This may turn out to be one of the most surprising surveys we have ever done. The premise was simple, based on one of the tried-and-true cliches - common wisdom. Most in the WebBall community are believers in practices. But does practice make perfect, or permanent? More than once we've encountered teams who don't do well because they don't practice enough. But we've also seen the burn-out factor - teams that practice until everyone is sick of it. So, for this Nose 2 Nose, we thought we'd open the debate on how practices and wins correlate, or even if they do.

Everyone, of course, can have a subjective opinion. And we welcomed those. But we wanted to put some numbers to it. We knew not all practices are created equal. If your practices include everyone standing around while one guy hits, not very effective. So we also asked voters to give us an idea of the number of drills/stations you might run and how long your practices go - looking for quality not just quantity as part of fixing the definite correlation

That was the plan.
But a funny thing happened on the way to compiling the data and creating charts.

First, a report came out of Canada that established new parameters for long term athletic development based on age. It basically said that young kids play too much and practice too little. Step away from sports and you see the paradigm they are talking about - consider dance. Young dancers practice for hours at a time, for weeks on end, to perfect a performance (if they can) that might last only 2 or 3 minutes and be performed only 4 or 5 times in front of an audience - if that much.

FROM GAMES REPORTED (per-team average)	AVG	MAX/MIN
Wins (881 Reported)	13.98
Losses (604 Reported)	9.59
Ties (17 Reported)	0.27
Games per week	2.48	6.00 / 1.00
Practices pre-season	11.44
Practices in-season	14.97
Practices per week	1.71	4.00 / 0.00
Drills per practice	4.66
Practice length (hrs)	1.78	3.00 / 0.00
Winning Percentage	0.59	1.00 / 0.00
Practices per Game	1.30	3.75 / 0.19
Player Ratio (% of team at practices - some teams have more players at practices than they bring to games.)	90 %	125 % / 50%

Yet from the numbers we see in our Nose 2 Nose voting, baseball is not nearly as practice intense (I think we all pretty much knew that). The ratio of practice to wins for all the voters was 1.30 - meaning 1.3 practices for each game. But like all such averages the range was more dramatic - from as few as 1 practice for every 5 or more games, to as many as 3.75 practices per game (which for many of us in baseball might seem excessive.)

There are other overall stats from the survey, and we present them here (on the left) for your amusement, but in truth they are meaningless, because we found no definite correlation between win/loss success and any of the survey results. (If cells are blank it's because the numbers would be less than meaningless.)

Understand that you can't spot correation in a table of totals or averages, you need to look at direct comparisons, and we did. Below is a chart showing win/loss ratios in white, and the practice/game ratios in yellow. The win/loss % is in descending order, the practice/game ratio shows no order at all - no correlation 
We also charted other categories from the light green table with the same conclusion...

 No direct or obvious correlations at all, anywhere.

Remember: this was compiled from actual teams, not from someone trying to prove a theory. So why no obvious proof that practices are good? We think the real clues comes in the comments from voting coaches...

In the comments, if the actual Win/Loss and Practice/Games ratios are significant we have included them. Because some of the comments relate to struggling teams, we don't want to embarrass coaches or player, we have not used names on this survey.

(W/L: 100% P/G 3.5) I Have coached the same age group 3 years in a row now. Each year, I've identified the areas my team has needed improvement in. This year, I had my kids working on their base running skills and defensive strategies from day one. I also wanted to improve my outfield play. These three areas of improvement have been key in our undfeated season to date, with baserunning being the biggest factor. We run bases better than anyone in our league. I believe diversity is the key to practicing. A coach who does batting practice and infield practice 4 times a week isn't meeting the needs of his players.

(W/L 33% P/G 1.7) We have reached the point of dimishing return. These kids have decided they do not want to practice good fundamentals, they refuse to attempt new techniques which are more sound. They are just continuing to re-enforce previous bad habits. Being a rec-league makes disipline very difficult - since they play anyway, technique does not matter. Bottom line, despite coaches attempts to keep practices interesting and building sound technique, they are becoming less effective.

I know a team that practices 6x per week yet has a losing record. And I know a team that barely practices that has a very high percentage of wins. Is it the right mix of players? Maybe it is the right coaching motivation? I am uncertain the proper mix, but I try to have as many practices as my work/family schedule allows. I always figured 'more practice = better performance and skill'.

(W/L 86% P/G 1.6) We started the year with very focused and structured practices. Stretch and warm-up for 15 minutes. Throw catch for 15 minutes combined with slow rolling grounders without gloves. Then we did grounders (infield) all players and pop ups (outfield) all players. This was a set routine and would us the first 45 minutes. We would break for 3 - 5 minutes and work on target drills based on last games / practice areas of concern. As we reached the 6th game we took our first loss - not on skills but from players not being into the game. We then received another 2 games later. By then we had already practiced 14 out of our 19 times. Out of necessity and not design we were practicing less as fields were being rescheduled for different commitments and our practices were reduced to about 2 from 3-4 per week. It is my opinion that shorter, very focused practices 1.5 hours max at 2 - 3 day intervals work the best. Having 3 practices or 4 events per week is a limit at the 9/10 age. After 3 or 4 per week we saw the quality of the players attention and performance reduced.

Practices help immensely - BUT only when EVERYONE shows up at the same time. We lost lots of games this year because of missed signs, not knowing the play, throwing to the wrong person - you name it. And it seemed it was the people who weren't at practice. In our league they make it a pain to bench someone (they have to miss 3 straight practices, you have to notify parent, then you have to notify your player agent, who again tries to contact the parent, then you can bench the player!) And players have a minimum playing time of 3 innings! (Little League) Now our record increased from 6-1 at the end of the season, from a start of 4-9, after two boys quit [who hadn't contributed much].

We practice 2 times a week and play 2 games on Saturday usually. We add a couple of tounaments along the way. We try to improve our practices each week which depends a lot on how much help I have.We use both team drills and stations. Our record is a little deceivinig. We compete in Division 1 in our 12U league. The teams we play have been together a while and practice a lot. We have come a long way since the days we looked like the bad news bears. All our losses this season have been mostly one and two run differentials. So we are competing with these teams now. We split nearly every weekend. This is our first go round in this division. We have tried 3 practices or longer practices, but I believe these guys are 12 and should act like it. Baseball should be fun, not something to look forward to being over with. I see many teams playing a ton more than we do, and I know a lot of older kids who do not play because they are sick of it.

Coaching the younger players, I stress fundamentals, good hitting form, good fielding form, how to throw and catch correctly, how to run the bases, who the cut off men are and why, proper people covering bases when a ball is hit with men on base. Older players: we work on drills - hitting cut off men from the outfield, pitchers covering first, bunt coverage with men on different bases, coverage by middle infielders with a man on second and more. This type practice has helped us very much. I have found that drills on specifics bring greater results in games rather than just having a good infield and outfield drill, and a hitting drill. Practice has to be done in a way that everyone is moving all the time, no dead time for any player. I stress being on time at practice, and everyone runs when inside the white lines. We are very deciplined, which is necessary to run a good practice, this then carries over into the games.

I helped coach a team my nephew played on where prior to the season the league gives you three weeeks to practice and access to fields on 2-3 days per week maximum. Being that the kids are in the developmental stage I think it is insane to have so many games when they have so little time to work on the fundamentals. I am 35 years old and I played an average of 27 games per year (from the age of 9-15). That was enough. I was close to making it and I played with several players that did make it to the bigs. Games are a neccessity, but if the kids can't come close to mastering the fundamentals then how can they expect to play well in a game?

Last year practices were inconsistant. Plans and expectations for practice were not communicated prior to meeting, and vaguely communicated at the start of practice. Take aways for individual player improvement were not assigned. Attendance was spotty. That being said, for 7 and 8 year olds, attempting to meet twice a week to review and emphasize fundamentals was more effective in player performance throughout the term of the season than situations where there was little or no practice at all. Perhaps we would have performed better as a team if we had assigned players to 1 or 2 positions and then instructed them in the duties of those spots. The team we were on last fall did that and won the division both for that season and this one. I call this coaching method the 'lock it down' style. In over 3 years of managing and coaching, I have seen this style win titles by limiting player positions. I have also seen its effects on players who are new to the game and want to get better, but are not given opportunities. Those players and parents walk away from a great game and might be lost forever. But it's a method that works for winning.

(W/L 50% P/G 1.5) The coach of our current team has a 'spread it around' style that gives more players more opportunities at different positions. I feel this is more important at this age because it develops more players who may continue on. We were a 500 ball club, but first year players showed more improvement by the end of the season than witnessed with the 'lock it down' style.

[Editor's note: We can't imagine there are many readers out there who don't know what WebBall's opinion might be of locking 7-8 year olds into 1 or 2 positions. We are glad to see the shift to 'spread it around' approach, not just for the wins it might produce.]

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(W/L 75% P/G 2.0) I believe baseball is an everyday thing. Kids need to swing the bat and throw the ball. There are so many skills to cover and offensive and defensive plays to put in, we need the time to be ready to play the game correctly. But most importantly, we want our kids to build up arm strength to prevent injuries. It's no fun playing this game with a sore arm. We mix it up quite a bit. With all the rain we get here, some practices are an hour of hitting in the cage and that's it.

(W/L 56% P/G 2.7) We try to simulate game conditions as much as possible. In the beginning we move at a 'teaching tempo' which allows the player to master the skill, then we move to 'game tempo' to execute the skill at game speed. If we have trouble executing in an area, we return to teaching tempo and repeat the process. We have had good success in that even as the smallest school in our league by more than a thousand students, we still compete well for league and titles.

(W/L 60% P/G 0.64) As coach that practices A LOT and tries to teach fundamentals A LOT, I have the following observations: Some kids improve with practice, others do not. In dealing with 13-14 year olds, the reps seem to matter less. The challenge is 99% in the mental side. You need to make the practices more mental exercises to get through. Here's is my rule of thumb: You can make a below average talent team a .500 team through lots of practice; You can make an average talent team a .667 team with lots of practices; You can make a exceptional team a 0.800 team with lots of practice. But, there are very few of those teams that really play as a team for the whole season. [Editor's note: for those who look at the stats with this answer and think that's not a high P/G, this team reportedly played 100 games last year and had 65 practice pre- and in-season. A lot of baseball.]