Sports Reference Blog

Hockey Reference has added preseason Stanley Cup odds back to 1985 and over/unders on point totals back to 2011. Looking at the 2018-19 preseason, the eventual champion St. Louis Blues had +3000 odds to win the Stanley Cup, 10th-best in the league. The New York Islanders were tied for 2nd-longest odds to win the Stanley Cup at +20000, and would go on to make the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Islanders finished the regular season with 103 points, safely exceeding their preseason over/under set at 82.5.

We again thank SportsOddsHistory.com for providing us with the historical data for this addition, as well as similar preseason odds additions on Basketball Reference, Pro Football Reference, and our college sites. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

On Pro Football Reference, one of the many statistics we track historically are pick sixes thrown. We previously had this available back to the 1970 season. We have extended that coverage and now have pick-six passers back to the 1950 season. With this addition, we have also updated the single-season and career leaderboards as well as pick six logs available in quarterbacks' player pages.

A special thanks to Sam Istvan for the research done to make this addition. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Basketball Reference recently made an addition of preseason championship odds and win total over/unders that you can read about in a previous blog entry. The site has now also added playoff series odds where available back to 1988, which can be viewed on Basketball Reference's Playoff Series History index. The odds are taken from before the start of the series.

This postseason, you can see the Golden State Warriors were -15000 favorites over the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round, the heaviest favorites in a playoff series since the 2016 San Antonio Spurs' first round matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies. As for the 2017 Warriors, they were the second-biggest favorites in an NBA Finals, only trailing the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers, who were -2000 favorites over the Philadelphia 76ers.

Thanks to SportsOddsHistory.com for providing us with the historical data for this addition. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

On Pro-Football-Reference we have quarterback hit statistics back to 2006 and tackles for loss statistics back to 1999, available on defensive players' individual profiles. We also have those statistics at the team level, and we recently added those fields in our team defense section for league seasons when those statistics are available.

For example, viewing the Team Defense section for the 2018 season, you can see the Arizona Cardinals recorded 99 tackles for loss this year, best in the league in that category. Meanwhile, the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles recorded 133 QB hits, more than any other team this season.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

We've added pages to College Basketball Reference showing the preseason National Championship odds for prominent teams that season. As you can see at that link, a $100 bet on Virginia in the preseason would have netted you $1350. The data goes back to 2006-07 (though 2007-08 is missing). Over this span, the biggest preseason longshot to win it all is 2014 Connecticut, which was +6500 to win the title in the preseason (and an even longer shot after an unimpressive regular season).

We'd like to thank SportsOddsHistory.com for providing this historical data.

We hope you enjoy this addition, and please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Basketball Reference has aded preseason NBA title odds back to 1985 and Over/Unders on team win totals back to 2003. It should come as no surprise that the Warriors were heavy favorites before the 2018-19 season. The 2017-18 Warriors were the heaviest preseason favorites, as you would have had to bet $187 to win $100 for them to win the title. Similarly, their 67.5 wins over/under is the highest in the data.

But the Warriors are also the biggest preseason underdogs to win a title since 1985. The 2015 Warriors were +2800 to win the title in the preseason, easily the longest odds for an eventual champion.

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Baseball Reference has added college baseball stats to the Register section of the site.

The statistics cover NCAA Division I back to the 2013 season and also four collegiate summer leagues back to 2015 (Cape Cod League, New England Collegiate Baseball League, Northwoods League and Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League).

So you can now see, for instance, Aaron Nola's numbers at LSU in 2013 and 2014, where he teamed with Alex Bregman, or Kris Bryant's 31 HR 2013 season at San Diego.

Additionally, you can see how 2019 #1 overall pick Adley Rutschman performed both at Oregon State and in the Cape Cod League.

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In honor of Gleyber Torres's ridiculous performance against the Orioles this season, we've made a subtle, but very useful, tweak to the Split Finder tools in the Baseball Reference Play Index.

Previously, when you selected split by opponent and selected "match any listed" you were served results that included all opponents .500 or better, all opponents under .500 and interleague opponents lumped together. While those are technically opponent split options, it didn't really match the spirit of the search, which was users searching for outstanding (or awful) performances against any single opponent. So we've made a tweak to "match any listed" opponent split searches and now show only splits vs individual teams in those searches.

Here's a few examples of searches you can now run easily, without having to sift through records against teams above and below .500:

• The record for most home runs vs. a single opponent in a season (since 1908) is Lou Gehrig's 14 in 23 games against the 1936 Indians. Gleyber Torres currently has 10 in 12 games against the 2019 Orioles. The teams will meet 7 more times this season (all in August).
• Since 1908, only one player has hit 100+ HR vs a single opponent. That player is, of course, Babe Ruth, who hit 123 against the Tigers and 108 against the Athletics.
• No one has randomly owned an opponent quite like Ken Singleton owned the Mariners. His 1.142 career OPS against them was 75% better than against all of his other opponents, the largest such margin by any player with 300+ PA vs. an opponent.
• The most strikeouts a pitcher has had against a single opponent in a season since 1908 is 73 by Walter Johnson against the 1910 St. Louis Browns.
• Warren Spahn threw 919.1 career innings against the Cardinals. That's the most IP any pitcher has against a single opponent since 1908.
• The record for HR in a season against a single opponent is 48 by the 1956 Yankees against the Kansas City Athletics. The 2019 Yanks have 36 in 12 games against the Orioles.
• The record for wins against a single opponent in a season (since 1908) is 21, done four times. In the divisional era (since 1969) that record is 17.

We hope you enjoy this addition. Please let us know if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

After a long offseason, the WNBA is returning for its 23rd season! The league's already been heating up with a dramatic trade that sent Liz Cambage, last year's leader in points per game, to the Las Vegas Aces, where she'll team up with Rookie of the Year A'ja Wilson. Will it be enough to overcome the reigning champion Seattle Storm, who will be without league MVP Breanna Stewart, and the Washington Mystics, who will attempt to avenge their 3-0 sweep last season in their third season with Elena Della Donne? Read the rest of this entry

The latest feature we've added to FBref is a Player Career Details tab to team season pages. This takes you to a list of all the players on the team, and each player's statistics in the two seasons before and after the season you're currently viewing. This feature is very helpful if you're interested in additional context for a player's performance in a given season.

Some examples of Player Career Details pages you can check out:

• 2018-2019 Barcelona
• 2016-17 Chelsea
• 2009-2010 Internazionale

You can keep up with the latest additions of country coverage and new features here on the Sports Reference Blog, or by signing up for our FBref Stathead Newsletter. Feel free to send us any questions or suggestions through our feedback form or FBref's official Twitter account.