Technology has made collecting, analyzing and sharing data about your roster’s and opponent’s performance very easy. Nowadays, any youth coach, using one of the many apps to score games, has an abundance of data to help them on the difficult task of managing and coaching a team.
For better or worse, players and parents can access the data through the apps as well. This well-meaning data sharing creates a brand-new set of issues because its purpose is misunderstood. These days, explaining stats-obsessed parents why a play was scored one way and not the other affecting the stat line of a player is part of managing a team. Some players and parents look at stats such as batting average as a player's competitive ranking within the team. This obsession and misunderstanding of the use of stats by a coach might create friction with teammates, coaches and other parents.
Before the apps, youth coaches used a scorebook, a pencil, memory, and instincts. The scribbled page of the scorebook, full of notations and corrections and the coach's memory were the coach's tools to recall and assess game performance. Most parents and players never saw the scorebooks. Stats did not get in the way of enjoying a game. Batting Average (BA), On-base Percentage (OBP) were the important numbers in the hardcopy scorebook. Today, those stats plus slugging (SLG) and OPS (On-base Percentage plus Slugging) are still important. However, standard stats reflect a player performance at club, collegiate, and professional levels more accurately than at youth level for many obvious reasons.
At youth and even at varsity level, standard stats to assess teams and players make sense only if the level of the teams in a division is similar. Also, many youth and even varsity games are scored by parent volunteers. Data is only useful if the games are scored correctly. Some volunteer scorekeepers are great at it and score the game without any biases. Others score the game very loosely which makes the players and parents feel great, but it does not help the coaching staff. Garbage in, garbage out.
Scoring a play is based on a subjective perception of the level of difficulty of that play. Objectively, a play should be scored based on the playability of a hit ball based on the level of the players on that division. It is simple said than done. A hard-hit ball right towards an infielder, who cannot control the ball and gets all the way to the outfield, might be scored as an error or single. A soft grounder that an infielder must chase and cannot field cleanly, might be scored as an infield single or error. Often, it is determined by the scorekeeper level of attention at the moment, point of view and angle on the play, and whether or not, the scorekeeper understands the skills required to make the play at that division level.
Furthermore, standard stats are only good if they are put in the right context. A bench player might have a great batting average because she/he might have had fewer at bats and/or played most innings against weaker opponents. We also have seen unlucky players with a low batting average who make solid contact and hit the ball hard all the time, but cannot catch a break, or a fast player that hits hard grounders and reaches base on errors all the time and then, reeks havoc on the bases. Standard stats on their own will not reflect the value of those players to the team accurately.
Standard Stats such as BA, OBP, SLG, and OPS are important but just a glimpse of a player. Advanced Stats such as Quality at Bats (QB), Contact Percentage (C%), Hard-Hit Balls (HHB), Line Drive Percentage (LD%), Walks to Strike out ratio BB/SO, Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position (BARIP), Batting Average with Balls in Play (BABIP), among others reflect the value of the player to the team. Combine those advanced stats to the spray charts that most apps generate and then, you can coach your youth team as pro do. These detailed breakdown of players' performance should help the coaching staff to customize hitting drills for individual players on the areas that they need help the most.
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