Sports Reference Blog

Archive for June, 2013

Birthdays by Franchise – Baseball-Reference.com

14th June 2013

Players born on June 14 - Baseball-Reference.com.

Some folks want to see all of the Phillies or Braves born on this date, so I've added a column of franchises played for that you can easily search (you do know ctrl-F right?).

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

Search Our Stats Using the Play Index

10th June 2013

It's the Finals, so that means it's time for a reminder to check out the Basketball-Reference Play Index. In case you don't already know about the PI, it's a set of research tools that allow you to create customizable queries on our database, save the results, and share them with others. With the PI, you can:

  • Use the Player Season Finder to search through all NBA, ABA, & BAA players' regular season and playoff statistics for performances that match your criteria.
  • Use the Player Game Finder to search through NBA players' regular season and playoff game logs (since 1985-86) for games matching your criteria.
  • Use the Head-to-Head Finder to search for games in which two selected players played against each other.
  • Search for player and team consecutive-game streaks that match your criteria using the Streak Finders.
  • Search for team performances that meet your criteria with the Team Season Finder and Team Game Finder.
  • Use the Draft Finder to search through every NBA/BAA draft for picks that match your criteria.
  • Use the Player Comparison Finder to compare the stats of up to four players through (or in) a given season.

Also, take a look at the Play Index Plus for even more data-searching goodness. The PI+ lets you sift through the play-by-play data of every game since 2001, making it possible to look for specific events, lineup data, and shooting stats (including clutch shots and shot breakdowns by distance).

Best of all, these features are 100% free to use! So go ahead, give them a try, and you'll wonder how you ever got along without them.

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, Features, History, Play Index | Comments Off on Search Our Stats Using the Play Index

2013 MLB Draft Tools

6th June 2013

The Major league Baseball draft is tonight, so here are some tools you can use to prepare for the event:

Check them out as you get ready for the 2013 Draft!

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Draft, Features, History, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on 2013 MLB Draft Tools

Everything You Wanted to Know About Wins Above Replacement (WAR)

5th June 2013

With Wins Above Replacement (WAR) gaining more prominence since last season, it's a good time to remind everyone about our WAR 2.2 guide:

  • Baseball-Reference.com WAR Explained - This explains the basics of WAR, the philosophy behind the stat, and some of the changes we made to the formula the past few years.
  • Weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA) Explained - This describes how wRAA, the core hitting stat of WAR, is computed.
  • Position Player WAR Calculations and Details - This explains how we turn wRAA, Baserunning & Double-Play Runs, Fielding Runs, Positional Adjustment Runs, and Replacement level Runs into WAR for position-players.
  • Pitcher WAR Calculations and Details - This explains how we take a pitcher's runs allowed & innings pitched, and turn it into WAR.
  • Converting Runs to Wins - This further describes the process by which Runs Above Replacement (for both pitchers and position players) are converted into Wins Above Replacement.
  • WAR Comparison Chart - This chart shows the differences between the WAR found here at Baseball-Reference and those from a variety of other sources, including FanGraphs & Baseball Prospectus.
  • WAR Data Downloads - If you want to download the raw WAR data yourself and play around with it, you can also get the Batting and Pitching data from our site.

Many of the questions we typically get about WAR can be answered by reading the guide linked above.

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data, FAQ, Features, Stat Questions, Tips and Tricks, WAR | 8 Comments »

Injury Report and Recent Transactions

4th June 2013

Here's a page you may not know about, because even I didn't know it existed until Sean pointed it out this morning:

2013 Major League Baseball Recent Transactions & Injuries

Simply put, it contains a list of recent transactions, as well as a report on who's currently injured (i.e., questionable for tonight's game or on the disabled list).

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Features, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on Injury Report and Recent Transactions

All-Decade Teams Added

3rd June 2013

Today, we added a small new dataset to the site's Awards Section: All-Decade Teams. We have the official All-Decade Teams from the Pro Football Hall of Fame (and, in the case of the AFL, the AFL Hall of Fame) going back to the 1920s:

We also assembled our own Pro-Football-Reference All-Decade teams using Approximate Value, and list those as well:

Posted in Announcement, CFB at Sports Reference, Features, History, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Trivia | 4 Comments »