
2. Kids needing to focus on game and not stats.
3. Embarrassment and selfishness.
4. They don't track, what you as a coach are looking for . . . "Quality" ABs.
5. They don't encourage the focus on the "process" and the "team" aspect.
6. Give opposing teams "scouting reports" for playoffs, and if Internet based, All-Star play.

Middle School (12 - 14)
I never really coached an official "Middle School" team, so I can't really address that, but with the TB teams I had at that age level; I found that with all of the games we played, and the up and down quality of the players on those teams, stats were not really necessary, as we were more of a tournament/academy team and not an actual "league" team were standings and stat were accumulated over a longer "season".

Our lineups changed frequently with a new tournament every weekend, or at least every other . . . with multiple games on those weekends . . . so innings played, positions played, and ABs were never really a problem with the players or PARENTS. Most, eventually settled in with their comfort zones whether in the field or in the batting order, and stats seemed pretty irrelevant . . .

High School
Now this is level that interested me the most for obvious reasons . . . and I'm very pleased that I asked the question and really appreciate the responses that I received . . . some definitely touched on areas that I hadn't previously even considered . . . again, excellent stuff.

Things I will be thinking about and/or reevaluating:

1. The possible(?) need to post stats for scouts and recruiters.
2. What "stats" are scouts and recruiters actually looking for?
3. Posting the "official" stats versus having a "parent's" stats floating around.
4. The availability (or lack there of), of a knowledgeable and qualified scorer (SK, the offer still stands )
5. Give a true reading to the players of the "looks" productive guys versus the actual "are" productive guys.
6. The variance of level of competition by school size and geographic areas, and how players "truly" compare to others with thus, "inflated" stats.

At the moment
So, with all things posted, I'm currently leaning towards staying with what I'm currently doing and not posting team stats, but not for the reasons some may think.

While I'm of the opinion that at this level, the players are of an age and maturity that I believe posting stats would be more of a value to them and all parties involved versus a hindrance. . . our method of collecting, tabulating, and posting is such that I don't feel that the accuracy of the stats would be of the quality necessary for posting accurately . . . especially pitching stats. The reason: Currently, our scorebook is kept by one of the players on the bench, not always the same one, and most often one looking to take a current players position; thus consistency, accuracy, and fairness, are IMO, a bit compromised.

Like most coaches, after the game I go over the scorebook with my assistant coach . . . there are numerous times where we look at an AB and have to redo the "single" that was booted by the RF with the runner ending up at third, that was scored a "triple. Or have to change the "E5" of the sizzling scorcher, that took one short hop bounce and dang nearly took the third baseman's ear off, to a "1B".

These are a couple of examples, as well as how RBI's are not typically marked correctly . . . and expecting them to assign ERs, versus UERs correctly is virtually impossible. So all-in-all, while I do see some value in letting the players see the stats more frequently, I don't wish to have to put in all the extra work to do so . . . unless I can find a reliable, regular, non-player scorekeeper available for the season.

NOTE: I recently purchased the 6-4-3 Baseball Scoring App for my Motorola Droid phone (that was created/developed by BBF member "blumer" who posts here) and have found it to be just outstanding with it's ease of use and its MANY features (pitch counts and locations, spray charts, game summary, season long stats accumulation . . . ) and hopefully will be able to find a parent or student volunteer "scorer", who is willing to learn the program (which is really quite easy), and then commit to following us to EVERY game . . . probably easier said than done.

Thanks again to all for your insight and help . . . if someone else still have something that they do to improve their stats gathering, or have some more positives to posting team stats regularly . . . please jump in and continue the thread, I'm always looking to learn and to find my next hidden advantage.

mud -

[tg643]

The possible(?) need to post stats for scouts and recruiters.
What "stats" are scouts and recruiters actually looking for?

My son has been out all summer and fall with an injury. But some college coaches have inquired about him to his travel coach and high school coach. Neither coach told my son they were asked about baseball stats. Stats are subjective to the competition. They asked verification of his sixty time, throwing velocity, height and weight. At one point they asked for grades and sats. Those are now officially on the NCAA Clearinghouse site. The other questions asked since both coaches know the game are, do you believe he can succeed at this level (the college in question) and how does he project as a player over the next couple of years. Since my son is injured the college coaches asked for a mechanics video. But they still want to see him workout in person this winter.

[Ursa Major]

MudV posted: Thank you all so much for your thoughtful contributions; you really gave me some excellent things to think about, reevaluate, and make a decision from there. While I can't respond to all of your thoughts, I'll try to answer some of the questions you posted and give my general thoughts of how I may proceed.

Mud, nice work on summing up the various schools of thought into one comprehensive post. Often threads will peter out and there won't be any clear compilation of the ideas contributed, so I fear that few are able to learn much from those threads. This post was a big help. (Jake .... I'm sensing moderator material here.....)

One additional thought, though. "Posting stats" is not necessarily an either/or -- i.e., yes/no -- decision. You can post stats some place that college recruiters and parents "in the know" might find them, which is a far cry from handing them out to players at practice (where they're likely to be distracted). Or you might give a copy to parents who request them and whose judgment you trust, with the caveat that they should not allow their kid to pore over it and further disseminate it to his teammates.

[Jake Patterson]

(Jake .... I'm sensing moderator material here.....)

Mud, nice job summarizing...

[Cannonball]

Mud,

I guess I missed the the high school portion of the question. I am in favor of posting HS stats since they are used for various post season awards. Typically, in most areas, they also have some "players to watch" articles at the beginning of a HS season as well and so, the players who make those lists benefit. You still have the typical problems with scoring and that can't be helped. Believe me, Scorekeeper and I have had more than one or two conversations about scoring/stats. Scorekeeper promotes the use of one website per stats for HS players and suggest that many schools and conferences use that site. In our area, the St. Louis Post Dispatch provides a site which HS coaches use. I like this site and so, include the url for it to any perspective college coaches. Note - yes, I understand that colleges do place little value on stats since they don't know the level of competition. As a way of demonstrating the type of info found on the site our HS uses and, as a way of posting my kid's stats so that any coach looking in can see them, here is the site:

http://stlhighschoolsports.com/sports/softballspring/09/stats/overall266.php

Mud et. al, I don't know that any college coach has ever gone to this site to check out stats. I do know that with my baseball boys, I was able to get a lot of them in to college. So, I'm assuming that college coaches used the site.

[scorekeeper]

I've always put stats on our LL team's website. It shows BA, OBP, SLG, ERA, and WHIP. I also kept a current paper copy with me at the games in case someone asked why they were batting at a certain spot in the order or why they were not pitching that game.

The only negative was that when we went into the All-Star playoffs, the opposing managers knew our players a little too well. In the first inning, I saw them moving their outfielders up and back depending on our batter's SLG.

To me, that’s a good description of how stats should be used. They’re nothing more than a tool, like a bat or a rake, and there’s no need to hide them, unless there’s some kind of hanky panky goin’ on.

When you noticed the opposing manager moving his defense, are you sure it was because of the stats you made public, or could it have been information based on scouting or other things? But no matter what, did you notice any of your hitters getting “robbed” because of special positioning of the fielders as opposed to what would have been “normal” for any batter?

[scorekeeper]

Because this topic is so close to my heart, I can’t help but make a couple comments.

As usual, one of my “hot button” items has been thrown around here a bit, so I want to make another plea for anyone to define it. What is a quality at bat? One of the reasons no scorekeeper tracks it, is because there is nothing even close to a universally accepted definition, any more than there’s one for who the “best” hitter on a team is.

To me, those are the kinds of things that cause the most angst among everyone. A coach says the best hitter should bat 3rd, then can’t define how that’ll be determined, or his definition changes day to day. Then when called on it by some parent, when they won’t accept the explanation of “gut” feelings or deep baseball understanding, they’re automatically put in the PITA parent category.

Another one is the PERCEPTION that the players go gaga over the stats, then turn into selfish and greedy players who sacrifice the team for their personal gain. Sorry guys, but I can’t think of a more closed minded piece of baseball dogma than that. It isn’t bad enough that its based purely on the feelings of a coach, but I don’t know there’s any way to actually prove it if it was true! What are the symptoms of a player totally caught up in his stats anyway? Maybe I’m just not smart enough to have picked up on them, Tell me so I can look for it.

I’ve always posted the stats for the teams I score for, from the LLI Minors team to the JUCO team my boy played on, and every team in between. Here’s the long and short of it.

From the coach’s standpoint, most don’t look at much of anything other than the old tried and true numbers they were judged by when they were playing. But almost every coach believes he has the secret answer in some stat or group of stats he relies heavily on.

From the player’s standpoint, I’d say that maybe a quarter of all the players admitted to even looking at the stats, but that’s a misleading number. Why? Because first of all, there’s no reason for ALL the players to look. A pure sub or mop up only pitcher isn’t going to look at his numbers for any reason other than everyone likes to see their name in print! That eliminates at least a fourth of all the players on a 16 player team, and more than that on teams with bigger rosters.

Of the position players and hitters, the only players that would have any reason to get all uppity about their numbers are the top players, and they don’t need to see the numbers to know they’re in that top category. There are enough people stroking them so they know how good they are perceived to be without the stats. The stats only confirm that in their minds, and it’s the same with the pitchers.

The thing is though, whether or not the stats are posted, the players all know, or at least think they know their position in the pecking order. So what happens by keeping them secret, is only a matter of them having a perception based on some kind of evidence, or on a “feeling”.

And when the kids get older as in HS, how foolish is it for a coach to believe his players aren’t gonna look in places like MaxPreps, that site CB mentioned, or a thousand more like it to see how their peers are doing? It only natural for people to want to know how they measure up. But when a kid looks and sees another leading the state with 10 HRs, it doesn’t sit very well knowing they have 12 but their coach won’t allow them to have that tiny bit of celebrity.

But where amateur baseball stats mean the most, is where they actually have the least to do with the game. It’s the parents who care! They’re the ones who want to see their kid’s name in print. They’re the ones who want bragging rights in the stands and at work. They’re the ones who tell the visiting recruiter how their boy led every team in hits from LL Minors to HSV! IOW, it’s a tool that allows the parents to get a little more return on his very substantial investment!

I can’t tell what ALL scouts do or don’t do, but I do know that at least some look at every available source to get players on their radar and to see how the one’s they know about are doing. Do I believe the coach of a small DIII or NAIA school in the mid Atlantic part of the country are gonna be looking at Seattle’s prep stats to see who they should go visit? Not hardly. But I know for sure that Ohio State looks at MaxPreps for football, baseball, basketball, and softball scholarship candidates, because I’ve talked to the AD’s assistant there who does the looking. You can pretty much bet they aren’t the only ones too.

So what does it boil down to? Pretty much what I say about everything, and that Mud fairly well pointed out. The situation determines everything. Where Mud wouldn’t want a snowball fight single to be scored a triple just because that’s where the runner happened to end up, others don’t care. So all the time he spends trying to make sure the data is a valid as possible is commendable, others just post whatever numbers come up, and those who refuse to take the time but want valid data, just won’t post them at all.

Everything depends on the situation!