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Numbers Game
by Dave
Friday, June 20, 2008
It is going to come as a shock to you but baseball and softball are not really strict numbers games. I guess it is more accurate to say that they are not always strict numbers games. Certainly from a fan or fantasy league perspective, numbers are important. And sometimes players and coaches have to "play the percentages." But, for the most part numbers are not what rules decision making in this game.
I was very amused once when someone tried to tell me, "In softball, a good batting average is .500 and up. It isn't like baseball where .300 is considered a good batting average." What was most amusing to me is the fellow telling me this was comparing up high school fastpitch softball batting averages with those of MLB baseball. It never occurred to him that batting averages were indeed higher in youth, high school, and even college baseball than they were up in the big leagues of baseball. Also, in college softball, batting averages are quite a bit lower than they are in high school.
In our local high schools, once upon a time there was a girl who hit .700 for the season. I watched her play a couple games against some of the better teams and her results were not quite as good. She had an outstanding swing, made good contact against even the better pitchers, but I would say that in top level competition, she was about a .333 hitter. It is relatively easy to impeach a player's high school stats because these are often reported to newspapers by coaches who really do not take this function particularly seriously. often, the kid or parent who keeps the book doesn't really understand how scoring works or how errors should be assigned. They are well meaning but they just don't know.
For example, we see that in high level NCAA play, balls that are struck back to pitchers who apparently boot the play generally do not result in the assignment of an error because it is rather difficult to field a ball hit in the 90s when you are just 37 feet from the contact point. Usually, sharply hit balls are given hits when the pitcher fails to make a play. But most people do not appreciate that.
Secondly, I have heard more misconceptions about when to assign a stolen base, a passed ball, a wildpitch, etc. than I have heard folks bragging about their daughter's .450 batting average. For example, I have seen "WP" written in books on pitches which hit the dirt directly in back of the point of homeplate and which bounced true. I won't argue the point but to me that's not a wildpitch. Similarly, I have seen "PB" written into books on curveballs which bounce in the dirt a foot in front of the plate and fly past the catcher a full two feet outside of their wingspan. I have seen books which reflect a stolen base for the runner from first on double steals on which the lead runner was thrown out at third. I don;t wish to debate particular plays but my point is, the books do not always accurately reflect what has transpired.
Even if books are perfectly kept, high schoolers sporting those .700 BAs do not usually run off to college and repeat their monumental successes at the next level. In Div I college softball, girls who hit .500 and up in high school generally don't come close to that. A .500 batting average is quite rare in Div I play. Anything above .400 is rather stupendous. .300 is often a quite good BA.
On a related topic, I am often amused by youth softball managers and parents who try to use the numbers to make or change decisions with respect to the lineup. One manager once told me that so and so has a really good on-base percentage so we're going to bat her first this (elimination) game. She had been in the 7th-9th spot all season, had maybe two basehits in 40 games, and proceeded to strike out every time up from the first spot in that important game. During the year, she had walked quite a bit, particularly against weak teams. She had walked a lot mostly because, after the first couple of games, she didn't hit and had gone up there trying to get walked. I worked to make her more aggressive at the plate, but she refused and continued to go up looking to walk. Against better teams and pitchers, she often struck out looking. Still, those 4 walk games against weak opponents had her on-base percentage pretty high and the "by-the-numbers" folks were convinced that this mattered. The kid she supplanted at the top of the order, by the way, went 2 for 3 that game. But because she was deep in the order where some of our weaker hitters were and she was left on base every time.
When I try to make out a line-up, I have my own philosophy and I don't want to really get into that. Some coaches try to spread out the real hitters. Some coaches use a traditional baseball approach. But whatever way you try to craft a line-up, the way you evaluate hitters should not be based on the numbers. Lots of kids get most of their stats compiled in games against weak pitchers and the numbers look really good. But when they face better pitchers, their numbers drop off precipitously. Some girls don't get a lot of hits when the team is up 8-0 after two innings. Yet they are the only ones who hit or otherwise get on base in the later rounds of the tourneys. A coach has to use more feel than that.
Once upon a tryout season, a father came to me to tell me that his daughter had achieved a .300 BA and .450 OBA during the previous season. The idea was I should take her and probably bat her in one of the top 4 spots. But her swing was terrible and she went after a lot of bad pitches when the stress was high. I can judge a kid's potential and swing for myself. I don't need to look at her stats. I'm pretty sure other youth coaches, not to mention HS, college and bigger time coaches, feel the same way.
A very long time ago, I played on a baseball team which produced a kid who had a decent major league career. He had a great swing and was an exceptional defensive player. When all was said and done with our summer travel league, I had a better batting average, more RBIs, etc. than this fellow. I know this because the manager compiled stats at the end of the year and went over them with us. You know, that other fellow batted fourth for us in every game while I batted 5th or 6th. There was never any thought of moving him off the clean-up spot. No coach ever contemplated it. I never contemplated it. Nobody in their right mind would have even considered it. It was a far superior hitter than I. Stats be damned. Anyone, especially the MLB scouts, could see he had something and I didn't.
So the moral of this part of the story is, please don't tell me about, or manage your team, exclusively by, compiling the stats in your scorebook and basing your line-up by your hitters' batting averages or other numbers.
I've gone astray from what I originally wanted to do with this piece. Where I wanted to take this is in the direction of some numbers which are actually somewhat important. The numbers which are actually important, though not controlling in the decision making process are those numbers which college coaches use, at least in part, in their evaluations of players. We are at a time of the year during which players go to these NFCA recruitment camps to show their stuff and some of the numbers which are recorded there can have an impact.
Also, recently, I have received a number of e-mails inquiring about some numbers. Folks want to get some idea of where their daughters stand with respect to other players around the country and, in particular, the "typical college player." I'm afraid I can't do anything for you there. I am unaware of any statistical table which shows pitch speed, catcher pop times, infielder/outfielder throwing and running speed, or anything like that for the country as a whiole at a particular age group or at the high school or NCAA levels. The best I can offer is a proxy, an easily available link to some numbers recorded at an NFCA recruiting camp.
Recently, the NFCA administered recruitment Pennsbury camp in Yardley, PA took place with a couple hundred college scholarship hopefuls and over one hundred college coaches from all levels in attendance. The campers were not necessarily the top prospects within these United States but there were some pretty good players there. The 2008 camp results can be viewed online. And now for my take on these numbers.
First of all, keep in mind that the players who performed these tests are not all juniors and seniors in high school who are headed to play in college. There is an application process by which kids are admitted into the camp. Many seniors who will play ball in college have already performed at these camps. They likely won't participate in the testing if they already know where they are headed. Even many recent juniors are already armed with pens, waiting for July 1, when they can sign NLIs or otherwise formally commit to schools. I can't seem to locate the list of participants at this camp but, in years past, I have seen a good number of middle schoolers, freshman, etc.
Secondly, Pennsbury represents one area of the country. There are five NFCA administered camps in various corners of the country, of which Pennsbury is but one. There are also numerous "NFCA endorsed camps." I cannot speak to the relative talent levels at the various camps. What I can tell you is that conspicuously absent from this camp were any representatives from the PAC 10, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, etc. And while there certainly were some reasonably competitive college programs in all divisions there, even many Big East schools were not in attendance. In short, I'm pretty sure that the best kids across the nation as a whole are not reflected in the test results.
The first thing which interests me is the pitching results. Of just less than 140 girls who had a couple fastballs recorded, the average speed was about 56 mph. The fastest speed recorded was 63 and the slowest (on a fastball) was upper 40s. I don't know about you but upper 40s is shocking to me. I wonder why someone throwing in the 40s would participate in such a camp regardless of what else they might bring to the table.
Of greater interest to me was the disparity between some of the fastballs and other pitches. One girl threw a 60 mph fastball and a 38 mph change-up. Another hit 63 on her fastball and 65 on her curve. While a 63 fastball might not garner a kid a ton of attention in and of itself - not all that many true fastballs thrown at the college level - a good breaking curve at 65 should. You cannot judge a change-up purely by its speed or lack thereof since all change-ups are not equal. But a 22 mph gap between fastball and change is at least noteworthy.
What strikes me in all this is loads of people like to use 60 mph as the measuring rod for their pitchers. I have heard a number of claims that this or that pitcher throws 60. My 13 year old daughter's coach has frequently said something to me along the lines of "how fast do you think she throws, I'm guessing 60." I tell him that I cannot judge pitch speed with my rather poor eyes but I do believe she's mid 50s, maybe 57 on occasion." He usually gets upset with me but I know what I know and 60 is somewhat rare, particularly with 14U players. Apparently, these claims by others are just not valid.
Understand that I'm not dissing everybody on pitcher's speeds. I'm just suggesting that when we stand there along the sidelines and claim this kid throws 60 or whatever, we might be wrong. Also pitch speed is not the only evaluation tool that is relevant to evaluating pitchers. Let's face it, even if the fastball were the only pitch available, some girls might throw a flat 60 in the middle of the plate or not be able to hit corners. Other girls might throw a 58 with sharp break due to good wrist snap, be able to hit corners at will, and have a very crafty approach to pitching in games. Which would you start in your most important game of the year?
The pitching number which intrigues me most on the chart is the rotations per second. Obviously, break on whatever plane is to a high degree controlled by spin. There are other factors but spin is undeniably important. I have no way to evaluate these numbers because this is the first time I have seen them. But I am intrigued by these. I need to get a gun which can give me that. That's got to be my next toy!
Still, you can't evaluate a pitcher simply by measuring her spins. Lots of girls get over-adrenlaized and then overthrow their movement pitches in big games. And aside from not getting the right amount of break, some girls are just so crafty with their curves, drops, rises, and screws, that the pure amount of spin or break is not nearly enough to judge them. The best HS pitcher I have observed is a girl who throws a nasty curve. The stuff itself is nasty but what is more nasty than her stuff is the way she uses it. She throws a drop curve on the outside corner and batter's usually sit and watch it only to go down 0-1. Her next pitch is usually 6 inches off the corner, basically unhittable. Then she's typically up 0-2. the next one might be further off the plate, a backdoor version, or possibly some other pitch in a location which causes the batter to go fishing. She never gets batters out purely via her speed or the amount of rotation on her pitches. She gets batters out by pitching - with her mind as much as her body.
Enough about pitchers. Let's move on to catchers.
The metric most often used to evaluate catchers is called "pop time" which is basically the time between pops - the pop of the catcher's mitt and that of the infielder covering second. Another somewhat though less important measure is overhand throwing speed. At Pennsbury, overhand throwing averaged around 56 and pop times averaged just above 2. I have heard some coaches claim that the cutoff for pop times is about 2 seconds. This is so because average runners get to second in about 2.7 to 3.0 seconds, pitches take about a half second to reach the first pop, and if you're going to throw out a reasonable percentage of runners, anything over 2 seconds isn't going to get the job done even with an accurate throw.
The fastest throwing speeds were around 60 - 64 and most of these girls, though not all, had sub-2 pop times. It is interesting to note that several catchers who were in the top 10 or so of pop times had throwing speeds beneath 60. Also noteworthy is the fact that several girls with plus throwing speed had pop times above 2 and were in the bottom half of all participants in the record. That goes to show you that throwing speed is not everything when it comes to evaluating catchers.
To be fair, pop times and throwing speed, even when combined are not sufficient for evaluation. There are girls who once they are in games, throw a lot less hard or have trouble matching a dry pop time. There are also girls who thrive so much on real competition that when they are in game situations, their pop times and throwing speed can go up. Let's face it, some people are gamers and some are not. And that's why, despite the availability of numbers, coaches still want to see kids in games.
As a final view of pure numbers, several times over the past year parents have written to me inquiring about running speed. What I usually tell them is it depends on position and age / physical maturity, and good times are usually something like below 3 seconds to first. Unlike in years past, I believe, the Pennsbury results do not show running speed to first by position. One speed measurement that was published was home to home and these figures weren't published for all positions. The next best number to home to first was the SPARQ 20 yard dash.
SPARQ stands for Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction and Quickness. It is supposed to be a measure of overall athleticism. I know very little about it and so I won't bother to get into it. If you want to do some research, here is this venture's website: SPARQTraining. I'm not sure how they measure the 20 yard dash but it stands to reason that this should be a close approximation to a run to first. If anything, I would expect the times to be somewhat faster than times to first since, from what little I know, you should get a better start when doing a sprint. Yet, I saw no sub 3 times in this record. And that surprised me.
My kids do some speed/agility stuff, though not officially SPARQ. I'd say one of my kids runs at an above average speed and the other is about average. My 11 year old regularly runs a 3 or just below 3 20 yard dash. She's hit 2.9. My older kid sometimes has trouble getting below 3.1 but on rare occasions she has just barely broken 3. Maybe I better go check the stopwatch of the guy timing them. Maybe there is something flawed about the way they have been measured.
Still, I have always understood that times to first of good runners generally run in the 2.7 to 2.9 range. I'm a little shocked that of all these girls at Pennsbury, some of whom are very good athletes, nobody broke 3. I've seen some of the girls run before and they are quite fast. I cannot explain these numbers but maybe it has something to do with the way SPARQ testing is performed.
Of all the relevant numbers used to measure softball players, I believe running speed might be the best one we use. Batting average depends on who batters are facing, who is keeping the book and other things. A girl can pitch 70 mph but if she throws it flat and down the middle, she isn't going to make a big splash on the pitching scene. A pitcher can really spin the ball when she wants to but she has to find the right speed to throw each breaking pitch, has to have command, and needs some craftiness if she is going to get people out. Catchers can throw very hard but if they are slow to get the ball out of their gloves, if they do not rise to the adrenaline rush of real base stealers running, they are not going to get people out and coaches are not going to be as interested in them. Fast girls can and often are taught how to run bases. yes there is a discernible skill with respect to baserunning. But more and more we are seeing at the college level a type of kid who might be described as a designated runner. She might play soccer, basketball or run track. But she is undeniably quick and college softball coaches seem to feel that they can take these girls and make them pinchrunners.
I suppose people are always interested in some objective measure with which to compare themselves or their kids against others. We throw numbers around pretty loosely. How many pitchers in your corner of the world supposedly throw 60? How many .500 batting averages are bragged about? How many people claim that their kid runs sub 3 home to first, sub 13 home to home? How many people tell you that their daughter throws the ball overhand at about 65-70 mph? How many really good softball players are there? We need numbers to describe things but we should never become slaves to them.Labels: coaching, hitting, pitching, players
 
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