BR.com's Sports Reference Blog

November 29, 2006

BaseballThinkFactory.org outage

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sean @ 11:28 pm

I’m not working with Jim Furtado on BTF anymore, but I did speak with him today, so I have an idea as to what is going on.

The site changed domain name registrars awhile back, except that the old registrar didn’t fully transfer the domain (possibly shady business practices here). Somehow the name was registered in two places simultaneously and the old one expired which led to it being grabbed by a domain name speculator who is just parking it on an advertisement site to make some ad revenue until someone offers to buy it from them. I know that Jim is working feverishly to get this cleared up, but is going through customer service hell on the way to making that happen.

English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English Baseball Dictionaries - Baseball-Reference.com

Filed under: New Features, Uncategorized — Sean @ 9:40 am

English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English Baseball Dictionaries - Baseball-Reference.com

Dr. Ralph Insinga has graciously allowed us to reprint his dictionaries here. Hope you enjoy it.

November 28, 2006

Boston Red Sox Team Index - Baseball-Reference.com

Filed under: New Features, Uncategorized — Sean @ 2:22 pm

Boston Red Sox Team Index - Baseball-Reference.com

I’ve added a couple of things to the team franchise pages. In addition to the link to the Baseball America Executive DB, I’ve added a link to the Bullpen page of historical minor league affiliates and also a link to Chris Creamer’s excellent SportsLogos.net.

November 27, 2006

Most multi-hit games in first 100 games

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sean @ 12:59 pm

Here is another list with the most multi-hit games in their first 100 games.

                 Games
+----------------+-----+
 Ichiro Suzuki       47
 Dan Gladden         45
 Dave Stapleton      43
 Manny Jimenez       42
 Tony Oliva          41
 Wally Joyner        41
 Cesar Cedeno        40
 Juan Samuel         39
 Kirby Puckett       39
 Juan Uribe          38
 Jimmy Rollins       38
 Jim Rice            38
 Ernest Riles        37
 Jose Reyes          37
 Edgar Renteria      37
 Terry Puhl          37
 Vada Pinson         37
 Hideki Matsui       37
 Carlos Lee          37
 Nomar Garciaparr    37
 Mike Caruso         37
 Garret Anderson     37
 Garry Templeton     36
 Kazuo Matsui        36
 Ron LeFlore         36

Most 0-fers in their first 100 games

Filed under: Hacks, New Features, Uncategorized — Sean @ 12:58 pm

Here’s a list that I generated with something I’m working on today.

The non-pitchers with the most 0-fers in their first 100 games (as always, the last 50 years.


Games
+—————-+—–+
Tim Tolman 77
Dave Rohde 73
Mike Rogodzinski 73
Adrian Garrett 73
Bob Burda 73
Phil Stephenson 71
Cap Peterson 71
Charlie Manuel 71
Mike Easler 71
Jim Campanis 71
Winston Llenas 70
Champ Summers 68
John Stephenson 68
Wallace Johnson 68
Chris Ward 67
Jim Tatum 67
Jason Michaels 67
Jason Grabowski 67
Geronimo Berroa 67
Jim Beauchamp 67
Bob Beall 67
Tom Shopay 66
Charlie Sands 66
Joe Nolan 66
Louie Meadows 66

November 22, 2006

Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi Database | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

Filed under: For Fun, Uncategorized — Sean @ 12:36 pm

Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi Database | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

I agree those Trekkies are loserz!

Mike Piazza Batting Home Run Log - Baseball-Reference PI

Filed under: New Features, Uncategorized — Sean @ 12:33 pm

Mike Piazza Batting Home Run Log - Baseball-Reference PI

In advance of the launch of B-R PI (most likely in early December), I have rolled out free home run logs for each player from the last 50 years. These have a summary of the home runs at the top and bottom and then a year-by-year home run-by-home run listing of each home run the batter hit or the pitcher allowed.

November 19, 2006

Downtime - Sunday night

Filed under: News, Uncategorized — Sean @ 11:24 pm

We had a very brief downtime Sunday night. Just a couple of minutes as I rebooted the servers. The amazing thing to me is that all three of the servers had been up and running for well over 100 days without a moment off and in that time they’ve probably served over 50m pages from all of the sites on the server. Linux is a pretty trusty operating system. *knock on wood*.

November 17, 2006

Minor League Baseball: Events: Winter Meetings

Filed under: News — Sean @ 4:10 pm

Minor League Baseball: Events: Winter Meetings

I’m making my first trip to the winter meetings this year. Should be fun. If you use B-R, I would enjoy getting a chance to talk to power users about how they use the site and what features they might find the most helpful. Send me an e-mail if you are interested in getting together even for just a few minutes.

November 15, 2006

Hank Aaron 1963 Batting Gamelogs - Baseball-Reference PI

Filed under: New Features, News, Web Design — Sean @ 3:36 pm

Hank Aaron 1963 Batting Gamelogs - Baseball-Reference PI

For the Batting gamelogs things are pretty straightforward. The only unusual twist would be that I list the player’s career game along the left hand side, and I show the innings (if known) that the player played in that game. For example, a CG is obviously complete game, while GS-8 would mean they started and left in the 8th. Dates link to the box scores for those games.

At the bottom of the page are some special totals including the

  • Longest Hitting Streak of the season

  • Longest on-base streak of the season

  • Grand slams out of how many opportunities

  • Go ahead hits

  • And the number of runners on base in the batter’s PA’s and how this compares to the league at large.
  • As always, reddish text indicates click here for more info.

    Sandy Koufax 1964 Pitching Gamelogs - Baseball-Reference PI

    Filed under: New Features, News, Web Design — Sean @ 3:34 pm

    Sandy Koufax 1964 Pitching Gamelogs - Baseball-Reference PI

    For the Pitching gamelogs there are a number of different and new features. We have the career game for the pitcher and the team game for that season, the date goes to the box score, and then the pitcher result shows a CG or SHO (and the number of innings) and then for starts it would have GS-inning left and for a game finished it would have an f after the inning. Any decisions and the record are then given. We have pitch and strike data for many games and then game scores and inherited runners and those who scored.

    The next two columns may be too information-dense to be readable, let me know. These columns show you the context in which they entered and exited the game.

    For example, in Koufax’s 293rd career game, you have the entries.

    7t -23 0 a 2 and 9t end a 3

    This tells you he entered in the top of the seventh, runners on second and third, zero outs and ahead by 2. He exited, end of the game (top of the ninth) ahead by three. This takes up a LOT of real estate on the screen, but it allows you to easily discern usage and other things. I may need to split the pitching gamelogs into contextual info and stat info because I think the screen is too wide as it is now. Thoughts?

    Also on the gamelogs I have some summaries at the bottom of the pages. I show days rest for the pitchers. Since some of it is for relievers alone I’ll show Mike Marshall’s bottom matter here.

    Days Rest

    DH 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |Other (days rest listed)
    +. .+. .+. .+. .+. .+. .+. .+. .+. .+. . . . . . . . . . . . +
    1 53 36 10 4 1 0 0 0|

    Inning/Score Appearance Matrix
    The inning and relative score when the pitcher entered the game.

    Inn <-4 -4 -3 -2 -1 tie 1 2 3 4 >4
    +. . .+. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +
    4-
    5 1 1
    6 1 3 3 1 2 3 1
    7 2 6 3 2 3 2 3 2
    8 2 4 4 9 3 9 4 3 6
    9 1 4 4 5 2 1 2
    10+ 3
    +. . .+. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +. . +
    Inn <-4 -4 -3 -2 -1 tie 1 2 3 4 >4

    Multiple inning appearances: 74, Entered with runners on base: 44

    I show the days rest between appearances for the pitchers. For example, Marshall pitched both ends of a doubleheader once and on consecutive days 53 times. He never went more than four days between appearances. If he had a 10 day rest, there would bea a “10 days” in the last column.

    For the matrix below that, I took this from Doug Drinen in the old BBBA. this shows the inning he started in and the relative score he started his appearance in. For example, he appeared in tie games 22 times, and even pitched in the fifth a couple of games. Lastly, we have the number of multi-inning appearances and how many times they entered with runners on base.

    As always, reddish text indicates click here for more info.

    Sandy Koufax Career Pitching Splits - Baseball-Reference PI

    Filed under: New Features, News, Web Design — Sean @ 3:31 pm

    Sandy Koufax Career Pitching Splits - Baseball-Reference PI

    The splits are pretty straightforward. The only bell and whistle is in the career splits. As always, reddish text indicates click here for more info. If you click on the name of a split, the year-by-year values for this split will then be filled in below the career total, so if you are looking at Koufax’s performance at home, you can click on “Home” and it will fill in his splits for each year below that, you will see that Koufax got a whole lot better at home in 1962.

    One other perk in the splits is the ability to convert all of the splits to 162 game or 650 PA averages. This allows an apples to apples comparison between splits. I don’t know how useful this will be, but I thought folks might like it.

    Hank Aaron Gamelogs and Splits

    Filed under: New Features, News, Web Design — Sean @ 3:30 pm

    Hank Aaron Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com

    Well, more big news today. I’m in the process of adding splits and gamelogs for the last fifty years. If you go to Hank’s page or Sandy Koufax’s page, you’ll see links to gamelogs and splits for both batting and pitching stats. (I actually have all of the data uploaded, I’m in the process of regenerating the pages, so if you understand the BR id system, you can find any of the players, by tweaking the url.)

    On the player pages I have also updated the look a little bit, in order to set the header and tools links off a bit from the stats, and I’ve rolled out the line highlighting trick to the player stat lines.

    I’m going to blog a few more items to explain the tools in detail.

    I should be rolling out everyone else this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

    November 10, 2006

    Call for Beta Testers for new B-R feature

    Filed under: New Features, News — Sean @ 12:07 pm

    Call of Beta Testers for the Baseball Reference PI

    Have you been wondering what I’ve been doing with myself working on the site full-time? Find out ahead of everyone else. Check out the link above for more details.

    November 9, 2006

    Box Scores from 1957-2006

    Filed under: New Features, Uncategorized — Sean @ 11:19 pm

    Box Score Index

    Thanks to incredible work at RetroSheet.org, Baseball-reference.com is pleased to announce the addition of box scores for every game from 1957 through 2006. That’s right, over 98,000 box scores, and for all but a handful of these we also have a play-by-play narrative that will describe every play in the game.

    Not limited by the printed page, we have added some twists to your traditional box score. Clicking on orangish/red text within the page will bring up a small informational window within the browser (not a popup) that will show you additional information on that player or event. For instance, clicking on the at bats for a player will show you what they did in each of their plate appearances for that game. Clicking on the number of pitches (Yes we have pitch data for most of the games from 1988-2006) in the play-by-play section will show you the sequence of pitches including in many cases any throws to first and any pitchouts. Try them out and let us know what you think or if they aren’t working for you. Javascript is required for this feature, and it is in Beta, so we have only tested it on Windows (IE 6 and Firefox 1.5) and Linux Firefox so far.

    More is on the way in the next month or so, including the launch of our new service, the Baseball-Reference PI. If you want to be a pre-launch beta tester or learn more about what we are planning for our new services, please visit the PI Call for Beta Testers. Space is limited.

    November 8, 2006

    Amazon.com: The Team-By-Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball: Books: Dennis Purdy,Tony La Russa

    Filed under: Uncategorized, books — Sean @ 5:18 pm

    Amazon.com: The Team-By-Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball: Books: Dennis Purdy,Tony La Russa

    A friend of mine recommended this book to me. It has a lot of info in it, but there are a couple of sections for each team that are completely lifted from Baseball-Reference.com.

    The positional starters and pitchers lists for each franchise year-by-year are exactly the same as mine franchise by franchise, and I suspect that the franchise leaderboards are taken from BR as well. BR didn’t even merit an acknowledgement.

    Authors, if you use the site extensively, the least you should do is an acknowledgement and preferably send me a couple free copies.

    update: Here are some examples as to what I am talking about.

    Compare this and this.

    Compare this and this.

    Compare this and this.

    The Team-By-Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball

    November 1, 2006

    2006 World Series - STL vs. DET - Baseball-Reference.com

    Filed under: News, Uncategorized — Sean @ 11:03 am

    2006 World Series - STL vs. DET - Baseball-Reference.com

    I did a small update today. I uploaded all of the postseason results and awards voting thus far. I also fixed some bugs on various pages and added a few minor tweaks and features.

    When users send me corrections and ideas (assuming they aren’t horrible), I print them out and save them in a bugs folder. Then when I get a chance, I spend a day or two going through and incorporating the ideas and changes. It can take me awhile, but I usually get to them all.

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