Archive for the 'Site Features' Category

MLB Milestone Watch: Hits - Baseball-Reference.com

I'm a few weeks late for the countdown to Jeter's big hit, but don't miss another milestone as our Milestone Watch points out all of the batters, pitchers and fielders as they cross major statistical milestones and move up the career leaderboards.  This new feature will be linked on the front page just below the standings.

Any suggested additions will be welcome.  These pages should be updated daily as the site updates.   Please note that we include National Association stats in our leaderboard stats.  Thanks to Justin Kubatko, who had this on <a href="http://www.basketball-reference.com/">Basketball-Reference.com</a> quite awhile ago.

Here's another new addition to the Play Index -- the Team Batting & Pitching Game Finders will now output a team's composite batting or pitching stats from the games in question. This will allow you to find things like the teams who drew the most single-season walks in the 2000s:

Similarly, you can use the Pitching Game Finder to look for team leaders like 2000-2011 teams that allowed the most HR in a season:

While we don't have a full-fledged Team Season Finder yet, this is an easy way to get some of the same results.

Two quick site announcements this afternoon:

• We've updated the draft data to include results from earlier this month.
• Short-season minor leagues like the Appalachian, Arizona, Gulf Coast, and Pioneer Leagues (in addition to the Dominican & Venezuelan summer leagues) will now be updated daily.

Here are two recent additions to the Play Index Event Finders (batting and pitching):

• Sean just added Balls in Play and Balls Not in Play as event options. This means you can search for things like all playable balls hit to center field against the Twins, etc.
• We also now have Pulled, Opposite Field, and Middle breakouts in the event finders, so you can call up a list of every ball Jose Bautista hit the other way this season.

Two notes:

- We have added minor-league player newsfeeds to the site, so now the names of any active minor-leaguers will be linked when you use the Automatic Player Linker Tool. Click here to read more about the linker program, and to learn how to submit your content to the B-R newsfeeds.

- Also, please welcome the following sites to the linker program:

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After months of technical difficulties, we're happy to say that the Oracle of Baseball is once more operational.

For those who don't remember it, the Oracle is a tool that allows you to find connections between any two major league players via teammates. (As an example, here is the shortest possible chain of teammates between Joe Tinker and Starlin Castro.)

For more information about the Oracle, click here. Thanks for your patience as we worked to get the Oracle up and running again.

Just thought I'd post a quick PI Streak Finder leaderboard for the longest Dodger hit streaks since 1919:

Let's also take the time to marvel once again at the fact that Ethier is still just halfway to this streak:

Automatic Player Linker / Add your site to our newsfeeds

This weekend, we added a version of our Linker Tool that will work on Spanish-language sites:

B-R Linker.es Bookmarklet

When you use that bookmarklet on a post, it will now find matching names with tildes and accent marks, ensuring that players like Magglio Ordóñez, etc. will never again go unlinked again.

And if you like this feature, be sure to email us to let us know you want to be added to our player newsfeeds. ¡Muchas gracias!

B-R reader Blake had an interesting question this morning:

"You folks are great at acquiring information like this, so I would like to ask:

Could you produce a list of the occasions when a visiting team starting pitcher has had an AB before he has thrown his first pitch in a ballgame?"

Using the Play Index Batting Event Finder, you can set up a search for all PAs in a given year range by a visiting pitcher in the 1st inning:

All of MLB: 189 Plate Appearances in 2003-2011, during 1st Inning, Away Games and As P

Of those 189 instances since 2003:

• All but two teams -- the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays -- had a pitcher bat before throwing a pitch. The leaders, predictably, are all NL teams; St. Louis saw this happen an MLB-high 15 times, while the Padres and D-Backs had it happen 14 times apiece. The Twins and Angels led the AL with 3 instances apiece.
• Pittsburgh pitchers allowed it to happen the most, as they saw their counterpart in the top of the 1st 25 times. Right behind them were the Rockies (20) and Reds (17).
• The visiting pitcher hit .110/.148/.134, which sort of hampers your chances of making it all the way back to the top of the order -- although away leadoff men also saw a second 1st-inning PA 96 times over the same time span.

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2011 Wins Above Replacement data is now live on the site and will be updated daily throughout the season. This includes the league pages, player pages, team pages, and Play Index, among other locations.

In the very early going, here are your 2011 WAR leaders:

Position Players

Pitchers