Update -  Stat Manager 2.0 has been released and is available for download! 

The ability to create, view and print scatter charts is one of the new features that will be available in version 2.0 of Baseball Stat Manager. Below is a preview of how to use the new Scatter Chart feature and how they can provide an valuable addition to batting stats for your baseball team. Version 2.0 of Stat Manager will be released in February, 2009 and will be a free upgrade to all current users of Baseball Stat Manager 1.x.

Entering Scatter Chart Data

The first step of using the scatter charts is entering the location of each hit for every player on your team. The best time to do this is while your entering the other statistics for your team. A new “Hit Placement” tab has been added to the Game Stats screen of Stat Manager. From this tab, you can enter the location of each hit a player has as you enter the player's other stats. Adding a new hit is easy – just choose whether the hit is a ground ball or fly ball and click the 'Add Hit' button. Then, choose the location of the hit on the field. After you choose a location, a colored circle is added to the field – red for ground balls and blue for fly balls. Simply repeat this procedure for each hit the player had for the game. The location of each hit is then automatically saved for you.

Viewing Scatter Charts

To view the scatter charts for your team, open the Scatter Chart View screen. This screen can be accessed by the Teams>Scatter Chart item on the menu or clicking the Scatter Charts button on the menu bar. The Scatter Chart View screen allows you to view and filter the scatter charts for your team. The scatter charts can be filtered by player, game, opponent, season, location or date.

The Scatter Charts report can also be used to view the scatter charts for your team. The report has a filter similar to the Scatter Chart View screen that allows you to filter down the information you want to look at. Once the report is created, this report can then be printed or exported to a PDF or Excel file which allows you to email the report to your team.

Using Scatter Charts

Scatter Charts are one more valuable tool to analyze the performance of the players on your team. They allow you to view trends in how hitters are putting the ball in play. As an example, lets look at the following scatter chart for a right-handed batter over several games:

Just looking at the hitting stats for the player may show that he is hitting well for average and power. However, the scatter chart allows you to dig deeper into the analysis and realize that the batter may be struggling a bit. The scatter chart shows that the batter is hitting with good power to left and center field. However, there are very few hits to the right side and most contacts to the right side are weak ground balls. This may indicate that the batter is not hitting outside pitches or curve balls off the plate very well. Instead of trying to take the outside pitch the other way, he is taking a normal swing and hitting the ball weakly off the end of the bat. Although the batter is generally successful at the plate, working with him to adjust his approach on outside pitches could help him improve his batting average.

Let's look at another situation: its in the late innings of a close game and you've got a runner on first and that you really want to move as far as you can. You have an opportunity to put in a pinch hitter and you have two good hitters on the bench. One of the players on the bench hits consistently with decent power, but seem to always pull the ball to left field. The second player on the bench hits a lot of line drives and has a knack for finding the gaps. Analyzing scatter charts before the game would reveal this information – although the first hitter has a potential of hitting a home-run, he also has the possibility that he may hit a pop-up to left, leaving the runner at first base. The second player will give a good potential of hitting the ball into the gap and move the runner on first to third and possibly home.