- Published on
I am a pitching coach, and I barely care about your daughter’s stats. (Yes, you’re shocked, I know.) Pitching is not defined by statistics. Pitching is defined by how you win games, and great stats don’t win games - great pitchers with the support of their team do.
There are three stats I care about:
Okay, so number of first pitch strikes. YOU START AHEAD. Do the math, it takes four balls to walk someone and three strikes for a strike out. If you start out a batter 1-0 you automatically level the playing field. Throwing a first pitch strike keeps you ahead of the batter, but more importantly forces the batter to hit YOUR pitch. By starting with an 0-1 count you are in complete control and have a much higher chance of the batter hitting a pitch they don’t want to or swinging through the pitches you throw. By keeping hitters off balance we make our job as pitchers much easier. This also keeps pitch counts down, which can never be a bad thing!
Balls vs. Strikes - this is one I often find overlooked. Everyone is interested in the number of strike outs at the end of the day, rather than how the pitcher did overall. Looking back at games that didn’t go so well, I can almost guarantee that you got behind a lot, and threw way more balls than strikes. It is rare (although it will happen occasionally!) that a pitcher who gets ahead and has a good ball to strike ratio will lose a game.
WALKS. Walks kill us, specifically lead off walks and walks late in the game with runners on base already. If you put a lead off walk on, the softball gods will never work in your favor and generally there’s a hit or an error right after your walk. If you go back through stats, more likely than not most of the runs that score there was a walk involved somehow, whether the walk scored, or pushed a runner ahead that scored. Walks generally happen when we start to stress and throw tight, or when we lose focus. Being a mentally strong pitcher helps lessen the amount of walks you give up.
Rant over, back to parents not focusing on stats. As coaches we preach team, unity, and winning. Nowhere in those three things is there room for a focus on personal stats. This starts with you. Your daughter does not play softball to make sure she gets “X” strikeouts a game, she plays softball because she loves it. When the first word out of your mouth when she gets in the car are “How many strike outs did you have? How many hits did you give up? Did they give the shortstop an error on that one bad play or was it is a hit? Did you check the book?” what message are you sending your daughter? By focusing on her stats and not her team and their performance as a whole you change the conversation. It goes from “we placed 2nd in the tournament today” to “we only placed 2nd in the tournament today but I had 18 strikes outs.” Your daughter will begin to focus on stats on her own without your guidance. While she is on the mound she will begin to worry that she hasn’t had enough strike outs yet in the game, or that she’s given up too many hits, these outside stressors will not only impact her performance but her teammates will see it as well. As she begins to focus on her personal stats she loses the team mentality. By setting the example and putting emphasis on team performance and improvement weekend to weekend you not only help your daughter on the field but are also fostering the expectation that she can work well with others and focus on group goals off of the field as well.
P.S. Hey pitchers - DO NOT go look at the book at the end of a game. It sends the message to your team that you are all about yourself (even if that’s not the message you mean to send). It also tells your coach that you are more worried about your stats than the fact that you just won or lost a game.
There are three stats I care about:
- Number of First Pitch Strikes
- Number of Balls vs. Strikes Thrown
- Walks
Okay, so number of first pitch strikes. YOU START AHEAD. Do the math, it takes four balls to walk someone and three strikes for a strike out. If you start out a batter 1-0 you automatically level the playing field. Throwing a first pitch strike keeps you ahead of the batter, but more importantly forces the batter to hit YOUR pitch. By starting with an 0-1 count you are in complete control and have a much higher chance of the batter hitting a pitch they don’t want to or swinging through the pitches you throw. By keeping hitters off balance we make our job as pitchers much easier. This also keeps pitch counts down, which can never be a bad thing!
Balls vs. Strikes - this is one I often find overlooked. Everyone is interested in the number of strike outs at the end of the day, rather than how the pitcher did overall. Looking back at games that didn’t go so well, I can almost guarantee that you got behind a lot, and threw way more balls than strikes. It is rare (although it will happen occasionally!) that a pitcher who gets ahead and has a good ball to strike ratio will lose a game.
WALKS. Walks kill us, specifically lead off walks and walks late in the game with runners on base already. If you put a lead off walk on, the softball gods will never work in your favor and generally there’s a hit or an error right after your walk. If you go back through stats, more likely than not most of the runs that score there was a walk involved somehow, whether the walk scored, or pushed a runner ahead that scored. Walks generally happen when we start to stress and throw tight, or when we lose focus. Being a mentally strong pitcher helps lessen the amount of walks you give up.
Rant over, back to parents not focusing on stats. As coaches we preach team, unity, and winning. Nowhere in those three things is there room for a focus on personal stats. This starts with you. Your daughter does not play softball to make sure she gets “X” strikeouts a game, she plays softball because she loves it. When the first word out of your mouth when she gets in the car are “How many strike outs did you have? How many hits did you give up? Did they give the shortstop an error on that one bad play or was it is a hit? Did you check the book?” what message are you sending your daughter? By focusing on her stats and not her team and their performance as a whole you change the conversation. It goes from “we placed 2nd in the tournament today” to “we only placed 2nd in the tournament today but I had 18 strikes outs.” Your daughter will begin to focus on stats on her own without your guidance. While she is on the mound she will begin to worry that she hasn’t had enough strike outs yet in the game, or that she’s given up too many hits, these outside stressors will not only impact her performance but her teammates will see it as well. As she begins to focus on her personal stats she loses the team mentality. By setting the example and putting emphasis on team performance and improvement weekend to weekend you not only help your daughter on the field but are also fostering the expectation that she can work well with others and focus on group goals off of the field as well.
P.S. Hey pitchers - DO NOT go look at the book at the end of a game. It sends the message to your team that you are all about yourself (even if that’s not the message you mean to send). It also tells your coach that you are more worried about your stats than the fact that you just won or lost a game.