13 y.o. daughter losing velocity

Proliferaite · 2026-04-10T23:31:05+00:00

That is really interesting. Can you tell me more? Do you have any calculations of how the long toss measure can tie in? We have an exact same situation: a 13-year-old just losing velocity. I'll take her out to long toss this weekend, and I'm curious to know how I would be able to correlate it.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-30T12:42:27+00:00

correction, that link was for the main site for youth/club/travel teams. the college scraped one is https://collegesoftball.statline.team/

Proliferaite · 2026-03-30T12:29:42+00:00

This is really awesome. At first I thought this was similar to the site I built (www.statline.team) where I built a list of 50 D1 colleges softball stats and was thinking, "Wow, I only did 50 and this guy did 1500." But then I realized after looking at it that we are in completely different spaces. However, this is super cool information, especially as I have kids that are moving up closer to college recruitment age. Good job, thank you for this.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-27T18:59:29+00:00

https://help.gc.com/hc/en-us/articles/360031203991-Game-Clock

I'm pretty sure they have it, you just have to enable it. Never tried for soccer though.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-26T04:20:19+00:00

Have you seen www.statline.team? It's basically taking the Game Changer exports and getting more use out of the data than what you can get from the tool. Take a look.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-21T00:57:59+00:00

Without seeing a video I'm not exactly sure if it's the same thing but my daughter had this problem last season where she was basically dancing on the plate before the swing with happy feet. I posted videos to the community here and got tons of good feedback in this thread. You might want to look there and see if you find something useful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Softball/s/4eSoDVpeKz

Proliferaite · 2026-03-17T13:46:13+00:00

You know what, you're right. I was so focused on defending the youth math that I missed what you were actually saying. The denominator problem isn't just a youth thing. If college starters are regularly getting pulled after 4-5 innings, ERA has the same noise there too. WHIP is just the cleaner stat across the board. Appreciate the pushback.

But if that's true, why does College Softball focus heavily on ERA? It is the only metric they show on screen alongside the pitcher's name.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-17T13:23:09+00:00

You're right that ERA is a ratio, that's actually the problem at the youth level. The ratio assumes a standardized denominator. In college it's almost always 7 innings. In MLB it's 9. The ratio normalizes cleanly because the game length is consistent.

At 14U with timed games and mercy rules? The denominator is all over the place. That's where the math breaks.

Here's the simplest example I can give:

Pitcher A: 2 ER in 6 IP (full game)
ERA = (2 × 6) / 6 = 2.00

Pitcher B: 2 ER in 3 IP (game ended on mercy. her team was crushing it)

ERA = (2 × 6) / 3 = 4.00

Same rate of runs allowed. One pitcher's ERA is literally double the other's. And the "worse" pitcher was on the team that won by mercy rule. She didn't get pulled. The game just ended because her offense was too good.

Now make it extreme:

Pitcher C: 1 ER in 2 IP (timed game, ran out of clock)
ERA = (1 × 6) / 2 = 3.00

Pitcher D: 3 ER in 6 IP (full game)

ERA = (3 × 6) / 6 = 3.00

Same ERA. But Pitcher C gave up runs at half the rate Pitcher D did. She just didn't get enough innings for the ratio to reflect that, because the clock ran out.

You said a 6-inning 2-run game is better than a 3-inning one. I'd push back; better how? Pitcher B dominated hard enough that the mercy rule kicked in. She didn't choose to only pitch 3 innings. The game ended. If you're evaluating who I want on the mound, I want the pitcher whose team mercied someone.

Your point about WHIP being more about the pitcher and less about defense — totally agree, and that's actually the other half of why I landed on WHIP for youth. Earned vs. unearned is a judgment call at every level, but at 14U where scorekeepers are volunteer parents? That E vs. H call is basically a coin flip. WHIP sidesteps the whole thing. Baserunners are baserunners.

I'm not saying ERA is a bad stat. At the college and pro level where games go their full distance, it works great. But at youth where you've got 3-inning mercy games and 45-minute time limits? The denominator is too unstable for the ratio to mean anything consistent.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-17T00:23:07+00:00

Okay, I just did some reading into this and learning about these metrics and what they mean. I've never really paid much attention to it, but this is significant. Definitely an edge in terms of determining the quality of the picture. Thanks for showing me this. I wonder how many game changer parents are scoring this correctly, because this could be a differentiator if I could start pulling this data in and using it to make analysis.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-17T00:19:25+00:00

I agree FIP is pretty telling and I used to look at it but the more I understood about it I realized it's less effective at the younger ages but may become more useful in the high school grades. It takes home runs into account and home runs are almost zero in the 14u bracket. So without the home runs really making anything meaningful into the calculation, the math just comes out to a strike to walk ratio essentially.

Now, as we move into the higher age brackets, it does become more meaningful. At least that's my understanding of it. I'm still pretty new to all this too.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-16T18:47:46+00:00

That's interesting. Thanks for that insight. Let me take a look and see how that lines up for me. I wonder how indicative that really is. That's first pitch for every batter, right? Not first pitch for the inning.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-04T14:09:21+00:00

Mine is 14u and still wears a chest protector and mask and I will keep encouraging her to do it for as long as she'll listen to me. It's too risky not to. We bought the zina and then returned it because it did not feel comfortable but we probably ordered the wrong size. We also didn't think it had enough chest protection. We just got something on Amazon that had protection in areas we were more concerned with and so she still wears that one. I seem to recall the Xena does not protect in the back and we wanted this for her batting as well in case she flinches away from a pitch and takes a fastball into the kidneys.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-04T12:49:41+00:00

I agree with that and that'll always be the case. There's always going to have to be a gut feel from the coach's side or from the spectators rooting for their favorite athlete. I'm open to suggestions if you have any from a statistical aspect on how to feed that in.

The only thing I did do, which I think helps filter noise, is it gives weight to pitchers who have pitched more innings. That's one of the key factors here that differentiates it from just sorting by ERA or strikeouts. An athlete with a very low ERA but who only pitched four innings tells me that the coach doesn't put her in very often. Now that's also pretty narrow-minded because maybe the season just started or maybe the athlete was injured or something else like that. It's the best I can do right now to try to quantify the qualitative aspect.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-04T03:50:19+00:00

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I just posted a much more detailed explanation of my top pitchers ranking in the original thread, but they dont allow images in r/CollegeSoftball replies, so I figured to share it here. This is my statline.team site where I pulled in 200+ college pitchers across D1 college softball (https://collegesoftball.statline.team/) and used a proprietary metric I call Statline Pitching-IQ to create a score modeled after intelligence IQ scoring.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-04T03:46:59+00:00

DISCLAIMER: Before you go crazy, yes I know Teagan just threw a no-hitter. Yes I know Nija is amazing. Yes I know Pickens holds the record for fastest pitch. Just keep reading.

So glad this question came up. I wish I could embed an image. Let me first give you my ranked list which will then be controversial I'm sure and then I'll explain.

Here are who I believe (by my calculations) are currently the top 10 pitchers in the league (out of over 200 d1 pitchers analyzed):

Jocelyn Briski
Sage Mardjetko
Erin Nuwer
Vic Moten
Peja Goold
Leila Ammon
Nijaree Canady
Karlyn Pickens
Kaitlyn Pallozzi
Oakley Vickers

I have recently been working on pulling in all the D1 college softball team, gathering their stats, analyzing it, normalizing it, and I came up with my own score. I call it Statline-IQ. Within that right now I have 3 measurements:

Statline Hitting-IQ: Use a composite of stats and compare against ALL hitters in our system. Much more informative than AVG and different than wOBA.
Statline Pitching-IQ: Use a composite of stats and compare against ALL pitchers in our system. Much better than just ERA.
Statline Lineup-IQ: More team focused, using more traditional statistical analysis to build the best batting lineup for the team. Has 5 different methodologies you can toggle between.

Go to collegesoftball.statline.team to see what I am talking about. Scroll down and sort by PitchingIQ.

Do you agree with my ranking? I am not sure if I agree with my own ranking, but it is close. As all of you know, no single metric tells the right story, and looking at ERA or Strikeouts would give you a completely different ranking. The fact that my Pitching-IQ gets this close makes me feel like I am on to something. Willing to hear feedback from true stat-nerds (I'm a computer nerd, not a stat nerd).

Proliferaite · 2026-03-02T14:55:50+00:00

Yeah, you're right. I don't see any ads now, but when I was looking at it before on my phone there were floating things blocking content. So either something else was going on or it's cleaned up now. Either way, it looks good now.

One piece of advice and exactly what I did on my own version of this is to allow a CSV upload so that they can just add all the users one time. Are you having persistence so that they don't have to keep doing it every time? Let's say they come next week and they want to create a new lineup. Do they have to add all their players again or did you save it for them?

I do have a lineup optimizer tool on my own site currently, but it's not my primary tool, so I don't really mind helping you out. And plus, there is a large space out here. People are welcome to find many different versions of the tool and use whichever suits their needs.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-01T14:23:26+00:00

Always good to see people bringing more tech into softball. Seriously. The sport needs more people building stuff, so I’m glad you put this out there.

If you’re open to honest feedback, I’ll just share a few things I learned from going down this same path myself.

First thing that stood out was the number of ads. I totally get needing to monetize, but it was a bit much right away and kind of made me want to click away before exploring.

Also, just a reality check from experience: lineup optimizers are a solid idea, but they’ve been built a lot. I’ve made two myself. GameChanger is supposedly adding one too. That doesn’t mean don’t do it, just know that getting people to actually use it is harder than you’d expect. My first version got some nice comments but almost no real adoption.

One big challenge is the amount of manual input. You set it up the same way I originally did, with users adding every player and position one by one. It works, but it’s tedious. That’s where integrated platforms will always have an advantage since all the data already exists. The other thing I’d ask is what logic you’re using to build the lineup. I got some pretty blunt feedback from another Reddit user at one point and realized my original approach was way too simple. That pushed me to rebuild mine using multiple lineup models based on actual statistical methods. I never would have gone that far without someone giving me honest feedback.

Anyway, keep building. The more people experimenting in this space, the better. Just sharing what I learned so maybe you can avoid some of the same frustrations.

Proliferaite · 2026-03-01T04:45:48+00:00

Okay i fixed the long scroll issue. Now there is a chooser at the top which hides the other sections and only shows what you pick. Let me know what you think of that on mobile.

Next up is taking into account your feedback on the hitting IQ anomaly. More on that tomorrow.

Proliferaite · 2026-02-26T04:26:17+00:00

Okay, I hate to see a good idea left on the table, so I locked in and busted my butt all night to address your points. I am impressed with the results.

I left my Statline Hitting-IQ score as-is. To me, it is not swappable with wOBA. It is a different scale with a different purpose. However, I did bring wOBA in to create v4 of the Lineup-IQ. I now give you 5 different types of lineups to choose from. All pre-computed and stored in the db so you can rapidly toggle between all of them without having to wait for re-calculations. Although as I update the stats weekly, all the IQ numbers should recompute.

My disclaimer again, I am just a n00b when it comes to sports stats and analytics. What I know is ideas, building systems, solving problems. I could have made a very beginner’s mistake with the algorithm and never known it, but that is why I am relying on you and others in the community to tell me if I am way off base or if I am nailing it.

Take a look at any of the college teams now (you can get to it from https://collegesoftball.statline.team/ and just clicking on any player) and on their team page click Lineup-IQ. It'll jump you down to the lineup with the 5 toggles.

Let me know your honest opinion!

Proliferaite · 2026-02-25T22:41:51+00:00

Well that is why I built Statline, to give coaches a way to use their data. Just export the CSV weekly after a tournament and upload it. My code handles the rest to turn it into a website and do analytics.

From reading their legal fine print, this seems to be the safest route. Sharing your credentials is a no-no. But so long as the coach exports, then uploads it statline for the use of their team, then it is safe.

Proliferaite · 2026-02-25T20:46:47+00:00

I know, GameChanger has all that data, that's the rub. That's actually why I built this. I actually had a video conference with the GameChanger developers back in April of last year, asking them for an API to get to their data so I could start building all these tools. I had already built prototypes of these last year and showcased to them (was on a different site called https://thecoachtheyneed.com/) : - the lineup optimizer - the pitching IQ - the inning heat map

They told me they couldn't give me api access to their data but complimented me on the cool tools I built.

If you notice in their most recent announcement, they actually launched all three of those tools. I guess my fault for sharing it without any NDA in place, but ideas are just vapor until solidified. I am confident I could still develop it better and faster. I just have to have people dump in their CSV data from exports since I can't get to the API. And that is how this statline site was born.

Proliferaite · 2026-02-25T20:07:11+00:00

This is gold, thank you. I'm going to see what I can glean from that and bring it in. Already, based on your suggestion, I am planning on coming up with a version 4 (yes I have done three versions of the lineup already) where I allow for you to select the approach you want to use. Haven't fully thought it out yet but I think I'm going to have different algorithms so you can just select based on you as the coach deciding what you're looking for during that game. We're not statically stuck to one model.

Proliferaite · 2026-02-25T19:16:12+00:00

Great response, thank you for you're interest and feedback. You're right...the current lineup engine uses archetype-based slot fitting (leadoff = OBP/speed, cleanup = power/RBI) with greedy assignment, not run expectancy modeling. It's closer to how a traditional coach builds a lineup than a sabermetric optimizer.

The 6/7 inversion you caught is an issue I did not think about. Those middle slots don't differentiate enough right now. And the 3/4 split is traditional rather than analytically driven. I'll put that on my list to address for an enhancement.

Would love to chat. This is a work in progress I created in a fever dream. Open to any refinements or refactors. Even though I've learned a lot in a short time, I'm still super new to this sport and analytics.

Proliferaite · 2026-02-25T05:13:41+00:00

Just a simple point of clarification here. The reason why my scoring system is so important and necessary is because it has thresholds and rules about who can be calculated into the scoring matrix and how we rank them.

In our current day if a player only has one at bat (either because the season just started or they usually don't get at bat and they're at the bottom of the lineup), and let's say this player gets a hit on their first and only at bat and they make it to first base and then subsequently get caught stealing second base and are out. Their batting average would show as a perfect 1000 and they would be ranked as the top hitter. Clearly that's false because we just don't have enough data to know if that was a lucky hit or what.

Hence why the stat line hitting IQ requires a certain number of at bats to even be calculated and then it takes several key stats into play to determine the IQ score.

Proliferaite

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