What stats do you look at????

Stats That Matter

I believe none of what I hear and little of what I read. I rely only on what I can prove. When it comes to baseball players - we will likely go SEE a player who is recommended to us. If someone is recommending a pitcher, I only ask if he is left or right-handed and what school does he attend. Beyond that, I form my own opinions based on what I can "prove". Too often, fans get caught up in "stats" as recorded by someone else. One scorer's hit may be another scorer's error. On-base-percentage for hitters - WHIP and K/BB ratio for pitchers are extremely useful for a coach who has not seen a kid play.

 

I agree cbs,,, and if the kid IS THAT GOOD, you WILL see it, you don't need someone to tell you about it. Always heard "if someone's got to tell you they're good, then they're probably not".

And for those who think there are some stats out there that you can actually count on at this level, keeping in mind that some folks will exaggerate the simpliest things if they think it will get a kid an advantage,,, probably the 2 biggest exaggerations I often hear about pitchers is how they are 6'5" and throw 90,,,, when you actually see them, they are 6'2" and 80, happens all the time.

 

Yeah, but weeks after posting that pitcher will go to 84-86...then 90.

Exaggerating velocities actually hurt the pitchers reputation.

 

Yeah, but that's because they are trying to "fill out" the blank spaces on the questionnaire.

 

Now, I know why they need Sat, Act and GPA

 

Now those are Stats that they are truly interested in.

 

Not a Duke fan here at all, but Coach K said in his own book that when he's recruiting basketball players for Duke University, while numbers are what attract him to the house, and he realizes grades are important also,,, but the one thing that sells him on a player is watching how that player treats his own parents. What better way can you tell about a person than to watch them at home. While many HS athletes (and dads) are so caught up in numbers, its disappointing when I see a talented ballplayer who nobody will touch because the player has "issues" that have nothing to do with baseball.

One last comment about Coach K's book, he talks about being an assistant coach on the 92 Dream Team during the Olympics, and while Michael Jordan had already been a superstar in the NBA for 8-9 years and was known as possibly the greatest ever,,,, yet the one thing Coach K noticed very quickly about Michael Jordan was that Jordan always used "thank you" and "please".

Could also tell the story about a local HS kid here in my hometown, that colleges were drooling all over, yet the day he was offered a scholarship was immediately after a game when he went 0 for 4. The college coach told him on the spot, "they were impressed with the way he handled himself while having an off day".

Lots of more important things athletes need to be concerned with besides batting averages, eras, etc.