I’m coaching little league this year and every week I print out an extensive stat sheet for the kids and parents. Amongst others, I have columns for Total Bases, Slugging, and Hit By Pitch. I have not been counting HBP towards total bases or slugging, but one of the dads came up to me and said I should be. I could understand total bases, maybe…but slugging? No way.
I’m sure I could find it somewhere on the internet but I thought I’d let someone who knows answer.
No, Total Bases are only bases achieved on a player’s own hits. Four for a homer, three for a triple, two for a double, one for a single. Walks, HBP, and other ways of getting on base don’t count towards TB. And since TB is how you calculate slugging, they doesn’t count towards slugging, either. HBP DO count towards on base percentage, however.
Having said that, you don’t necessarily want to count Little League stats the same way the major leagues do (for one thing, it’s probably wise to count any kid who reaches on an error as having gotten a base hit, since at that level of baseball making contact and speed are important skills) so do whatever works for you.
Ok, so I’m not crazy. (It just so happens that the dad that questioned my stat sheet has a kid with more HBPs than hits.)
It’s a 7-8 year old league with some 6 year olds mixed in. There are no errors as far as I’m concerned. However the pitchers have to earn the strike out. If the coach comes in and finishes a strike out, the player gets no credit for that. Runs scored on the coach count towards the player though. But don’t be alarmed, our team ERA (ERA is based on 6 inning games) is 1.14.
I had a coach some 25 years ago that provided stats and I loved it. I plan on carrying on the tradition. Although at this age, most of them don’t really understand what all those numbers mean. Matt W (look for him in the majors in about 14 years) is batting .941, but has no clue what that means.
My kid plays PONY, not LL, so not sure exactly what the above means. Does the coach come in and throw to the player if the pitcher can’t throw strikes?
As for errors, my son just finished Bronco level last week. That’s 12 and under age, I think it’s the same group as Little League in the LL Organization. We count plays where the kid OBVIOUSLY would have been out as an error. If it’s questionable, we’ll normally count as a hit. I also score Fielder’s Choice plays, if the kid hit the ball, and would have been out at first, but the fielder’s elect to make an out elsewhere.
Remember that although the HBP doesn’t count toward the batting average, it also doesn’t count as an at-bats. Neither do walks. So if my 4 plate appearances are a 6-4, single, double, and HBP, I’m 2-3 on the day, not 2-4 or 3-4.
Hey, that’s not just for kids.
In every rec softball league i’ve played in, there’s basically no such thing as an error. If you end up standing on first base, even after the shortstop throws away a routine grounder or drops an easy pop-up, then it goes in the books as a hit.
In one league, we had a friend of the manager offer to keep score for us one day. Well, about half-way through the game, someone noticed that he was recording errors, and not giving base hits when errors were made. I thought the team was going to mutiny. “What the fuck are you doing? You’re going to screw up my .850 batting average.” 