Player stats

[Fielders Choice]

Coaches maintain player stats for batting averages, on base percentages, walks, pitching, and errors for many reasons. This information should be helpful in many ways for upcoming games Thoughts on player stats utilization?

 

[Softballdad48]

First things first, the stats are only as reliable as the scorekeeper. As a coach, if you are going to rely on stats to make game/lineup decisions, you have to train your book keeper to make sure they are keeping the records properly. Especially if you are having a mom or dad that sit outside of the dugout keeping the book.
As far as utilization of the stats go, I think they can be very useful. #1 is the ability to justify why little Suzy is sitting the bench on Sunday when her parents start complaining. Many parents, which I have been guilty of as well, tend to hang on to that ONE hit their DD had on Saturday and forget about the 3 strikeouts and 2 groundouts. Or that she had dropped two flyballs in the outfield.
#2, stats are very important for making your lineup. You can't possibly remember how every girl hit or played every game.
#3, as the girls get order, I think it is extremely helpful to show the girls how they are doing compared to the team averages. If the team avg. is .485 and your DD is only batting .310, then she knows she better start working a little harder.

Anyway, just my two cents.

 

[Westler33]

I would say stats are good for the coach only for the younger girls and the progression and development of the girls is important. For the older girls they might be some inspiration to work harder to improve so they can reach their goals but they are important to the coach.

 

[Balldiddly]

As a parent, I would like to see player stats to know how my DD is doing personally and compared to the rest of the team. It would be nice for her to see clear cut evidence that dedication and hard work do step up her game. It could also show her where she specifically needs to be spending time improving, and what she does exceptionally well. It would also stop many of the questions regarding who is on the field and why for both parents and players... imho

 

[coachjwb]

Softballdad said it pretty well ... well-kept stats (a word on that below) are great information for coaches in determining lineups, playing time, etc. Coaches are human and often have built in biases about certain players, a lot of which might come from what they see in practice. That bias needs to be compared to what the stats show is really happening on the field of play. While stats, especially early in a season, can be misleading, they shouldn't be overlooked either. Almost every year I coached there was at least one player whose stats were a lot better than I would have thought (and no, not the scorekeeper's DD!), and one whose were a lot worse and, if ignored, would have resulted in me not optimizing my lineup. And yes, they can also be a good defense for parents/players who complain about playing time.

Re: having good stats, I have always felt that it is the responsibility of the coach to find and if necessary train someone who keeps a good book, and then also to review the book and stats and ensure they are being done correctly and without bias to the scorekeeper's daughter/favorites. When I was coaching my daughter playing high school, her mom kept the book because she was actually pretty good doing it and because it made it handy for me ... unfortunately, she was biased towards the DD and a few of her closer friends, and I found myself having to make more corrections later on their stuff than I did some of the others. That caused more than a few arguments over the years, but in the end I think we had good stats!

 

[Scooter7]

Stats are just a broad indicator to be used as somewhat of a guideline in determining a lineup. Early on in the season, they can be all over the map, given high variability/probability towards either extreme...which doesn't lend itself to reflecting the consistency of player. That generally becomes more evident as time goes on and more data is acquired.

Add in other variables, such as matchups, mental toughness, attitude, persistence, participation, etc... and overall accurate stats MIGHT account for slightly more than 50% of the decision-making process.

The majority of players won't ask for them, and some parents already have their own set of stats.

 

[larrybowman]

Seen some teams who has mom-dad/gma-gpa keep stats.... needless to say there dd/gdd always batted 80 points higher than everyone else??????? But if kept correctly, I can see where it may be helpful to some......

 

[TR_Out]

I keep an "In-Game Coaches Sheet" on an index card where I write "1B" or "OE" etc that I can then compare to the book kept by our scorekeeper.

 

[swaves]

I will show my DD only if she asks.

 

[joboo1drew]

Another thing to keep in mind is stats need to be kept within context. Some players may only play in certain situations. Examples are hitters that only play against weaker competition or switching fielders agains same teams. This can skew the numbers that when taken out of context or to an eye that doesn't know will seem askew. Just my 2 cents.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

Re: having good stats, I have always felt that it is the responsibility of the coach to find and if necessary train someone who keeps a good book, and then also to review the book and stats and ensure they are being done correctly and without bias to the scorekeeper's daughter/favorites. ...

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?)

I love stats and they can be very useful, but there are lots of caveats. Besides accuracy, non-bias and context, they require a fair amount of data to generate meaningful values and then the differences in statistical values need to be kept in perspective. Stats from the first weekend(s) of the season lack sufficient data to be good indicators of what each player's performance will be over the rest of the season. They become more reliable as the body of data increases and the remainder of the season decreases.

Once you have enough data, you have to be careful to keep values that are calculated to thousandths in perspective and not overemphasize relatively small differences. A difference of 10-20 BA "points" is just 1-2% which is only 1-2 outcomes over 100 chances and probably within the margin of error. There is usually a substantial difference between the top third of the roster and the bottom third, but the differences amongst the bottom 1/3-1/2 of the roster are often relatively small and overemphasized when determining playing time.