Sports Reference Blog

Archive for the 'Announcement' Category

Get Free Play Index Subscription with $15 Deposit on DraftKings

16th February 2015

We're happy to announce a new promotion that allows users to get a year-long Play Index subscription (or renewal) for only $15, which is less than half of the normal price ($36).

All you have to do is make a deposit of at least $15 at this DraftKings link. Please note that this promotion is only for first-time DraftKings users. If you're unfamiliar with DraftKings, it is a site which offers daily fantasy games for cash in all of the major North American sports leagues, plus some others. Once you make your deposit via that link, we will be notified and send you an email with a coupon code for the year-long Play Index subscription.

The Play Index is our baseball research tool, which allows subscribers to make custom searches through 100 years of box scores, splits, streaks and events. You can also make custom searches for any season stat line in MLB history. A full description of the Play Index and its tools can be found here. It is the most powerful baseball research tool available to the public.

If you're already a Play Index subscriber, you can still take advantage of this offer. Your Play Index subscription will simply be extended one full year from its current expiration date.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Play Index | Comments Off on Get Free Play Index Subscription with $15 Deposit on DraftKings

Baseball-Reference.com Server Move, 9:30am ET Thursday

11th February 2015

On Thursday, February 12th around 9:30am we'll be switching servers for Baseball-Reference.com (moving from unitas to tris). Should be no downtime #dalemurphywilling.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, expire2d | Comments Off on Baseball-Reference.com Server Move, 9:30am ET Thursday

Adding Box Plus/Minus (BPM) to College Basketball

11th February 2015

Just a note that we have added Box Plus/Minus (BPM) to our College Basketball site this week.

As outlined in its introduction to Basketball Reference, BPM is an advanced stat intended to measure a player's total contribution as reflected by advanced, context-dependent box-score metrics like USG% and AST%. It was developed for the NBA using regression techniques against a 14-year-long sample of historical Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus (RAPM) data. BPM estimates the number of points contributed by a player greater or less than an average player, per 100 team possessions.

We're able to calculate BPM for seasons dating back to 2010-11 and it can be found initially on player pages in the 'Advanced' table, on our school season pages, also in the 'Advanced' table, and we've also added several advanced stats - including PER, Win Shares, and BPM - to the conference registers, along the right side of that page. (see below image). However, the best way to view BPM, as a sorted leaderboard, or according to any other criteria - is to use our Play Index search tools.

 

bpm_cbb

 

Again, our thanks to the creator of BPM, Daniel Myers, and to those whose work serves as a component. The methodology and logic of Box Plus/Minus (BPM) is discussed in our About section, and please note the section specifically for the NCAA.

 

(Note that the 'Advanced' tables on the player and schools pages have changed just a little, to accommodate the new stats. Individual ORtg and DRtg have been moved to the 'Per 100 Possessions' tables and Points Produced - the main component of ORtg - has been moved further to the left on the 'Advanced' table.)

 

* We have published BPM but not VORP for college basketball, unlike the NBA.  Value over Replacement Player (VORP) owes its meaning and derivation to a market with salaried players and teams on an equal footing, and thus an easy-to-establish theoretical "replacement level", which doesn't exist or make sense for the NCAA.

 

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference | Comments Off on Adding Box Plus/Minus (BPM) to College Basketball

Sports Reference Welcomes Adam Wodon to Our Staff

9th February 2015

Adam Wodon has joined Sports Reference today as a Managing Director for Hockey Reference. Adam will be working out of our Philadelphia office as our staff size has now risen to six. Adam brings a great deal of development experience and hockey knowledge to Sports Reference. Adam is the founder and managing editor of College Hockey News. Adam is an Isles fan through and through and also supports the Mets, Jets, and Nets making him the first diehard National League fan on staff. Adam is also on twitter at (@chn_AdamWodon).

Hans VanSlooten (@CantPitch) who had been working on the hockey site for the last 14 months will be taking over primary day-to-day development of Baseball-Reference.com.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Expire30d, Hockey-Reference.com, Olympics at S-R, Pro-Football-Reference.com | 2 Comments »

Box Plus Minus/VORP for the Playoffs

9th February 2015

 

Playoff Box Plus/Minus (BPM)

We're now able to calculate Box Plus/Minus (BPM) and Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) for the playoffs, by extending the methodology used for the regular season, and calculating a team efficiency rating based on performance in the playoffs, adjusted for strength of playoff lineups (by using playoffs minute distributions and regular season BPM ratings). These ratings are interesting in themselves, and reflect some of the great playoffs runs - the 1996 Bulls' rating was +19.3, and the 2001 Lakers were +20.1.

The BPM figures themselves reflect the best individual playoff performances. LeBron's 2009 BPM of 18.2 is tops by a large margin, followed by Kareem's 1977 run and then the Jordan playoffs from 1989-1991.

(For a detailed explanation and further discussion see the "Playoff Box Plus/Minus and VORP" section of the write-up.)

 

Playoff VORP (and Pro-Rating the Regular Season)

As well as BPM, we can now calculate VORP for the playoff season. (If you need a refresher on VORP as a concept, please visit the original write-up when we introduced it to Basketball Reference). We calculate VORP for the playoffs similarly to the regular season - that is, [BPM - (-2.0)] * (% of minutes played) - and it should be interpreted identically. Again, that's as the number of points the player has produced over a replacement player, per 100 team possessions.  The significance of VORP compared to BPM is that it's accumulative, rather than a rate stat, and thus accounts more literally for value provided, weighted as it is by minutes played, and expressed on a per-82 game basis*.

(* - Yes, this is new. We are now pro-rating VORP based on the number of games that a team has played during the regular season, and doing the same for the playoffs. One point of VORP is one point of full season team efficiency differential. This affects partial seasons, strike-shortened seasons, and the playoffs.  This has significance for the playoffs, in particular - players on teams that go further or play in 7-game series will accumulate more because they have more opportunities.)

 

Some Minor Changes to the Equation

Please note that we've also updated the methodology, such that some players will have a slight variation in the BPM and associated stats. These were technical fixes to the regression methodology, which had the result of slightly changing the relative value of component stats. For example, blocks and shooting efficiency are two factors that are more highly favored by the revision and thus Anthony Davis saw the largest increase in BPM (+0.8), however most changes were of a much smaller magnitude. Please see the details of this revision in the write-up, under the "Updates" section.

 

Again, Basketball Reference extends its thanks to Daniel Myers, whose research the above represents. Also, please see the revised 'About BPM' write-up that details the methodology and is generally extremely useful for understanding the context of BPM and VORP, and the best ways to think about and use these stats.

 

 

 

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, Playoffs | 2 Comments »

Winter League Statistics Added

6th February 2015

We have recently added Cuban statistics and Arizona Fall League stats. Our other new addition is statistics for the Dominican, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican & Mexican Pacific Winter Leagues.

These leagues can all be accessed via our Minor Leagues section. On player's minors pages, the abbreviations are DOWL (Dominican), VEWL (Venezuelan), PRWL (Puerto Rican) & MXPW (Mexican Pacific). These leagues also feature batting leaderboards, so you can find outstanding performances like Kendrys Morales batting .404, and pitching leaderboards.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data | Comments Off on Winter League Statistics Added

Arizona Fall League Stats Added to Baseball-Reference

6th February 2015

Yesterday we announced that we have added Cuban statistics to the site. Today, we are happy to announce that we have added Arizona Fall League statistics to the site from 2005-13 (with 2014 coming soon).

Statistics from this league can be seen on a player's minor league page. Here is Mike Trout's,  for instance. The Arizona Fall League is coded as AZFL on these pages. From the league page, you can navigate to various batting leaderboards and pitching leaderboards. The AFL is accessible from our minor leagues home page.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data | 2 Comments »

Cuban Stats Added to Baseball-Reference

5th February 2015

We are happy to announce that we have added Cuban National Series statistics from 1997-98 to 2013-14 thanks to the efforts of Brian Cartwright. First thing's first, though. You should go ahead and gawk at Jose Abreu's Cuban stats. That's right, he hit .453 in 2010 with 1.583 OPS. Those both led the league, but his 33 HR merely tied Yoenis Cespedes for first.

These statistics can be navigated to via our Minor Leagues section here. Once in the minors section, look for Foreign leagues and select Cuban National Series. You can select a season and access batting leaders & pitching leaders from there.

Alternately, if you just want to find Cuban stats for an MLB player like Yasiel Puig, just go to the Minors tab from his player page. Or you can use the search form to go right to the page of a hot prospect like Yoan Moncada. On a player's minor league stats page, the Cuban statistics will show up with the league abbreviation CNS like in the image of Erisbel Arruebarrena's page below.

Cuban Screen Shot

 

We hope you enjoy this new feature. We would also like to note that we will be adding statistics from the current season once is it completed.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data, Features | 5 Comments »

Using our Search Engine

23rd January 2015

When we revamped our search engine last year we didn't provide much instruction. After all, it's pretty simple to use. It's fast, features auto-complete, and has nicely categorized search results.

Since then, we've added some new features that should make finding what you want even easier. The following is a quick guide to the most useful tips and tricks.

First thing is first, the search bar is at the top right of the site, and also on the left-hand side of the homepage, shown here, respectively:

 

searchbar2

 

search4

 

Player Search

We match against the player's common name or a known nickname: 'lebron' will return LeBron James; searching 'sir charles' will return Charles Barkley.

Partial strings work, too. For example, 'kentav' will return Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, if you want to save yourself some typing and the player's name is unique.

 

Team Names

Searching for team indexes and seasons is just as easy. 'spurs' will return all Spurs teams since they adopted that name for the 1974 ABA season.

 

spurs_results

 

Clicking on the right column - 'Team Seasons' - will give you a list of individual Spurs seasons, which bring you conveniently to a season summary page.

 

Team Seasons

In fact, there's an even easier way to get to a team's season page. Just add a year before or after the team name.

For example, '1996 bulls' or 'bulls 1996' will bring you directly to that champion Bulls season.

 

League Seasons

What if you want to get to a particular NBA season page to view historical standings, stats, and leaders?

Same trick as for teams, except use the league name: 'nba 1998' or '1998 nba'. This will land you on the 1998 NBA season summary. This pattern works for the ABA and BAA seasons, as well.

 

Playoffs

Likewise, to access historical playoff pages do the same thing, except substitute the word 'playoffs'.

'playoffs 1990' or '1990 playoffs' will send you to the 1990 Playoffs summary page, with links to series stats, leaders, etc.

 

Finals

Finals summaries work the same way.

'finals 1984' or '1984 finals' will give you all the Bird & Magic stats from that year's Finals.

1984finals

 

et cetera

We get a lot of searches that don't fit a particular pattern - for example, mis-spellings like 'dwayne wade', or searches like 'hall of fame'.

Often, these will give you what you're looking for and the best way to find out is trial and error. In fact, 'dwayne wade' will go to Wade's page and 'hall of fame' will land you on our Hall of Fame summary page.

Likewise, 'mj' will bring you to Jordan's page, 'sixers' to the 76ers franchise summary, and 'salaries' will direct you to our database of player salaries.

 

If a common search is missing or there's a term or search pattern you'd like us to add here, please ask!

 

 

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference | 1 Comment »

Explore PFR’s Super Bowl Section

23rd January 2015

If you haven't seen the Super Bowl Section of our site yet, you should head over and check it out right now, because we think it's pretty awesome. Here are some of the features you'll find once you get there:

And best of all is the Super Bowl Play Finder tool. It's similar to the Play Index Game Play Finder tool, but limits your searches strictly to Super Bowls and allows you to search through every play of all 48 previous games. Some examples:

Our Player Game Finder and Team Game Finder are also unique tools for Super Bowl research. You can use them to find things like every 100-yard rusher in Super Bowl history, the largest point spreads in Super Bowl history or the highest over/unders. You can also identify trends such as the record of the team leading after one quarter (26-11), at halftime (36-10) and through three quarters of play (39-8).

So go ahead and try the Super Bowl Section right now -- it's free, easy to use, and best of all, with it you'll be able to dominate anyone who challenges you in Super Bowl trivia.

UPDATE: We have also added a Super Bowl filter to our Drive Finder, which allows users to find things such as the longest drives in any Super Bowl since 1998 or the fastest Super Bowl touchdown drives since 1998.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, History, Play Index, Playoffs, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »