WHAT WINS GAMES

[Gtrips07]

In baseball and softball talent wins 9 out of 10 times. Everything else is a distant second.

The New York Yankess disagree. And the Dallas Cowboys.

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

 

[radness]

in my experience found that
Batters do NOT have to be great hitters to beat a great pitcher.
Simply because EVERY pitcher has to rely on the teams defense!

Just thinking it through further~
There are pitchers with massive strikeouts in games who lose. Even a national wcws mvp all american pitcher who lost a collegiate game at ucla
who struck out 24 batters in 11 innings lost that game!
(she later pitched for the olympic team)

Every pitcher has to rely on the teams defense...
Oh said that already

Strategy!


______________________
a SHOUT OUT of props to you
Doomer!
You made fastpitch a great competition!!!
Thanks for being such a talented pitcher.
You challenged me! ~Turbo

 

[knuckleballer]

I read through all the responses and I'm surprised no one went this direction... If the pitching, defense and hitting are comparable, good base running seems to win games at the college level.

I don't have stats to back my opinion but personal observation from watching many Stanford home games when John Rittman was head coach ingrained just how important good base running is to winning. I was amazed how many times they won when the box score showed no errors by either team, both teams had comparable hits, and Stanford had twice as many runs scored as hits.

How does this happen on a regular basis? Really? How does a team regularly score twice as many runs as base hits with no opponent errors? My eyes told me, as good as their D1 opponents were, Stanford's secret sauce was to always take extra bases on opponent mental letdowns that didn't show up as errors in the box score. Not stolen bases... Extra bases.

While I was at a coaching seminar hosted by Stanford, Rittman told us how much time they spent on base running and how many base running decisions he left up the the players because he didn't want them waiting even a split second for direction from a base coach. "Besides" he said, "They're Stanford students so they're all smarter than me."

 

[289nate]

View attachment 23670

in my experience found that
Batters do NOT have to be great hitters to beat a great pitcher.
Simply because EVERY pitcher has to rely on the teams defense!

Just thinking it through further~
There are pitchers with massive strikeouts in games who lose. Even a national wcws mvp all american pitcher who lost a collegiate game at ucla
who struck out 24 batters in 11 innings lost that game!
(she later pitched for the olympic team)

Every pitcher has to rely on the teams defense...
Oh said that already

Strategy!


______________________
a SHOUT OUT of props to you
Doomer!
You made fastpitch a great competition!!!
Thanks for being such a talented pitcher.
You challenged me! ~Turbo
View attachment 23672

Threw a 19 strikeout no hitter in high school. They scored a run off my defense in comic fasioun . Defense has to show up.

 

[radness]

I read through all the responses and I'm surprised no one went this direction... If the pitching, defense and hitting are comparable, good base running seems to win games at the college level.

I don't have stats to back my opinion but personal observation from watching many Stanford home games when John Rittman was head coach ingrained just how important good base running is to winning. I was amazed how many times they won when the box score showed no errors by either team, both teams had comparable hits, and Stanford had twice as many runs scored as hits.

How does this happen on a regular basis? Really? How does a team regularly score twice as many runs as base hits with no opponent errors? My eyes told me, as good as their D1 opponents were, Stanford's secret sauce was to always take extra bases on opponent mental letdowns that didn't show up as errors in the box score. Not stolen bases... Extra bases.

While I was at a coaching seminar hosted by Stanford, Rittman told us how much time they spent on base running and how many base running decisions he left up the the players because he didn't want them waiting even a split second for direction from a base coach. "Besides" he said, "They're Stanford students so they're all smarter than me."

Defense has to show up.

 

[Orange Socks]

I read through all the responses and I'm surprised no one went this direction... If the pitching, defense and hitting are comparable, good base running seems to win games at the college level.

I don't have stats to back my opinion but personal observation from watching many Stanford home games when John Rittman was head coach ingrained just how important good base running is to winning. I was amazed how many times they won when the box score showed no errors by either team, both teams had comparable hits, and Stanford had twice as many runs scored as hits.

How does this happen on a regular basis? Really? How does a team regularly score twice as many runs as base hits with no opponent errors? My eyes told me, as good as their D1 opponents were, Stanford's secret sauce was to always take extra bases on opponent mental letdowns that didn't show up as errors in the box score. Not stolen bases... Extra bases.

While I was at a coaching seminar hosted by Stanford, Rittman told us how much time they spent on base running and how many base running decisions he left up the the players because he didn't want them waiting even a split second for direction from a base coach. "Besides" he said, "They're Stanford students so they're all smarter than me."

This is a great point. DD's former team worked on baserunning almost every practice. Unfortunately the team lacked speed so you have to make it up with split second decisions on the player. The coach preached, trying to get 120' instead of going base to base.

I was watching a well known local Gold team and they we super agressive on the base paths. Incredible really. They took big chances and if they got caught trying to take an extra base, no big deal. Preparing for college.

Batter hits the ball and lands in front of the CF, the runner is taking 2B no matter what....and she got it! All of this team's players will/are playing for P5's around the country. Another scenario that I see runners taking a chance and usually winning. Runner on 1B, ball is hit to CF and the runner is standing on 3B. When I see this type of running, it makes me smile, especially if my team is not playing them!

 

[Nimrod]

I don't have stats to back my opinion but personal observation from watching many Stanford home games when John Rittman was head coach ingrained just how important good base running is to winning. I was amazed how many times they won when the box score showed no errors by either team, both teams had comparable hits, and Stanford had twice as many runs scored as hits.

Over the past couple of years, I've researched some of the top NCAA teams and have stats of about 65 teams, including Stanford's 2001 team, probably their best team in history. They were a good base-running team, but maybe not quite as remarkable as you remember. They scored 293 runs on 467 hits, a ratio that is about average among 15 great teams for which I specifically researched from 1997-2005. However, if you consider their strength of schedule (very tough) and their homer total (relatively low) and they fact that I'm comparing them to other very successful teams, you'd have to conclude they were an outstanding base running team. And they had to be. They hit only .257. Arizona that year hit .336 and had Jennie Finch!

Now, that said, most elite teams of the past 10 years score more runs per hit than Stanford or other elite teams of the Rittman era because of homers and better hitting numbers in general. Good base-running is valuable, but is more valuable in an era of fewer hits and homers. Oklahoma didn't need to be a good base-running team. Stanford did. I agree w/ your general point, that base-running can win games and has been overlooked in this thread. But despite their good base-running, Stanford still didn't have a good offense (compared to most WCWS teams) because they couldn't hit. Except for the Mendoza kid.

 

[radness]

Good conversation.
Baserunners who attack aggresively put pressure on the defense
imo is in the catagory
Less errors win games.

As to the
Mental errors arent errors
Especially at that top level
Thinking glitches ARE errors

And gonna stretch this farther and say
Probly a heck of a'lotta coaches recognize the quick thinkers over the not so quick...regardless of the stats.

 

[Orange Socks]

As to the
Mental errors arent errors
Especially at that top level
Thinking glitches ARE errors

Who saw that huge Mental Error in the 6th inning or the LLWS? Score 6-2, Bases loaded 1 out. Batter K's and the kid on the 3rd base thinks that's the 3rd out and starts jogging to the dugout. Catcher throws to 3rd and they tag the kid out for the 2nd out. Next kid pop fly to CF, game over.

 

[Traps71]

Over the past couple of years, I've researched some of the top NCAA teams and have stats of about 65 teams, including Stanford's 2001 team, probably their best team in history. They were a good base-running team, but maybe not quite as remarkable as you remember. They scored 293 runs on 467 hits, a ratio that is about average among 15 great teams for which I specifically researched from 1997-2005. However, if you consider their strength of schedule (very tough) and their homer total (relatively low) and they fact that I'm comparing them to other very successful teams, you'd have to conclude they were an outstanding base running team. And they had to be. They hit only .257. Arizona that year hit .336 and had Jennie Finch!

Now, that said, most elite teams of the past 10 years score more runs per hit than Stanford or other elite teams of the Rittman era because of homers and better hitting numbers in general. Good base-running is valuable, but is more valuable in an era of fewer hits and homers. Oklahoma didn't need to be a good base-running team. Stanford did. I agree w/ your general point, that base-running can win games and has been overlooked in this thread. But despite their good base-running, Stanford still didn't have a good offense (compared to most WCWS teams) because they couldn't hit. Except for the Mendoza kid.

@Nimrod, I thought I was crazy, but you might need a new hobby. LOL! Thanks for posting. Enjoyed reading this analysis.