Why all the angst?

[RetiredCoach]

As a coach, thru the 14U level, I did not need stats to tell me who should pitch, who should bat, and where
they should play. Sure, keep the book, but I didn't need it to help make personnel decisions.

At some point, when the comparative competition is more even and the statistics kept are more standardized,
then the stats can be helpful.

 

[PA SB Dad]

As a coach, thru the 14U level, I did not need stats to tell me who should pitch, who should bat, and where they should play. Sure, keep the book, but I didn't need it to help make personnel decisions.

I completely agree here. If you have to rely on stats as a coach to defend your decisions regarding playing time, then you are not willing to have the honest, tough conversation with a parent about little Suzie or don't trust your own eyes. Individual stats are a helpful tool to help THAT player improve their game. Comparative stats to justify the lack of playing time is a crutch that a weak coach falls back on to justify their decisions.

 

[Sliced Bread]

In the younger ages, I never kept stats. At 14U TB up to 18U TB I always had a second parent keep stats. I had my own form that I made, and at the end of every game, it got handed in. I would always check it against the official score book and make any minor adjustment accordingly. ( the score keeper and stat keeper were always the same 2 people)

At the end of every tournament I would test my memory on who I thought the top 3 batters were and who was the bottom 3. I would put all my stats for the weekend into my spreadsheet and rarley was I right on my guess on the top 3 and bottom 3.
Your bias brain can play tricks on you as a HC, I willed some player stats to be better than I recall, even re entered some players thinking that I had made an error entering them. The numbers don't lie.

I do agree that long term trends are the best, that is why my stats are always cumulative, not just 1 weekend.

Last season I had a new girl make our team. Strong 2nd base, bat was probably #12. We worked hard with her, and she always made contact but had the highest put outs and flyouts on the entire team. At the mid season point with 75 PA she had only 3 strike outs! and none looking.
I put her in the 5 spot, and got huge push back from my 3 AC's, and by the end of the season, she still lead the team in ground outs and flyout, but she also led the team in RBI's.

Had I not kept stats, I may not have recognized her full potetial as a contact hitter.

Stats are for me and AC's use only. Not posted to team website or for fans of Game Changer to use.

 

[guero_gordo]

Other than how they are entered and how they are interpreted and used, I have no problem with stats at all.

Ideally, an objective coach can use objectively entered data to sanity check their perceptions about performance. They should make things more fair. I have not yet been on a team where it worked like that.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

Side note - ya ever see how much stat-keeping is involved with college volleyball teams in assessing their own team? Holy crud! I think they record how many drops of sweat fall from the brow sometimes.....

I LOVE stats looking inward on your own team.

In contrast stats are almost useless looking outward trying to compare your team to theirs or your pitcher to theirs... - not knowing and controlling stat-taker performance.

Another side note - I find it amusing that everyone automatically assumes that the daughter of the stats-taker always gets inflated stats. I see it goes either to either extreme. When I was scorekeeper my DD hated it because I have always been more critical on my DD than others. My DD would many times later that night or the next morning quiz me on what I called on her. Man she would get crabby with me sometimes on tough calls I would make against her (and I deserved it probably). My nature is just like her nature - never satisfied. This is what caused this conflict sometimes BUT it's also what made her better.....

 

[CoogansBluff]

I completely agree here. If you have to rely on stats as a coach to defend your decisions regarding playing time, then you are not willing to have the honest, tough conversation with a parent about little Suzie or don't trust your own eyes.

Not sure I understand this. Let's say a parent comes to me and wants to know why DD is batting 7th. I point out that she ranks 9th on the team in OPS, 8th in batting average, 7th in on-base PCT, etc. What is dishonest or soft about that? I'd love for a coach to explain to me as a parent his decisions and how he uses stats as a tool. Whether I agreed or not, I'd appreciate him opening up about how he makes decisions.

As far as trusting own eyes, I think coaches owe it to their players to study stats to make sure that what they think they're seeing is accurate. I've had parents and other coaches in the dugout question the batting order only to be surprised that that one girl is hitting .425 and the other is hitting .225. If it's weak and dishonest to use stats, what do you tell a player who is batting 7th despite leading the team in hitting?

 

[RichK]

The #1 problem with stats is that when they start to be regularly distributed it creates yet another competitive situation among parents on the sidelines. My experience is sidelines are filled with enough parent angst without adding to it.

My older DD's high school team even had a parent "keeping score" in the stands who somehow had an impact on the team stats, even though the dugout kept a game book. Wow. You would not believe the chaos it caused.

Parents should sit back and enjoy the game.
Coaches should coach with goals, not stats in mind.
Players should play to get better and not be worried if a booted ball in the hole impacts their batting average.

No one's playing for a contract here.....

 

[Greenmonsters]

Not sure I understand this. Let's say a parent comes to me and wants to know why DD is batting 7th. I point out that she ranks 9th on the team in OPS, 8th in batting average, 7th in on-base PCT, etc. What is dishonest or soft about that? I'd love for a coach to explain to me as a parent his decisions and how he uses stats as a tool. Whether I agreed or not, I'd appreciate him opening up about how he makes decisions.

As far as trusting own eyes, I think coaches owe it to their players to study stats to make sure that what they think they're seeing is accurate. I've had parents and other coaches in the dugout question the batting order only to be surprised that that one girl is hitting .425 and the other is hitting .225. If it's weak and dishonest to use stats, what do you tell a player who is batting 7th despite leading the team in hitting?

You are my second cleanup hitter!

 

[Greenmonsters]

The #1 problem with stats is that when they start to be regularly distributed it creates yet another competitive situation among parents on the sidelines. My experience is sidelines are filled with enough parent angst without adding to it.

My older DD's high school team even had a parent "keeping score" in the stands who somehow had an impact on the team stats, even though the dugout kept a game book. Wow. You would not believe the chaos it caused.

Parents should sit back and enjoy the game.
Coaches should coach with goals, not stats in mind.
Players should play to get better and not be worried if a booted ball in the hole impacts their batting average.

No one's playing for a contract here.....

No, they're not, but some are playing for a college/scholarship opportunity. However, I agree that players should just play and not worry about their individual stats.

 

[Scorekeeper]

The #1 problem with stats is that when they start to be regularly distributed it creates yet another competitive situation among parents on the sidelines. My experience is sidelines are filled with enough parent angst without adding to it. …

No, the problem with stats is when the coach uses them but won’t tell the parents how, or tells the parents he uses them different than he does. Problems come when people get caught in lies.