Sports Reference Blog

Archive for August, 2018

Daily Batter vs. Pitcher Matchups to Watch: Now on Baseball-Reference

29th August 2018

Baseball-Reference is happy to introduce a new Today's Batter vs. Pitcher Matchups page, which will display the top hitting matchups to look out for with the day's projected starting pitchers. You can find this right now by looking at the bottom of the Previews section on Baseball-Reference's front page.

Our default sorting uses an internal weighting so that favorable hitting matchups with a larger sample size rise to the top, such as today's top matchup of Victor Martinez with a .400/.460/.644 line against Danny Duffy over 50 plate appearances, or a dominant .438/.550/1.063 line by Matt Carpenter versus Trevor Williams in just 20 plate appearances. However, if you're interested in raw numbers, like most home runs or lowest OPS and the like, all of the columns are sortable. We also have links to each matchup's individual plate appearances if you want to dive into more specifics, perhaps taking a look at just the most recent games a pitcher and batter have faced off.

This feature was added thanks to a suggestion made during the making of our Stathead newsletter, which is in its first week of release. You can subscribe to our newsletter here. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Features | Comments Off on Daily Batter vs. Pitcher Matchups to Watch: Now on Baseball-Reference

Searching for Quarter-by-Quarter Scoring Breakdowns on PFR

28th August 2018

With Pro-Football-Reference's Team Game Finder, you can search for various scoring breakdowns such as most points scored in the first quarter, or scoring margins through a given number of quarters. We have now gotten the Team Game Finder to also search for scoring margins concentrated to a single quarter, as well as second half scoring margins.

One example of a search that's now possible with the Team Game Finder is scoring margin in the third quarter over the course of a full season. Doing that for 2017, it stands out that the 2017 Tennessee Titans were fifth-best in the league in third quarter scoring margin at +42, especially when juxtaposed with a terrible -53 fourth quarter margin.

One example of a newly possible second half scoring margin search involves the 2017 Seattle Seahawks, who were well-known for starting off slow and turning it on after halftime, to the tune of a -53 first half margin and a +87 second half margin. Looking for other -50/+50 combos in NFL history, you can see even more disparate offenses such as the 1989 Green Bay Packers who finished 10-6 thanks to a +92 second half scoring margin, in spite of their -89 margin in the first half of games.

If you have any questions or suggestions about Pro-Football-Reference's Team Game Finder or other parts of the site, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Posted in Announcement, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Searching for Quarter-by-Quarter Scoring Breakdowns on PFR

Adding WAR to Baseball-Reference’s Birthdays Page

24th August 2018

Baseball-Reference keeps track of the birthdays of every active MLB player as well as the majority of historical ballplayers on our site. You can access today's birthdays by clicking on the Happy Birthday/Born On This Day link on Baseball-Reference's front page. You could already sort birthdays by birth year, years played in MLB, All-Star Game selections and other basic statistics. But now, we've added our Wins Above Replacement metric as an additional stat to sort by.

Since today's August 24th, let's give a spotlight to the top 10 players born on this day, ranked by WAR:

Players Born On August 24 Table
Rk Name Born Yrs From To WAR
Franchises
1 Cal Ripken Jr. HOF 1960 21 1981 2001 95.9 BAL
2 Harry Hooper HOF 1887 17 1909 1925 53.5 BOS,CHW
3 Tim Salmon 1968 14 1992 2006 40.6 ANA
4 Brett Gardner 1983 11 2008 2018 37.6 NYY
5 Hank Gowdy 1889 17 1910 1930 18.2 SFG,ATL
6 Tony Bernazard 1956 10 1979 1991 13.1 WSN,CHW,SEA,CLE,OAK,DET
7 Hal Woodeshick 1932 11 1956 1967 9.6 DET,CLE,MIN,TEX,HOU,STL
8 Jimmy Walsh 1887 6 1912 1917 5.8 OAK,NYY,BOS
9 Enrique Hernandez 1991 5 2014 2018 5.5 HOU,FLA,LAD
10 Luis Sanchez 1953 5 1981 1985 3.9 ANA
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/24/2018.

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

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, WAR | Comments Off on Adding WAR to Baseball-Reference’s Birthdays Page

Basketball-Reference Adds Single-Game Highs Tables

22nd August 2018

Basketball-Reference already had a section for single-game league records for various categories, such as points and total rebounds. But now, we've made it easier to see an individual player's single-game records by adding a Game Highs table to every player page. It will be located below the Advanced table (as well as the Shooting and Play-By-Play tables for post-2000 players).

For example, this is what Kevin Durant's Game Highs table looks like:

Game Highs Table
Game Highs
Season Age Tm Lg MP FG FGA 3P 3PA 2P 2PA FT FTA ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
2007-08 19 SEA NBA 51:14 18 26 4 9 17 23 15 16 3 10 13 9 4 5 8 4 42
2008-09 20 OKC NBA 50:22 16 27 6 10 13 24 24 26 4 13 15 7 5 4 7 5 47
2009-10 21 OKC NBA 47:17 16 31 7 13 15 29 18 18 4 13 14 8 5 4 8 6 45
2010-11 22 OKC NBA 52:28 15 28 5 13 13 22 16 19 4 16 18 6 4 5 7 6 47
2011-12 23 OKC NBA 52:24 19 34 5 10 14 25 15 17 3 15 17 8 4 4 9 5 51
2012-13 24 OKC NBA 49:40 16 31 5 11 13 25 21 21 3 15 17 11 5 4 8 6 52
2013-14 25 OKC NBA 52:29 19 34 7 15 15 25 22 24 3 13 14 12 4 4 11 5 54
2014-15 26 OKC NBA 44:30 14 26 7 12 12 21 12 12 3 10 11 9 4 3 6 3 44
2015-16 27 OKC NBA 53:32 15 30 7 12 12 23 16 18 4 13 17 10 4 5 10 6 44
2016-17 28 GSW NBA 49:08 15 28 7 11 12 19 15 18 3 17 17 10 4 6 7 5 40
2017-18 29 GSW NBA 42:19 17 32 6 14 12 20 14 15 3 11 13 14 3 7 8 5 50
Career 53:32 19 34 7 15 17 29 24 26 4 17 18 14 5 7 11 6 54
9 Seasons OKC,SEA NBA 53:32 19 34 7 15 17 29 24 26 4 16 18 12 5 5 11 6 54
2 Seasons GSW NBA 49:08 17 32 7 14 12 20 15 18 3 17 17 14 4 7 8 5 50
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/22/2018.

You can see Durant's career high in 3-pointers made in a game is seven, which he's tied in five different seasons. Also, looking at the 2017-18 season, it's easier to see that he achieved a new personal high for blocks in a game.

For players with postseason statistics, there will also be a Playoff Game Highs table further down a player's page, just above the Similarity Scores table. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Features | Comments Off on Basketball-Reference Adds Single-Game Highs Tables

Various Play Index Searches Opened Up Back to 1946-47

15th August 2018

For several years, many of the tools in the Basketball Reference Play Index have allowed for game-level searches back to the 1963-64 season. However, since we have at least a basic box score for every game in NBA/BAA history (established in 1946-47), we have now opened up game-level Play Index searches back to 1946-47. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, History, Play Index | 2 Comments »

Franchise Coaching Leaderboards Added to PFR

14th August 2018

On Pro-Football-Reference, we've made a small addition to our franchise coaching encyclopedia pages, adding a cumulative statistics table on top of our year-by-year results table. With this, it's now a little easier to look at franchise leaders in wins and playoff appearances. The wide berth between Bill Belichick and the rest of the Patriots' coaches is that much more evident on New England's franchise coaches page, and now there's a place on the Philadelphia Eagles' page to have Doug Pederson sandwiched by Greasy Neale and Buck Shaw in the franchise championships column.

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

Posted in Announcement, History, Leaders, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Franchise Coaching Leaderboards Added to PFR

Introducing the WNBA Player Season Finder

10th August 2018

Regular Basketball-Reference users are well acquainted with the Play Index, which allows us to compare players across eras and slice and dice season-level data by many criteria. Today we are now introducing the WNBA Player Season Finder, which will be accessible from both the Play Index page and from our WNBA home page. We have WNBA stats back to the league's inaugural 1997 season, which means you can now search all of WNBA history with this tool.

Just like our NBA Player Season Finder, with the new WNBA tool you can do single-season, combined season and total season searches. For example, with the combined season search, you can now create franchise career leaderboards, maybe to see how far ahead in first place Tamika Catchings is among point scorers in Indiana Fever history. Or with the total seasons search, you can now execute a search like players with the most qualified seasons of 2 blocks per game; Margo Dydek and Lisa Leslie lead with nine seasons each finishing with that mark in their career.

Of course, current season stats are also searchable with the Player Season Finder, so you can give them some perspective with past stats. A'ja Wilson is burning up the league in her first WNBA season, currently averaging over 20 points per game. Here's a look at the others in WNBA history who finished with 20 points per game in their rookie season.

Query Results Table
Tota Tota Per Per Per Per Per Per Per Per Per Shoo Shoo Shoo Shoo Shoo
Rk Player Season Tm Lg PTS G GS MP FG FGA 2P 2PA 3P 3PA FT FTA FG% FT% 2P% 3P% eFG%
1 Cynthia Cooper 1997 HOU WNBA 22.2 28 28 35.1 6.8 14.5 4.4 8.7 2.4 5.8 6.1 7.1 .470 .864 .508 .414 .553
2 Seimone Augustus 2006 MIN WNBA 21.9 34 34 33.1 8.3 18.2 7.4 15.7 0.9 2.5 4.4 4.9 .456 .897 .473 .353 .481
3 A'ja Wilson 2018 LVA WNBA 20.3 29 29 30.8 7.1 16.0 7.1 16.0 0.0 0.0 6.0 7.7 .446 .785 .446 .446
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/10/2018.

Stay tuned for more additions to the WNBA section of our site here on the Sports-Reference Blog. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Features, History, Leaders, Play Index, Stat Questions, Statgeekery | 4 Comments »

Pro-Football-Reference Introduces The Team Record Finder

9th August 2018

In an inevitability, your team gets off to a rocky start by dropping its first four games of the season. NFL media members will then leap to giving you some morsel of hope by telling you, "Wait, this 0-4 team made the playoffs, so don't panic!"

Well, now you can find this kind of information on your own with Pro-Football-Reference's Team Record Finder, the latest addition to our ever-expanding Play Index. With this tool, you can input any record that a team may have had at some point in their season, and then see the final record of every team that was in that situation.

Using the previously mentioned example, here is a list of the 91 teams since 1990 (when the 12-team playoff system began) that started 0-4 and their final records. Along with a full list, the Team Record Finder gives you a nice summary including a team's average finish (4-12 if you started 0-4) and the percentage of teams who made the playoffs (1.1% of 0-4 teams managed to accomplish that). For teams that did make the playoffs, we also include how far they got; we can see that the only 0-4 team to make the playoffs was the 1992 San Diego Chargers, who finished the regular season with 11 wins and won their wild card game before falling in the divisional round to the Miami Dolphins.

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

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, History, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | 4 Comments »

New Countries Added to FBref!

8th August 2018

It's been a little under two months since we launched FBref and the response has been amazing. Thanks to all of you who have used the site, let us know how much you're enjoying it, and given us thoughtful feedback on how to improve it.

With the league seasons about to begin in Europe, we wanted to catch you up on the latest updates we've made to the site. Specifically, we've added coverage of three additional countries: Netherlands, Portugal, and Scotland. These additions have done a great deal to expand our site's depth and scope. For completists, FBref now has things like Luis Suarez's early career numbers with Ajax and Cristiano Ronaldo's age-17 season with Sporting CP. USMNT supporters will be able to check in on the progress of players like Matt Miazga, while those of you following the latest transfer rumors can check out rumored targets like Hirving Lozano. Lastly, with the update, our site features Hulk for the first time!

We're going to continue to roll out new countries throughout the rest of the summer, and we're also working on a lot of great features for the league season. In the meantime, if you have any feedback for us, we'd love to hear it! Send us a message through our feedback form or FBref's official Twitter account.

Posted in Announcement, FBref | 2 Comments »

Defensive Stats Added to Player Comparison Finder

7th August 2018

Over three years ago, we added the Player Comparison Finder tool to the Pro Football Reference Play Index. The tool, which allows you to compare up to six players at a time over a season or span of seasons, originally only allowed you to compare offensive skill position players. However, earlier this week we were discussing freshly-minted Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins and how he compared with the other great safeties of his era and realized it'd be nice to see some data all on one screen. So you can now see things like tackles, interceptions, sacks and forced/recovered fumbles in the Player Comparison Finder. For instance, here's B-Dawk compared with Troy Polamalu and Ed Reed.

Totals Table
Receiving Sacks & Tackles Fumbles Def Interceptions
Rk Player From To CarAV G Rec Yds TD Y/R Lng Tkl Ast Sk FF FR Yds TD Int Yds TD
1 Brian Dawkins* 1996 2011 100 224 1 57 1 57.0 57 895 236 26.0 36 19 76 1 37 513 2
2 Troy Polamalu 2003 2014 94 158 0 0 0 0 581 197 12.0 14 7 120 2 32 398 3
3 Ed Reed 2002 2013 106 174 0 0 0 0 531 112 6.0 11 13 152 2 64 1590 7
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/7/2018.

Posted in Announcement, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Defensive Stats Added to Player Comparison Finder