Gilligan on Data by Tim Wilson

What kind of data geek would I be if I wasn’t a baseball scoring junkie? The tools on this page are specifically geared towards youth baseball. I’m not intimately familiar with the differences, but I’m pretty sure it will work for Pony baseball, Little League, or one-off leagues like the one my son currently plays in. (And, it turns out, there’s plenty of similarity with high school baseball, too, so if you’re scoring at that level, scan on down — there’s a stat-calculating option for that included at the bottom of this page as well).

Over the course of a couple of seasons, I developed what seems to be a pretty easy-to-use system. There are two parts that were designed to be used in conjunction with each other but can certainly be used independently.

Scoring Sheet

The scoring sheet I developed was a composite of what I most liked about various books that I bought and tried. The highlights:

• It fits on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper
• It’s two pages with the layout offset so that, if it is printed front-and-back, it can be three-hole punched and then used in a 3-ring binder
• It’s geared towards 6-inning games (or 7 inning games)
• It’s designed for leagues/ages where all of the players on the roster are in the batting lineup
• There is some redundancy in the header — mostly geared towards the fact that my son’s league doesn’t find out if they are the home team or visiting team until a coin toss right before the game starts

Download the scoring sheet

I’ll try to get an example of exactly how I use the score sheet put together at some point — it’s got some flexibility and should work for most basic scoring systems.

Player Data Record / Statistics Generating Spreadsheet

The layout of the data entry worksheet in this book is organized to match the scoring sheet described above, but it can be used with any scoring system. Some features of the workbook:

• One-time setup to enter basic team/league details and the player roster
• Entering one row of data per player per game is all that is required to generate a range of statistics — both individual and team (see below)
• The spreadsheet is macro-free — all of the calculation of statistics is accomplished through pivot tables
• An optional “game lineup” tool that coaches can use to set up which players are playing which position and the batting order, and a “defensive play tracking” sheet is automatically generated, as well as a lineup to give to the scorer for the opposing team
• The spreadsheet was developed in Excel 2007. I have not tested it using earlier versions of Excel.

The stats generated — both individual and team, as applicable — by the spreadsheet include:

• Batting average
• Slugging percentage
• On-base percentage
• On-base Plus Slugging (OPS)
• Put-in-Play percentage (PIP) — this is a statistic I invented as a measure of how often each player makes contact with the ball and puts it in play (you can read more about the stat in this blog post)
• Earned Run Average (ERA) — the spreadsheet is set up to calculate this based on a 6-inning game, but instructions are included in the spreadsheet to change the standard game length to something different
• Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP)
• Strikout-to-Walk ratio
• Fielding percentage

The workbook also generates a game-by-game win/loss table.

Download the blank spreadsheet (Excel 2007 required)
Download an example of the spreadsheet with sample data (Excel 2007 required)

As a bonus for the 2010 season (and thanks to some feedback and suggestions from some people who have high schoolers and saw some potential in the original), I’ve now got a beefed up version that is more geared towards high school and above:

Download the blank spreadsheet (Excel 2007 still required)

Feedback and Questions Welcome

Leave a comment here or send me an email at scoresheet at this site dot com if you have any questions or suggestions for improvements.