New User, Suggestions

If you have an idea for improving the product, please post it here and we will try and prioritize updates based on the most popular requests.
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iklimon
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:11 pm
Location: Denver, CO

New User, Suggestions

Post by iklimon » Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:17 pm

I just purchased iScore this morning and actually converted a game from the weeked into iScore. Very nice app, fairly intuitive interface. Some key things that jumped out at me as someone who is involved with and scores for PONY Baseball, ASA Softball and USSSA Travel Baseball teams.
  • I would suggest that you create a setting called "League" that would contain a certain set of rules (number of innings, number of fielders, pitch count limit, min. innings played by player, min. innings in infield played by player). Those sorts of things. Then when someone starts off a new game, they simply select their League and the rules would be auto-applied to the game.
  • I would desperately like to be able to set the DATE for the game. And EDIT the name of the game AFTER its creation.
  • It would be very nice to be able to preset rosters and positions. I know that for youth leagues players often have to rotate. Having to do that between innings can be time-consuming (esp. when the coach is checking in with you to find out certain pieces of information and you're also checking with the other scorer). Being able to do it up-front would be a real time saver.
  • For stats, I would think that it would be important to follow standard conventions for abbreviations. For instance, you use B.A. to indicate batting average when the accepted abbreviation is AVG, you use S.A. to indicate Slugging Average when the accepted abbreviation is SLG you use O.B.P. when OBP is accepted, O.P.S. when OPS is accepted. You also tracking RPA and 1/RPA which frankly should be optional stats.
  • You include PA (for plate appearances when the MLB and Sports Illustrated generally just stick to AB (with BB, HBP and SAC following).
  • I would suggest that you provide a list of stats that you CAN generate and let someone pick their top 10, 12, 18, 20 whatever.
  • Please add WHIP. It's a hugely valuable statistic, esp. at the youth level.
  • The standard MLB tracked batting statistics (I'm not talking about the more in-depth ones, but the ones that you see on any stat report from the MLB are the following:
    G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG
    Sports Illustrated tracks the following standard batting stats:
    AVG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K HBP SB CS GDP OBP SLG OPS

    I personally also track XBH (total number of extra base hits).
  • For pitchers you can abbreviate Balls and Strikes as "B" and "S" (It'll save you some space on your printout).
  • Additionally you need to ensure that things like ERA are caculated based on an "X" inning game. Meaning that ERA is not always calculated off of a nine innning game. For some ages/leagues the games are 5, 6, 7, or 9 innings (standard).

    Thanks for the great program, I look forward to your continued work!
Ian Klimon
Slammers Black 13U Major
http://www.slammersbaseball.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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FTMSupport
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Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:25 pm

Re: New User, Suggestions

Post by FTMSupport » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:21 pm

Lots of good stuff in here, thank you for taking the time to put it together.

Most of the items have been suggested and are on our list already, but it still helps us prioritize knowing that more people are interested in certain items.

Regarding ERA, we have said we would include the ability to create an Earned Runs per Game stat (based on different numbers of innings), but it is not the same as ERA. ERA is a calculation of runs given up per 9 innings pitched. (documented several times in the forums).

As for which stats to show, we definitely want to give users the ability to choose. If you ask 10 different people which stats to include, you will get 10 different answers. You even show that point by saying RPA and 1/RPA should be optional (they are there because of requests from coaches), and then say you like XBH. And PA is actually very important to people who follow the Billy Bean theory of OBP being much more important than AVG, etc.

I'm just pointing out that everyone has different tastes for the stats they like to see, and as you suggested, letting people choose is likely going to be the best solution. In the current release we tried to put in a fair balance without over doing things.

Thank you again for the detailed email... it will help us continue making iScore even better.
Check out the new iScore Baseball documentation page!
Includes videos and user manual.
http://iscoresports.com/baseball/training.php#docs
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