Track every pitch, block, throwdown, and bunt — right from your phone, right from the dugout.
My daughter is a catcher. I've watched her work hard for years — the early morning practices, the extra reps, the games where she was the backstop that made the whole defense function. And at some point I started asking the same question every baseball and softball parent eventually asks: how does anyone actually see this?
The recruiting landscape for high school and college baseball and softball has never been harder to navigate. Coaches and recruiters want data — that's not new. GameChanger changed things for parents when it came to capturing at-bat and hitting data. But the more I researched what it actually takes to get a catcher recruited by a college program, the more one thing became clear: "My daughter is amazing" isn't going to be enough. You need to be able to prove it, pitch by pitch.
And here's what makes the recruiting system even harder to navigate: not every talented player gets to compete on the club teams that show up at the right showcases. Not every program wins a state championship. There are players out there with every tool a recruiter is looking for who will simply be missed because the data to tell their story was never captured. That's not a talent gap. That's a data gap.
Playmaker Stats exists to close that gap. My goal — as a dad, as someone who has spent a lot of time in dugouts — is to give parents and coaches the tools to document what happens behind the plate. Not just wins and losses. The full picture. Every pitch handled, every block, every throw, every decision. The kind of granular catcher and pitcher performance data that has never been available at the youth and high school level.
Data doesn't replace talent. But it amplifies it. And when a recruiter can see exactly what your catcher does over a full game — pitch by pitch — "my daughter is amazing" becomes something you can actually prove.
GameChanger writes a game from the scorebook — hits, walks, strikeouts, runs. That's valuable, but it's batter data. The catcher is invisible in it.
Playmaker Stats captures something GameChanger has never had access to: every pitch the catcher handled. Not just the outcomes — the full sequence. Ball location. Framing attempts. Blocks in the dirt. Throwdown decisions. Pitch by pitch, recorded in real time from the dugout. That data doesn't exist anywhere else in youth, high school or college baseball and softball.
That's the story of the battery — the pitcher and catcher working together — told from behind the plate. But who should be telling it, and why does it matter?
Not every parent is a stats person — but every parent wants their athlete to be seen. You don't need to love data. You need to run the app, tap what happens, and let the record do what "my daughter is amazing" never can: prove it, pitch by pitch, across an entire season.
A coach's most powerful tool isn't what they observe in the moment — it's what they can document over time. Playmaker Stats gives coaches a game-by-game performance record for every catcher they work with. Show a player exactly where they're improving and exactly where the work still needs to happen. That conversation changes when the data is in the room.
Here's the ask: tell your parents to run Playmaker Stats at every game. You now have a consistent, pitch-by-pitch data stream for every player you coach — not impressions, not memory, but a season-long record. Track blocking efficiency over time. Watch framing improve. Show a recruiter not just where a player is, but where they started and how far they've come.
When pitch locations, catcher responses, and outcomes are recorded consistently across a season, patterns emerge that have never been visible at this level before. Was the pitcher locating pitches outside, but the ball kept going into the dirt? Was the catcher's blocking efficiency dropping in the fifth and sixth innings — a conditioning signal, not a skill one? Did the battery operate differently against left-handed batters?
These are the questions that define elite performance at every level above youth ball. The answers have always existed in the data. They just weren't being captured. Playmaker Stats is building toward AI-assisted game assessment — not just a log of what happened, but a real analysis of what it means for the pitcher, the catcher, and the battery as a unit.
"GC tells you what happened in the game. PlayMaker tells you why."
Both apps have a role. The question is which one tells the story a recruiter actually needs to see.
Good game narrative. Zero pitching analysis.
Everything a recruiter needs to evaluate a catcher — none of it in GC.
Map hits and runs to specific battery stints. PlayMaker knows which innings each battery covered. GameChanger knows the score by inning and hit counts. Neither has that picture alone — but the most valuable work, the ball quality breakdown, on-spot%, consistent miss vs. off-spot, came entirely from PlayMaker. GameChanger couldn't touch it.
GameChanger tracks the batter. Playmaker Stats tracks the catcher — the data no other app captures.
Designed for one-handed use during a live game. No setup, no account, no internet required.
Every button maps to a single catcher action. The app figures out context — you just tap what happened.
Installed as a PWA on your iPhone home screen. No signal needed. Data stays on your device until you export.
One tap exports a full game report — pitch counts by inning, per-catcher stats, bunt fielding breakdown, and more.
Playmaker fills the gaps GameChanger leaves. Merge both data sources for a complete catcher profile.
Import a color-coded pitch card via QR code, and every catcher sign typed in the keypad decodes to the actual pitch type — in real time, right on screen.
The Pitch Card Generator is a free companion tool that puts the sign chart directly inside PlayMaker — no file transfers, no manual entry, no sharing secrets with whoever is tracking.
Use the free generator to create a color-coded call sheet. Assign pitch types and locations to a 5-row × 30-column sign grid — however your catcher uses the signs.
The generator outputs a QR code. Open PlayMaker → tap Manage → Scan QR Code. The card imports in seconds — no account, no file, no internet required after that.
Every sign typed in the Number Keypad decodes on screen — → Fastball · Zone 3 — so whoever is tracking always knows the pitch type without memorizing the sheet.
Build a color-coded pitch card for any pitcher, generate a QR code, and import it directly into PlayMaker. Save cards per pitcher, share them to your coaching staff via QR, and track pitch types by name instead of sign number. Works on any device, offline, no account needed.
Playmaker Stats gets better with every game. Here's a running log of what's changed — because coaches deserve software that listens.
The free Pitch Card Generator lets coaches build a color-coded sign chart for any pitcher — assign pitch types and zones across 30 columns and 5 rows — then export as a QR code. Open PlayMaker, tap Manage → Scan QR Code, and the card imports instantly. From that point on, every sign typed in the Number Keypad decodes on screen: Fastball · Zone 3. Cards are saved per pitcher, shareable via QR to coaches and parents, and work entirely offline. No server, no account, no file transfers.
The action sheet that appears when you manage a saved game has been redesigned to match the iOS-native look you expect: grouped button cards with hairline dividers, clean text labels, no fills. The old ▶ button on each saved game row — which looked like a play button but wasn't — is now a proper ⋯ options icon. Small changes that make the app feel more polished in the moments between games.
Every Strike Look and Strike Swing now prompts for zone location using the same 3×3 grid used for balls and frames: High·Inside through Low·Outside, or Skip to move on. On the third strike the app pauses before committing the at-bat — did the catcher catch it cleanly, or was it a drop third? The Drop 3rd K flow now routes correctly to the outcome (batter safe or out), fixing a bug where that sequence would sometimes short-circuit. Strike zone data will feed directly into per-battery pitch analysis.
The pitch entry section now has two modes. The original Number Keypad handles radar gun readings as before. The new Call Keypad lets you tag the pitch type — Fastball, Rise Ball, Drop Ball, Curveball, Screwball, Drop Curve, Changeup, or Pitchout — then the location on a 1–5 grid. A batter hand toggle (R/L) flips the inside/outside labels so the location grid always reads correctly regardless of which side of the plate the batter is standing on. Flip between modes any time the keypad is open.
Ball location input is now a single-tap 3×3 zone grid — High·Inside, High, High·Outside, Inside, Outside, Low·Inside, Low, Low·Outside — replacing the old two-step inside/outside/high/low chain. Frame attempts are a toggle right in the center of the grid, so you can mark a stolen strike without any extra steps. Frame Assist also has its own zone grid, so the specific frame location is captured before the pitch settles. Pitch calls are now always visible as a pinned row, separate from the battery card, so they're faster to access mid at-bat.
Tap Share mid-game or let End Game handle it automatically — either way, the app snapshots the game to the cloud and generates a QR code in seconds. Anyone running Playmaker Stats can scan it and load the full game on their phone. Parent watching from the other side of the park? Coach who wants to review it later? One scan and they're in. Saved games live in the new 📋 Saved Games panel, sorted by date, accessible any time — even offline.
After logging a hit, the app now walks you through: was the batter safe or out? If safe — single, double, triple, or home run? Did anyone score? Three quick taps and it's captured. Field plays like a tag at home now appear right under the batter card they belong to, not as a disconnected row at the bottom of the log.
No more hunting for where to leave feedback. A Share Feedback button now lives at the very bottom of the app — always one scroll away. There's also a direct link back to this site if you want to share it with someone.
When a batter shows bunt to slow the catcher and then pulls back, you can now log it as a Fake Bunt — no guessing, no workarounds. The app detects the bunt gesture mid-entry and gives you a clean way to reclassify it. The at-bat continues normally from there, so nothing gets lost in your pitch count.
New users now get a 13-step coach-mark walkthrough the first time they open the app. Every key control gets a spotlight and a plain-language explanation, so you can get comfortable before the first pitch. If you've already been using the app, nothing changes — the tour only runs once.
Made a wrong call? Tap the last pitch in the stream to edit it directly. The tap target is bigger than it looks — beta testers asked for this, and it's now much easier to correct a logged pitch without undoing and re-entering the whole sequence.
After a ball call, the app now prompts you for ball location in a two-step refine grid. Each ball is automatically categorized so your end-of-game report shows exactly where balls are landing. The walk path is fully handled — location still gets captured even on ball four.
Track multiple catchers in a single game with per-catcher stats breakdowns. Game date and time now auto-fill on the first pitch and lock in — so your session is always timestamped correctly even if you forget to fill it in before play starts.
More on the way. Tell us what to build next →
Playmaker Stats is free during beta. Open it on your iPhone, tap Add to Home Screen, and start tracking today.
🔒 No account. No personal data. All game data lives on your device. When you tap Share, a game snapshot is uploaded to generate your shareable link — no names, no accounts, nothing tracked. Your stats are yours.