April Statistics
Baseball has always been a game of statistics and numbers. Although statistics are the currency of professional baseball, there are pretty meaningless in youth baseball. In youth baseball, statistics are only meaningful if players learn something to help them improve.
At the end of each month, I will hand out total team stats and individual hitting and pitching stats. Each player needs to spend some time reviewing the stats to learn something to improve his game.
Statistics are a measure of each player’s past performance. But, unless something is learned from them, statistics are meaningless predictors of future performance in youth baseball.
Just because you did well or poorly in the first month of the season, does not mean that you will do the same in the remaining three months. Future performance is within the control of each player. Past performance is over.
Here are the questions that each player should ask from the statistics that I handed out:
Hitters
Am I getting on base more or less than the average player?
Am I walking more or less than the average player?
Am I hitting the ball in the air too much?
Am I getting my share of good at bats?
Am I striking out too much?
Pitchers
Am I throwing a lot of strikes?
Am I walking too many?
Am I throwing too many pitches per inning?
Am I giving up more or less hits than the average pitcher?
Am I giving up more or fewer runs than the average player?
Answers to these questions should give the player some insight into areas for improvement.
If a player is doing great statistically during the first month, then the challenge is to maintain the focus and desire to maintain that performance for the remainder of the season. This is not an easy thing to do.
It is a lot harder to maintain exceptional performance than it is to improve poor performance.
Monday, May 1, 2006
