HS Coaches in particular (others welcome of course):

What is the fielding % for your infields. This topic came up elsewhere and I am trying to get a handle on what a good Varsity level infield should field at. Go ahead and give early and late season numbers if you have them. I will do some additional research outiside of HSBBW and report back what I find.

I believe a high school fielding percentage norm would be tough to gauge based on the quality of various fields. Some are nicely groomed. Others look like mine fields.

Then you also could have some questionable scorekeeping involved in some places.

This is part of the reason why college coaches do not regard HS stats highly

The score keeping would be #1 on my list. There are two newspapers in our area that post box scores from HS games. Its very common one team to call one paper and the other to call the other paper with the game results. Its very comical to see the difference in the box scores. One team will have 9 hits 3 errors and the opponent will have 5 hits 0 errors. The same game sent in by the other team to the other paper will be totally different. Believe me no college coach is going to care one bit about a kids reported fielding %. They are going watch his fielding abilities ie infield actions , arm strength etc and make their determination based on what they actually see.

Some kids have outstanding fielding % because they can only get to the balls an average kid can get to. A much more talented player could have a lower fielding % because he has much greater range and actually can get to balls an average HS player can not make a play on. And the list goes on.

Coach May


You are so right !!!

Coach May etal: While I understand the issue of range, a good scorekeeper will factor in "ordinary effort". Also there is no difference in this between LL and the pro's, guys with more range get to more balls, however just because a ball hits a fielders glove does not make it an error.

TR I really don't care about what college coaches think about stats - I am trying to get to a number(s) if this is possible.

While I understand the issue of mom/dad scorekeepers, there is still information there.

I will give you an example: When I ran a travel team I had three moms (and a grandmother) who were our "scorekeeper". They would mull over every close play and discuss it and then come up with a ruling. Because of this we had very very accurate numbers. Today three of these moms are at different High Schools, I can assure you that the books at these schools are very accurate. We have the same situation at my son's school as all close plays are discussed and if one of the scorekeepers son is involved he/she is recused from the decision. (now that I am typing this it reminds me and I will call them over the next couple of days and ask them what the % is on their teams)

Now back to the question. Coach May was there a time when you had some good scorekeepers?, and if so what was your best, average and worst fielding % on these teams? (other coaches please feel free to post)

BOF we have an outstanding scorekeeper who is one of our math teachers at school. He just loves keeping stats and does a great job. When there is question about hit or error etc he always asks us and we make a decision as a group. The SS posistion usually has the worst fielding % because he gets the most opportunities and usually the toughest plays to make. After that it would probably be 2B then 3B. I will go back and check my score books and get back to you I dont know the answer to your question in my head.

I think you do have to consider the posistion played when you break down a players fielding %. But as far as raw numbers I dont know off the top of my head. I will get the numbers and post them for you.

PM'ed a link to some stats for you to view.

Guess I should have let you know who the starters are since all players are listed. Some positions vary depending on pitching since most of the pitchers are on the field when not on the mound.

Pos. #
2 6
3 5
4 12
5 16
6 2
7 7
8 14
9 3

I volunteered to update info on the website for the high school team. I have a good memory for reconstructing a game. An infielder was given an error for diving for a ball, making a great snow cone stop, but dropping the ball in the transfer from glove to throwing hand. Even with a clean transfer it was questionable if he could have thrown the hitter out. It led to two unearned runs instead of two earned runs. Guess who's keeping score? Not the pitcher's mother. But close! His girlfriend.

quote:

I believe a high school fielding percentage norm would be tough to gauge based on the quality of various fields. Some are nicely groomed. Others look like mine fields.

Ain't that the truth. My son's only error in his last two years on the high school team was on a mine field outfield with grass clumps where he was charging a ball on a base hit and a potential play at the plate. The ball skipped over his glove, rolled to the fence allowing the runners on first and second to score and the batter who singled reached 3B. On a real outfield, that don't happen.

It also depends on your first baseman.... A great ss could make a great play, throw off balance and if the first baseman can't pick it its an error. A good first baseman really helps his infielders stats.

njbb


So true and there are not a load of real good defensive first basemen

One year as a player I had a 1st baseman that was 6'6"... he saved my bacon many times

Still working this abet very part time...

Looked at some MaxPreps stats...I know, I know, garbage in garbage out. At least in California there are lots of teams from 0.92-0.95. I think the mid point was around 0.92 for the 450ish teams I looked at.

My son's team is young and kicking the ball around a lot and they are 0.89. (these are good stats) So I guess a reasonable assumption would be around 0.92 for a decent team

12's sent me a link and they were at .88 (I suspect they kick the ball around some also)

More to come.

I use errors per game (team) more than I use fielding pct. Fielding pct in a short season gets skewed very easily by one really bad game or it can get skewed to make you look better than you really are if you have a pitcher that records a lot of strikeouts.
On teams where you only get 3-5 of the 21 outs via the K there is a lot more pressure on your defense.
I have found the magic number for us to 1.8 errors per game. If we are under that we seem to be very successful... when we have been over that we've had tougher years.
We play doubleheaders all the time so we set "under 3 errors" as a goal... It's an easy team thing to focus on.

The stats I sent included season and tournament games which are used to prepare for district games. Most of the errors were by JV and other players trying to get a spot on the starting varsity lineup for district play. So far in district play with the starting lineup playing most of the innings we are at .949 with the opponents fielding .946 against us.

Hope this helps.

Thanks guys I think I am pretty close to what I was looking for. I like the "errors per game" approach as it is an easy way to judge how you are doing game to game.

Armed with this I am heading back to "first pitch strikes and pitch to contact"

Cheers