Kudos to those programs in the area that consistently report their stats to the KHSAA. But is anyone else shocked at how lax some schools are in reporting stats? Granted, I understand baseball is its own beast when it comes to statistical reporting/validity. But, surprising how many teams - including top teams - seemingly either don't care or don't have the resources to keep/report stats. 

Seems an incredible disservice to the kids and to media outlets who attempt to cover/report on teams while a vocal majority cry foul when coverage is - at best - slim. 

Thoughts?

Stats reported and accurate stats are really a problem.  Unfortunately even if they are reported they are way off in many cases.  Nature of both baseball and softball, but I agree I think the KHSAA would benefit from addressing both timeliness and accuracy with schools just to give them a push to do these things correctly.  

 

Years ago there was a program that had several .500 to .600 hitters that had a record of 3 - 19 and had a huge number of shutouts against them ?

Then of course you have the dad who keeps Gamechanger and his kid always seems to get hits on errors and walks.  In my opinion either the state has to figure out a way to train score keepers because stats are not very comparable to each other or just not post them.  

I also thought there was some penalty for not reporting stats in a timely fashion????

 

14 minutes ago, cincyswords said:

Stats reported and accurate stats are really a problem.  Unfortunately even if they are reported they are way off in many cases.  Nature of both baseball and softball, but I agree I think the KHSAA would benefit from addressing both timeliness and accuracy with schools just to give them a push to do these things correctly.  

 

Years ago there was a program that had several .500 to .600 hitters that had a record of 3 - 19 and had a huge number of shutouts against them ?

Then of course you have the dad who keeps Gamechanger and his kid always seems to get hits on errors and walks.  In my opinion either the state has to figure out a way to train score keepers because stats are not very comparable to each other or just not post them.  

I also thought there was some penalty for not reporting stats in a timely fashion????

 

Great points. 

The brutal reality is that even some of the top programs have 1) stats guys that THINK they know how to keep stats and don't; 2) coaches who just either don't care about stats AT ALL or don't have the time or support staff to do them appropriately, and 3) as you noted above, biased scorekeepers either blatantly cooking the books for some or all kids or fudging the numbers to protect the integrity of the struggling program.

Now kick those two issues down to the programs that are lacking. So, yeah, tough nut to crack here. 

I love the idea of training score keepers, but understand that's just likely not something you can mandate when the lack of attention to the issue is so widespread and systemic of other program/coaching situations. I wonder has a clinic ever been offered? Perhaps even offering an online clinic for scorekeepers would be an option. 

The other issue is, especially in baseball, there's just such a divide between those that believe stats are important and those that just see all the issues above and realize there's no perfect solution or anything close to it. 

That said, I truly admire and appreciate the programs and coaches in the state who do see great value in the stats and take great care to put people in place to assure they're done and done properly. 

 

And if a team reports stats, where do they go? The season is halfway over and the KHSAA website doesn't have an active "2021 Baseball Stats Leaders" page (or one for Softball).

I've noticed there aren't Regional Team Records summaries or RPI numbers at the bottom of team pages too.

On a side note - it's become increasingly difficult in the past year to navigate and share links from the KHSAA site for many sports.

In this day of analytics, any coach who does not pay attention to stats isn't much of a coach IMO.

I noticed this lack of stats earlier in the year. I checked a number of good baseball programs and found stats missing on half of their games. 

10 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

In this day of analytics, any coach who does not pay attention to stats isn't much of a coach IMO.

I noticed this lack of stats earlier in the year. I checked a number of good baseball programs and found stats missing on half of their games. 

At the higher levels, I agree.  But, given the situation(s) presented above about the validity of stats that might be turned in at the high school level...there's probably not a lot about the opposition that you're going to be able to use.  Yeah, you can probably see who their stolen base leaders are, and perhaps utilize a pitch out more than you regularly would.  But, you're not going to see little Johnny's righty-lefty splits, how he does hitting curve balls, or whether he's a dead pull hitter or willing to go opposite field.

Now, as to your own team, I'm guessing that most won't feel it's as important, just because they physically see each pitch/AB/play (the old eyeball test).  They'll feel they know who's getting on base the most, who hits lefties better, who steals better, etc.  Just a guess here.

 

15 minutes ago, CincySportsFan said:

At the higher levels, I agree.  But, given the situation(s) presented above about the validity of stats that might be turned in at the high school level...there's probably not a lot about the opposition that you're going to be able to use.  Yeah, you can probably see who their stolen base leaders are, and perhaps utilize a pitch out more than you regularly would.  But, you're not going to see little Johnny's righty-lefty splits, how he does hitting curve balls, or whether he's a dead pull hitter or willing to go opposite field.

Now, as to your own team, I'm guessing that most won't feel it's as important, just because they physically see each pitch/AB/play (the old eyeball test).  They'll feel they know who's getting on base the most, who hits lefties better, who steals better, etc.  Just a guess here.

 

This. Do I look at stats? Yes. But stats alone tell me very little. Just looking at how a teams lineup is constructed and how the team looks in pregame pretty much tells me what I need to know. There’s absolutely no comparison to the analytics MLB teams use to the limited stats you get on the KHSAA site. Not even in the same universe. Unless I’m keeping gamechanger, I don’t even completely trust my own teams stats. Very few people truly understand how to keep score.

Great points above....my main issue isn't the usability of stats for scouting or in-game purposes, but more the marketing of a) the game itself and b) the kids. In an era where the sport itself on the high school level gets very little attention, keeping statistical information and distributing it seems like a no-brainer. 

I agree about analytics at higher levels versus high school. The main area where I think detailed stats should be tracked even in high school is pitching. Not just pitch counts but tracking of the actual pitches thrown and the results. Similarly tracking hitting results by count and what pitch was hit should not be that difficult even in high school and highly valuable.

This discussion is a little off track of the thread topic but the point is high school teams today should be more statistically driven than ever. That ties back to tracking basic results and posting them.

The question I have is why is this a problem this year? I don't remember schools being this negligent in stat reporting in the past?

21 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

I agree about analytics at higher levels versus high school. The main area where I think detailed stats should be tracked even in high school is pitching. Not just pitch counts but tracking of the actual pitches thrown and the results. Similarly tracking hitting results by count and what pitch was hit should not be that difficult even in high school and highly valuable.

This discussion is a little off track of the thread topic but the point is high school teams today should be more statistically driven than ever. That ties back to tracking basic results and posting them.

The question I have is why is this a problem this year? I don't remember schools being this negligent in stat reporting in the past?

Talking to a couple coaches I have gotten the "stats aren't important its a team game" kind of talk.  Both are first year head coaches.

1 hour ago, Voice of Reason said:

I agree about analytics at higher levels versus high school. The main area where I think detailed stats should be tracked even in high school is pitching. Not just pitch counts but tracking of the actual pitches thrown and the results. Similarly tracking hitting results by count and what pitch was hit should not be that difficult even in high school and highly valuable.

This discussion is a little off track of the thread topic but the point is high school teams today should be more statistically driven than ever. That ties back to tracking basic results and posting them.

The question I have is why is this a problem this year? I don't remember schools being this negligent in stat reporting in the past?

We track these things in game, but while game changer does have some advanced pitcher and hitting metrics, it doesn't provide everything you're referring to, and even those basic advanced metrics aren't available on the KHSAA stat tracking. The stats on the KHSAA site are your traditional, back of the baseball card stats.

Since most of the detailed tracking has to be done manually, many of the smaller programs just don't have the personnel or bandwidth to keep such details, and I imagine that's the issue with why you're not seeing stats being reported consistently. Remember also, that stat reporting to the KHSAA is still new. It's only been required since the 2019 season....so this season is only the second season it's been required with the 2020 season not happening. Some teams are probably still trying to figure the whole process out.

The other thing you have to keep in mind, is that high school players, both hitters and pitchers are so wildly inconsistent from day to day as is the talent level. The level of pitching teams face from game to game, and even sometimes inning to inning, makes some of the "averages/Trends" less reliable. An example is very few high school pitchers can consistently hit spots. It's not unusual for a pitch called for on the outside corner to end up in on the hands. And without someone behind home plate actually tracking where the pitch is, you'll have no idea of whether the pitcher actually hit the spot called. Also hitters can be completely different when facing a kid throwing 85 vs a kid throwing 75. Again, not saying the stats aren't valuable, but really, almost everyday is different because these kids aren't doing this everyday for 8 months for a living. I know we want to think that HS baseball should be just like what we see in MLB or even college. But the game is so very different because of the difference in talent level. Many of those advanced metrics just dont apply at the HS level, and even if they did, they aren't as easily collected because of limited personnel and resources.

 

1 hour ago, Voice of Reason said:

I agree about analytics at higher levels versus high school. The main area where I think detailed stats should be tracked even in high school is pitching. Not just pitch counts but tracking of the actual pitches thrown and the results. Similarly tracking hitting results by count and what pitch was hit should not be that difficult even in high school and highly valuable.

This discussion is a little off track of the thread topic but the point is high school teams today should be more statistically driven than ever. That ties back to tracking basic results and posting them.

The question I have is why is this a problem this year? I don't remember schools being this negligent in stat reporting in the past?

I understand where you are going with this, and to some extent I can agree on how helpful it could be.  However, let me present these two scenarios...

#1.  Pitcher throws a 1-2 slider, off the inside part of the plate, at the belt (to a right-handed batter), and it breaks back over the plate.  Batter flinches, and it's a called strike three.

#2.  Pitcher throws a 1-2 slider, on the outer-half (to a right-handed batter), and it breaks off the plate.  Batter throws a defensive swing at it, and flips it over the first-baseman's head for a single.

One pitcher gets a K, the other gives up a hit.  The thing is, the first pitcher completely missed his mark.  His was supposed to do the same thing that #2 did.  He was just bailed out by a poor hitter.  #2 on the other hand, hit his mark, and was just beaten by a good hitter.  So, should #2 not throw the slider anymore?

There's so much more than just the ball/strike result that should go into pitch consideration.  Again, at the higher level, there's likely video that can be gone back and reviewed to see if the pitcher truly executed the pitch, and then what the result was.  But, in my opinion, at the high school level, the margin of error on both the pitcher and the batter's side, make it much harder to diagnose what was a good pitch and what was a bad pitch.

Now, can you track the number of each type of pitches?  Sure.  Is somebody using their curveball too much?  Are they not using the change-up enough?  That type of thing?  Then, yeah, you can track that.  Sort of like, the number of first pitch strikes.  But, even still, it's going to take a super observant scorekeeper to keep track of things like this.  And will they even know what pitch was initially called for?  

18 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

We track these things in game, but while game changer does have some advanced pitcher and hitting metrics, it doesn't provide everything you're referring to, and even those basic advanced metrics aren't available on the KHSAA stat tracking. The stats on the KHSAA site are your traditional, back of the baseball card stats.

Since most of the detailed tracking has to be done manually, many of the smaller programs just don't have the personnel or bandwidth to keep such details, and I imagine that's the issue with why you're not seeing stats being reported consistently. Remember also, that stat reporting to the KHSAA is still new. It's only been required since the 2019 season....so this season is only the second season it's been required with the 2020 season not happening. Some teams are probably still trying to figure the whole process out.

The other thing you have to keep in mind, is that high school players, both hitters and pitchers are so wildly inconsistent from day to day as is the talent level. The level of pitching teams face from game to game, and even sometimes inning to inning, makes some of the "averages/Trends" less reliable. An example is very few high school pitchers can consistently hit spots. It's not unusual for a pitch called for on the outside corner to end up in on the hands. And without someone behind home plate actually tracking where the pitch is, you'll have no idea of whether the pitcher actually hit the spot called. Also hitters can be completely different when facing a kid throwing 85 vs a kid throwing 75. Again, not saying the stats aren't valuable, but really, almost everyday is different because these kids aren't doing this everyday for 8 months for a living. I know we want to think that HS baseball should be just like what we see in MLB or even college. But the game is so very different because of the difference in talent level. Many of those advanced metrics just dont apply at the HS level, and even if they did, they aren't as easily collected because of limited personnel and resources.

 

While I was typing up my post, I saw that you had replied to the thread.  I should've stopped and read what you wrote.  Would've saved me some time writing my reply.  ?

Another angle....there's soooo much barking from baseball parents about lack of coverage/lack of media attention/unfair balance of attention to football & basketball vs baseball. Some justified (Travis Smith for example this year) and some of that is just typical whiny parent nonsense. Sometimes that also comes from programs having success that don't quite understand why they're not getting "respect". 

One would think in order to get attention, recruiting interest (especially from afar) programs would at least give a cursory attempt to keep and publish/report stats. The fascinating thing is this year there are some upper echelon teams blowing off stat reporting. Usualy it's just the struggling teams that chuck stats midway through....

1 hour ago, CincySportsFan said:

While I was typing up my post, I saw that you had replied to the thread.  I should've stopped and read what you wrote.  Would've saved me some time writing my reply.  ?

Actually, you probably said it in an easier to understand way.?