Exposing cooked stats

[Sftbll4ever]

We had two kids in league last year that had played in only half of the league games and had lower batting averages than another player, they made all league. The stats showed this as well.

Coach basically stated other player would probably make it next year as a Jr. Sometimes the stats don't have to be padded to show how they pick all league.

I could care less who is up or who we are playing. You need to earn that hit. I had parents BEGGING me to put and HR in the books. Kinda hard when the ball hits the outfielders glove and goes off way in the other direction.

[Lannie]

Situation that made me decide to post this happened last year.

A pitcher from one team that plays a very tough schedule. Usually plays schools in upper classifications in non district games, IE tours and such. This pitchers district is by far the most competitive district in the area. She goes undefeated in her district, very low ERA, won MVP of a high school tournament in different state that was composed of higher classification teams. She wins district tournament,POY in her district and wins region tournament, her overall record is the best in the area(even with tougher schedule). She gets beat in sub state game. Her ERA is still well below 1.00.
OK here comes the coaches from other districts voting for region.

Pitcher that has cherry picked schedule goes undefeated in regular season. Gets beat and beat bad by above mentioned pitcher in semi's of Region, pitcher even hits a HR and game winning hit in the game . Loser of that game gets POY for that region. The winning pitcher goes on and wins the Region championship and advances to state but doesn't win POY.

Explain the logic?

[sftball1]

That's why I said I don't put much stock in All League, All Region, etc because a lot of the girls are there for political reasons, not because of how they play the game. It's just like it was back in Little League when all of the daddy's sat there and picked the All Star teams made up of all of their daughters. Granted some of them were deserved, a lot of times the coach's daughter is one of the better players, but that is definitely not the case all the time.

But unfortunately, it's another life lesson that softball teaches. That person that gets the promotion at work is not always the one who deserves it either.

[Blind Squirrel]

Re cooking books:
I've always seen it as a benign act by people who lack confidence in their kids abilities relative to their peers, and whose self esteem needs an artificial boost from telling people about the inflated stats. The hilarious part is they actually hurt their kids reputation by doing it. In every case, the kid will be judged without bias and will disappoint the cook when it counts most. I've seen it plenty of times. It isn't a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

People would do themselves a big favor if they tried to remember the strike outs as well as they remember the hits, let alone take the extra step of doctoring stats. It really isn't that bad if Susie is better at the game of softball than your kid. Now if Susie also drives a nicer car than my kid, I'm freakin pissed!

John

[GIMNEPIWO]

... or maybe sometimes they cook stats because they hit DD with a batted ball on purpose ... in last nights game I had her as 1 for 3 ( 2b ) with a BB, run scored ... she was in the paper this AM as 2 for 3 ( 2b ), 1 RBI & 1 run scored ... I'll have to cook my book to match the paper

[ECSB]

At the banquet at our H.S. last year the coach said "I couldn't believe Suzy's stats when I looked a them - She hit .562". Suzy might have hit .300 - my husband's jaw dropped when he heard that one. Suzy is now riding the pine as a walk on at a D1 school but her H.S. stats are proudly noted in the media guide. He keeps our DD's stats himself so at least he knows the real deal.

Also, we heard that when it comes to all-state/ all-conference, the fix is in. The coaches trade - you vote for my player and I'll vote for yours. So if you are a new coach, your player's don't have a prayer - you haven't been in the old boy network long enough.

Take stats with a grain of salt. The college coaches always do.