Source
r/GameChangerApp•
BdaBng

Massaging the Stats

I’m the primary score keeper for my kids team 9U. I have put in some decent time getting to understand how to run GameChanger and think I do a decent job. I can definitely say my performance exceeds my paycheck! When I was first learning I would notice that the head coach would sometimes edit/rescore a game. Didn’t think much of it because I was learning and certainly wasn’t perfect at it. Eventually I began to see a pattern of him only editing it when his kid pitched. After watching for a while I was starting to get the feeling that he was making changes to improve his kids pitching stats. It took me a bit but I finally watched close enough and took enough screen shots and rewatched enough video to verify this to be the case. Mostly he was just assigning fielding errors to our defense when his kid was on the mound. Most were egregious assignments of errors but some were just preposterous. Then I caught him changing the results of his kids at bats from obvious base on errors to singles. In one case his kid hit a blooper about 5 feet in front of the plate and the catcher threw to third for the force out. I marked it as a fielders choice. Coach later changed it to a single to the catcher and the third base runner out caught stealing. Basically all the stereotypical coaches kid nonsense.

Recently I was in GameChanger after a game and it showed coach was currently scoring the game that just go over 30 minutes prior. Then both my wife and noticed coaches kids batting average went from very low .300s to high .300s moving him from third from bottom to middle of the pack. Problem is I can’t figure out what he changed? The plays all look the same as I scored them and I don’t see any obvious edits? About the only thing I can think of that he might of changed is marking one of his kids hits to hard ground ball from what I marked as ground ball. That wouldn’t change batting average though? It almost as if he straight up changed his average directly? Is that even possible?

This is just one issue with this coach but I want to understand how he is doing it so the concerned parents can actually speak with facts and accuracy when we talk to the head of the program and attempt to course correct.

Edit: team is 10U now and this has been going on for two seasons and progressively getting worse.

Posted Oct 18, 2022, 4:14 AM UTC · edited

319
mattvandyk•

This is insane.

3
sloppyjoebob•

Not at all surprising though. I will say in games I have not scored I have gone in and made changes but always trying to be true to what actually happened.

Can’t say there’s much you can do about it- you have video of the plays in question?

It’s 9U. No one’s getting a scholarship. Personally, I’d just let it go and joke about it with him and/or other parents.

2
mattvandyk•

Well, there is video (at least most of the time).

I personally don’t ever go back and correct anything. If a mistake was made in the scoring, a mistake was made. 99% of the time where there’s a mistake made, it’s on a very close judgment call (FC safe vs H, E v H, double or advanced on throw, etc.), and honestly, I tend to err in favor of the hitter on all of those, and judgement calls are just that. So, no real point in correcting after the fact.

Joking around about it so he knows he’s been caught is probably the best thing to do. I just can’t believe the coach actually did this.

2
jonweezy•

This is super common, especially with tournament teams. Local travel coaches will check in on the tournament teams stats to make sure their “star pitcher” isn’t being overused.

I’ve heard of multiple tournament teams change if pitch counts after the fact, etc to cover up what actually happened. One coach (to win a tournament) threw his hardest pitcher for 90 pitches. THIS IS 9U BASEBALL.

Conveniently, when challenged “he forgot” to switch to the other pitcher he actually used for the second half of the game. This was not true. All you had to do was watch the film.

People are nuts

2
goblue1096•

You can change the stats for a game without changing the plays. If nothing is obviousbly changed in the plays then it’s getting changed here. Box Score > View Full Stats > Edit.

2
BdaBngOP•

Oh sure enough you can. Didn’t even realize you could just directly add/remove specifics like that. I imagine this is exactly what’s happening. He could go back a few games and add a hit or two here and there and it’s almost impossible to tell without rewatching whole video for each game. Add in some video streaming issues and no way to tell. Thanks for this info.

I did notice that it seems like the recap tab goes away whenever it gets edited after a game which I hadn’t noticed before.

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BdaBngOP•

I edited original post to clarify that boys are 10U now. This is second season of this and it’s getting worse.

For clarification, despite my kid being one of the better players on this team I have no false illusions of college scholarships and beyond. I have flat out told my boy that we pay for and put all the parent effort to make it happen for him playing multiple sports so that he can learn how to win and lose, to stay focused and put in the hard work when he struggles, be humble when he succeeds, understand good and bad sportsmanship, how it feels to lose even when the team does everything right and win in spite of team not playing great, learn how to be a good teammate and how to deal with bad teammates and in general be a better human being now and later in life.

In the end, Coach changing stats is not that big of a deal but it’s a piece of much larger issues we are trying to understand and fix as parents. Our situation is literally the storybook tale of Coaches kid that’s not very good but is treated as a super star. He rarely sits out, plays whatever position he wants, constantly yells at teammates on the field, pitches all the time (we have literally lost several games because of this) and bats in top of the order despite what all the stats say (even after his modifications).

What drives me trying to understand the specifics of how coach is doing this in particular is my own desire to understand GameChanger better since it seems like so many teams use it and I figure it’s going to be around for a while and I’m starting to think this isn’t the only time I will encounter this kind of behavior.

1
Sunstoned1•

I'm the team stats guy (I founded a metrics / analytics company, so it's my thing).

My kid always leads the team in ROE. If there's a HINT of a question about his performance, I score against him. My scorekeeping should be inscrutable.

If a coach challenges one of my scoring decisions, we'll talk. I'll edit if needed. But damn, my books are clean.

You have a bad coach. He's unethical. And I'd leave that team unless the coach stops the behavior. You don't want your son to see that example and known it's okay.

5
27cardmonte•

This. I have kept stats for my son’s last five baseball teams. I always score him with more scrutiny than anyone else’s kid. If there’s a question, it’s an error, for that very reason.

In five years of scorekeeping, I’ve only had one issue with a parent who came over and screamed at me mid-game for scoring an error on his kid. I tried talking to him afterwards, but he was unwilling to be reasonable. I went back and checked the video and he was right, the error should have been marked a throwing error, and I fixed it. This was 10U AA ball, BTW.

By that point, I knew this was not someone I wanted to play on a team with. There were other issues at play as well, but that guy made the decision to find a new team an easy one to make.

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BdaBngOP•

I have same philosophy as you guys. My son has gotten the short end of the stick on many occasions simply to avoid the question to even be asked. In my opinion this will only help him in the future and it ultimately makes no difference right now.

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justsecondhandnews•

If you want a good measure of whether a team’s or player’s stats have been inflated. If they have no ROE or FC, there you go. Sometimes it is a judgment call, but not always. If the sample size is big enough, it becomes apparent.

1
cake_line•

I was ready for you to say this was at least 13u. But 10u and has been happening for awhile? 🚩Big yikes. We have been in travel ball for 5 years, and I can say with all certainty - I would leave this team. Is blatantly fudging stats the worst thing in the world? Of course not. But that’s not the type of behavior I want influencing my player.

To answer your question, I don’t even think the coach has to go edit plays. He has probably figured out that you can just go into the stats area of the website and change the number of hits a player has. Obviously by changing that, BA (and other stats) is automatically re-calculated.

What would I do? The next time his kid has a blatantly obvious FC or ROE, I would call the coach out in the moment… “Hey, Coach! That’s a single by Johnny Coach’s Kid and a then our base runner got thrown out, right??” Let him know you know. Or just tell him that he’s pathetic and that you’re looking elsewhere to find a coach with integrity.

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jbartol•

Why does the coach have access to your Game Changer.

Remove it ASAP.

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27cardmonte•

I could be wrong, but in all of the teams I’ve played for, the coach is an Admin alongside the parents who stream and keep score.

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jbartol•

If they're modifying the score - then remove them.

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BdaBngOP•

That’s not possible….he is the head coach he controls all of it and i have access granted to me from him. The coach also sets the batting order and starting fielding positions for each game so it wouldn’t even be practical to remove him.

I am just going to chalk it up to something I’m aware of but it’s out of my control. If I say something my kid will suffer with less playing time and getting stuck in the field where he doesn’t want to be. Eventually coaches strategy will fail his own kid. Everyone already sees the blatant unjustified favoritism.

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jbartol•

It's totally practical. You're telling me you can't read the numbers of the kids? I guarantee you that the other coach would let you take a picture of their lineup. Not only is it unethical but it ought to be reported to the league. That person should not be a coach if they're doing this.

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Mysterious-Tiger7293•

Interesting thread...on that note...does anyone know if marking a game as a scrimmage keep the total stats? Or are scrimmage games not counted towards stats?

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dodoei•

By default it doesn't but you can choose to include scrimmages. There is a filter option at the top of the stats page.

1