Sports Reference Blog

We’re Listening: Immaculate Grid No Longer Requires Qualification for Rate Stats

Posted by Adam Darowski on August 3, 2023

When we re-launched Immaculate Grid under the Sports Reference umbrella, we completely changed the underlying data source for the game. A few small changes were made when updating this API, one of them being that rate stats (such as batting average) would require qualification for the batting title.

Made sense, right? When people talk about (or used to talk about) player’s past batting averages they often do so in the context of the batting title. And to get a batting title, you need to qualify. Qualification means you need at least 3.1 plate appearances per team game (which comes out to 502 plate appearances per 162 game season).

But Immaculate Grid is different. When some people see “.300 Batting Average Season” they think of players like Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, Albert Pujols, or Ichiro. But more than a few of you enjoyed playing with former “.300 hitters” like 1930s pitcher Wes Ferrell (a .300 hitter three times, never in more than 179 times up), infielder Jeff Treadway (.320 in 336 plate appearances in 1991), or even Jacob deGrom (.364 in 33 PA in 2021).

Part of the fun of Immaculate Grid is pulling those really unique (or “sicko”) names out of your head and the leaderboard requirements made that a little harder. So we’ve removed them starting today. Go forth and use your Ferrells, Treadways, and deGroms as .300 hitters. I know I’ll be waiting to use John Paciorek.

Related posts:

  1. Senior National Team Data Now on FBref
  2. B-R: HoF Candidate – Jeff Bagwell
  3. B-R: HoF Candidate – Brian Jordan
  4. B-R: HoF Candidate – Juan Gonzalez
  5. B-R: HoF Candidate – Vinny Castilla

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 at 9:00 am and is filed under Announcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

10 Responses to “We’re Listening: Immaculate Grid No Longer Requires Qualification for Rate Stats”

  1. Pete Ridges Says: August 3rd, 2023 at 9:44 am

    Here's a suggestion for Immaculate Grid, but feel free to ignore it.

    For a category, how about a year [or span of years]?

    So, if you put "2002-2005" as a category, then we would have to think of a player who played for Team X in at least one of those years, or who won a certain award during those years.

    Just a thought!

    Anyway, great work you're doing there.

    Pete Ridges

  2. Tony Hunt Says: August 8th, 2023 at 10:43 am

    Love the rarity score, but would like to know how my score compares to others. Consider a listing of top rarity scores at the end of the contest. Assuming rarity scores change as people complete the grid.

  3. Richard Craig Jovan JR Says: August 8th, 2023 at 11:07 am

    If at all possible to can you start using middle initials AKA Kevin Brown, also maybe their position. When looking up Kevin Brown there's three different options if you don't know exactly what years Kevin Brown played that doesn't help I thank you

  4. Josh Says: August 8th, 2023 at 12:23 pm

    I had only started playing, so maybe this is obvious, but I soon realized that if the square wants a player for a team and stat/accomplishment, the stat/accomplishment must be obtained from that team.

    Example: Hou and World Series winner. I tried Lance Berkman, who played most of his career with Hou, but won a WS with STL in 2011. However, the answer was wrong, and it needed to be someone who won a WS with Hou.

    So I dont know if it was written like that in the rules, or if its was just common sense kind of answer.

    I feel like this is another one of those obscure or unique facts, would be fun to throw out there.

  5. Chuck Glover Says: August 8th, 2023 at 12:56 pm

    Need to be consistent day to day. Nolan Ryan not counting as a 20 game winner who played for Texas is off from past puzzles. If someone has accomplished the feat regardless of which team he did it for, as long as they played for the team in the column has counted in past puzzles. Be consistent. Thanks.

  6. Eric Thibodeau Says: August 8th, 2023 at 1:53 pm

    For tigers 20+ wins I chose Rick Porcello because he won 22 games en route to a cy young with the Red Sox but previously played for the tigers. My understanding was that this would work, but it did not. Was there a change that was made so you must have the correct team when the player accomplished a certain stat? Thanks.

  7. Matt Says: August 8th, 2023 at 5:41 pm

    How about keeping stats for us? Like how many times we had immaculate grids? Or what % we get with 7 or 8 guesses?

    Also, would love to be able to go above 9 guesses just for fun if we get some wrong...

  8. joe Says: August 8th, 2023 at 9:51 pm

    Can you let a stat count no matter what team the player did it on, and the only since that matters is that the player did it? (Example: Nolan Ryan had a 20 win season but it does not count on your website on todays grid since he did not do it with the Rangers).

  9. Gary Says: August 8th, 2023 at 10:37 pm

    Consider a category for a player who played for only one team (minimum 10 seasons played).

  10. Phil Silverman Says: August 9th, 2023 at 3:40 am

    I see the same depressing inconsistency w mantle : .275 final regular season , .399 on base percentage 

    .276 final regular season in Game logs WITH .400 on base percentage 

    Respectfully , what’s the status on making the Game log numbers the official across the board numbers ?
    Thanks P