Stats

[GOINGDEEP]

GOINGDEEP,

You’re trying to generalize what happens with tens of thousands of players across the country and hundreds of schools by what happened to 2 players, and that’s good for nothing other than a good story. As I said, the situation dictates what happens.

I try not to generalize, I usually base my opinion on what I've seen/experienced personally.

Girl A, never even got a look. Why? Because she only played HS ball, and then in the inner city conference. The ICC is just plain awful, any college coach within 400 miles knows that. The fastest pitcher in that district throws under 45mph. The girl had a decent swing for those speeds, but once they played regional teams in the playoffs, the team always got run ruled, and she never even made contact with the ball. She couldn't handle the speed. So .650 meant nothing.

Girl B, 80+ stolen bases. You'd think the line of schools would wrap down the road trying to get her. Nope, she only had 2 offers, both out of state, prob because state schools knew the deal. She played in another ICC, no competition. She played on my DD's college team, after one game I knew WHY she wasn't wasn't playing for the Tide. She was fast, but couldn't swing a bat to get on base.......to steal. She prob got that record by courtesy running, not much good for college ball. Basically, 80 steals meant nothing.

My DD's senior year they sent 7 players up to the collegiate level, 2 D1, 1 NAIA, 1 D2, 3 jucos. No one hit over .390, no defensive or offensive stats where your jaw drops. We played in a strong conference, and even stronger region. If you hit over .300 you were considered a good hitter, over .350 a great hitter, close to .400 a goddess. We played over 50 games a year in HS, we played in state / regional / and national HS tournaments. Summer we played for feeder TB teams who worked with certain colleges. It was their ability to play harder schedules and hold their own physically, more than the numbers in the book, that caught the college eyes.

Stats are nice to tell your grandkids about, but they are of little help, generally, in the recruitment process. For one, colleges don't know the accuracy of the data, second they usually don't know your competition level. ( unless you're playing for a nationally known HS or TB program )

I hit over .800 one year in slow-pitch during the local beer league, 15 years later I have yet to receive any endorsement offers from Nike or Easton, even though I continue to send them emails weekly.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Is that kind of tone really necessary? Couldn't you just say "I don't agree that stats don't matter. In my experience they do..."?

Tone? If you read a tone in that post, chances are something I said struck home, and if it did, as I said in the post, its most likely because you didn’t think the process through.

I’ve been hearing this same kind of claptrap for many many years, and to be honest, in almost every case when someone takes the position that HS stats mean nothing, what they’re not doing is thinking about that they’re saying, which is what I was trying to convey. As much as some want to believe it, there’s no magic scholarship fairy that flits around from coach to coach, sprinkling fairy dust on them, after which they suddenly become aware of some player somewhere in the country that they were previously unaware of.

Something puts all players on the next level radar all right, but it ain’t fairy dust, its performance. And how is performance measured? It’s measured by statistics, valid or not, against good competition or bad. If you think college BB or SB has the millions of $$$$$ college FB has to go searching for players, you’re kidding yourself. And even in FB before a coach or scout shows up to put eyeballs on a player, you can bet your bippy they know just about every stat on that player there is, including his waist and foot size.

The stats do become almost irrelevant once real eyeballs are put on the player, but until then it’s all they have, other than the wink wink, nod, nod, contacts they get from friends of the program and alums. If you’re offended by what I said, you didn’t think it through or ask yourself this. “How do higher level programs become aware of players that might fit their programs?”

 

[Scorekeeper]

…Stats are nice to tell your grandkids about, but they are of little help, generally, in the recruitment process. …

Add I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Lobster Birch. If the stats mean little or nothing, “How do higher level programs become aware of players that might fit their programs?” Is it all word of mouth or is there some kind of clearinghouse for top players?

 

[knightsb]

“How do higher level programs become aware of players that might fit their programs?” Is it all word of mouth or is there some kind of clearinghouse for top players?

The players and parents need to take control of their recruiting. You are your own best marketing resource. Players should:

1. email college coaches expressing interest and their playing schedules.
2. call college coaches expressing interest and their playing schedules.
3. attend showcase events and follow up with colleges who were there watching.
4. attend college camps and communicate their desire to attend and play at the college.
5. create skills videos and provide them to college coaches.
6. consider TB programs that have a reputation for placing players at colleges.
7. attend third party camps put on by reputable groups like OnDeck

TB coaches also play a major roll. TB coaches:
1. develop relationships with college programs.
2. utilize college contacts to find out the needs of programs and communicate player info for those that fit the need.
3. put on clinics run by college coaches to assist in exposure for local players.
4. work tirelessly to gain admittance to events where colleges are known to scout.

If your DD has good stats, by all means make them a part of your communication to the college coaches, but that is but a small part of the overall process, IMHO.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Add I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Lobster Birch. If the stats mean little or nothing, “How do higher level programs become aware of players that might fit their programs?” Is it all word of mouth or is there some kind of clearinghouse for top players?

Pretty much word of mouth. Good programs have their mules out there, basically unpaid scouts which whom they have a history with and trust their judgment. Take me, a lowly TB coach, I knew the best hitters, players, pitchers within 300 miles of home. And it wasn't even a "job" or livelihood to me, like it would be a college coach. I either learned of the studs by watching, someone telling me about her, or someone telling someone then telling me. Exposure tournaments, even just regional ET's will have between 30-100 colleges there, National ET's even more.

College coaches also talk among each other, sometimes "horse trade" behind the curtain. Say you need a catcher, your fellow college friend has the number he needs, he says "there was one in ___ I was looking at, might fit your bill". Maybe a year later he returns the favor when you're looking for a SS.

 

[Greenmonsters]

As a college coach with limited time and recruiting budget, here's your choice to make between deciding to spend time to follow up and look further into 1 of 2 prospective student/athletes from different parts of the country who played on HS/TB teams you've never heard of: 1) a full set of stats for each player; or 2) a skills video of each player?

 

[CoogansBluff]

If your DD has good stats, by all means make them a part of your communication to the college coaches, but that is but a small part of the overall process, IMHO.

I agree w/ that.

But note that saying stats are a small part of the process is significantly different than saying that stats are meaningless.

For stats to mean more, they must be given context that can be trusted. It's not easy to do that. But let's say you play on a high school team that makes the state semifinals and has three major college prospects, and MaxPreps shows that you out-hit all of them. Would that get you a scholarship? No. But would that peek the interest of a college coach? It would if I were a coach.

Same with a travel team. If you can demonstrate that you are one of the top hitters on a team that the coach will recognize, or a team that has performed very well at a tournament that the coach will recognize and respect, then that has to get the attention of a coach.

And that's what recruiting is - getting the attention of a coach. There is no one thing that will get you recruited. It's a bunch of little things that get the coaches' attention. Stats don't do that as often as most people initially think, but they can be a factor.

 

[CoogansBluff]

re: Scorekeeper

I suspect that high school baseball stats carry more weight than high school softball stats. In my experience, baseball regions (conferences, leagues, whatever they may be called from state to state) have more depth and parity than softball regions. That's not from any measurable data, just my experience from watching both of them up close. I've seen high school regions where every starter on every team is a year-round player. If you play in a region like that, stats carry some weight. If you play in a softball region where the top two teams have college-committed pitchers and the bottom two have rec pitchers, and what's worse, rec outfielders where fly balls become doubles, then stats lose value quickly. I believe you see a little more of that in the high school softball experience than the high school baseball experience.

 

[CoreSoftball20]

BTW scorekeeper, if you read the OP's thread...he said "should HE start keeping stats for his daughter". I for one never said stats mean absolutely nothing...but a parents stats that they keep for their own daughter would mean zip to me.

 

[gasfreak]

Didn't mean to start an argument, l was just curious. I kinda figured stats wasn't that important because they can skewed too much.