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Archive for the 'Features' Category

Basketball-Reference Adds Quarterly/Half Boxes

1st October 2019

To complement our box scores, Basketball Reference has added a feature that allows you to see the stats in a particular quarter or half for all boxes back to the 1996-97 season. Examples of famous quarters and halves that you can now more easily see context for include:

* Klay Thompson's 37-point 3rd quarter against the Kings on January 23, 2015.
* That time the Mavericks only managed to score 2 points in the 3rd quarter of their April 6, 1997 meeting with the Lakers.
* Dikembe Mutombo racking up 8 blocks in the 3rd quarter against the Bulls on December 1, 2001.
* Chandler Parsons going 10-11 from the 3-point line in the 2nd half on January 24, 2014.
* Clyde Drexler getting 8 steals in the 2nd half against the Kings on November 1, 1996.

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

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Features, History, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »

Chinese Basketball Association Stats Now on Basketball Reference

1st October 2019

On the Sports Reference Blog, we've previously announced that Basketball Reference had added coverage of Australia's National Basketball League to its stable of international basketball leagues on the site. We also want to announce that Basketball Reference also has Chinese Basketball Association statistics back to its 2011-12 season.

This addition covers the majority of Stephon Marbury's international career, as well as recent high-scoring stints from Jimmer Fredette and Michael Beasley. The 2018-19 CBA champion Guangdong Southern Tigers were led in scoring by Sonny Weems, who has spent 2 seasons in China after several years in European leagues.

The 2019-20 CBA season will also be covered on the site, so you can keep up with how recent CBA signees such as Jeremy Lin, Jerryd Bayless and Lance Stephenson are doing this year. Cross-referencing newly created international pages with NBA pages where applicable is a large project that we hope to work through in the near future. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data, Features | 1 Comment »

Advanced Defensive Stats on PFR for 2018 and 2019

18th September 2019

At the beginning of the 2019 season, Pro Football Reference announced the addition of advanced offensive statistics, provided by Sportradar, the NFL's exclusive distributor for official real-time scores, player statistics and play-by-play data. This week, we have also incorporated advanced defensive statistics from Sportradar. These stats include:

* Times targeted as a defender
* Receiving yards per reception allowed
* Completion percentage and passer rating allowed on targets
* Average depth of target as a defender
* Yards after catch allowed
* Times brought on a QB blitz
* QB pressures (hurries + knockdowns + sack plays)
* Missed tackles

We've added these statistics to 2018 players and will be updating them for 2019 as well. These statistics are provided via game charting and will be populated by the Wednesday following completion of the game, if not earlier. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form or Pro Football Reference's official Twitter account. Thanks for following PFR!

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Data, Features, Pro-Football-Reference.com | 8 Comments »

Adding Advanced Stats to Pro-Football-Reference for 2018 and 2019

5th September 2019

In a huge addition for 2019, Pro Football Reference will now be bringing you advanced stats provided by Sportradar, the NFL's exclusive distributor for official real-time scores, player statistics and play-by-play data. In addition to the usual stat coverage you've come to expect from us, we're adding:

* Air yards passing and receiving - indicating how far a pass traveled in the air before it was caught.
* Yards after catch - receiving yards minus air yards, how far a receiver ran after catching the ball
* Receiving drops - receptions missed on balls given a reasonable (non-Odell Beckham-level) effort
* Bad throws by QBs - throws that weren't catchable with normal effort
* Times QBs were blitzed - either 5+ players rushed the QB or a DB rushed the QB
* Times QBs were hurried - defined as a situation when the QB is forced to throw the ball earlier than intended or is chased around/out of the pocket as the result of defensive pressure
* Times QBs were hit - occurs when the QB hits the ground after a throw, not marked on a sack play
* Quarterback scrambles and yards on scrambles (vs. designed quarterback runs)
* Yards before and after contact - defined as the number of yards gained after first contact from a defender
* Broken tackles, both rushing and receiving - the number of times that the runner does something significant to get past/through a defender

We've added these stats to the 2018 passing, rushing, and receiving pages, as well as on player pages and team pages and will be updating them on 2019 pages as soon as games start. These stats are provided via game charting and will be fully populated by the Wednesday following completion of the game, if not earlier. Look for more stat additions as the season continues!

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Data, Features, Pro-Football-Reference.com | 7 Comments »

Australian NBL Stats Now on Basketball Reference

21st August 2019

Basketball Reference, in addition to covering statistics for the NBA and WNBA, also covers various basketball leagues around the world, such as Spain's Liga ACB, France's LNB Pro A and Italy's Lega Basket Serie A.

We recently added coverage of Australia's National Basketball League back to its 2011-12 season. Looking at the 2018-19 season's NBL player statistics, you'll spot Andrew Bogut leading the league in rebounds per game before he got called back to the NBA by the Golden State Warriors. Other NBA players with stints in the NBL in recent years include Patty Mills, Jonny Flynn and Al Harrington.

We will also be tracking the upcoming 2019-20 NBL season, which will be of interest to people paying attention to the prospects for the 2020 NBA Draft, as RJ Hampton, Lamelo Ball and Terry Armstrong are all expected to play in Australia this year in preparation for potential selection by an NBA team.

Cross-referencing newly created international pages with NBA pages where applicable is a large project that we hope to work through in the near future. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

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

Preseason Over/Unders and Stanley Cup Odds Added to Hockey Reference

18th July 2019

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.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, Hockey-Reference.com | 3 Comments »

Preseason NBA Odds Added to Basketball Reference

6th June 2019

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.

Read the rest of this entry

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

FBref Adds Player Career Details Page

23rd May 2019

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:

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.

Posted in Announcement, FBref, Features | Comments Off on FBref Adds Player Career Details Page

2019 NBA Draft Preview at Basketball-Reference

15th May 2019

Now that the lottery balls have been sorted out, the 2019 NBA Draft order is set. With that, Basketball-Reference has activated a 2019 NBA Draft Preview page to give you a quick lay of the land as we approach the draft date, June 20.

Of course, we've got the draft order there, from the New Orleans Pelicans holding the 1st overall pick down to the 60th pick held by the Sacramento Kings. We also have the calculated expected value in Win Shares for each draft pick, as well as the percentage of players selected with a pick that go on to play at least 1 NBA game. The table shows the top players selected at each pick to give you a quick look at best-case scenarios. For example, having the final pick of the 1st round may not seem that exciting but when you see David Lee and Jimmy Butler were 30th overall picks, that could help your mindset a little.

Our 2019 NBA Draft Preview also includes a list of the top 50 prospects as ranked by CBSSports.com, along with a statistical overview of their 2018-19 college season where applicable. For prospects who played in Europe, such as Sekou Doumbouya, clicking on their name will take you to available European statistics.

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

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Draft, Features | Comments Off on 2019 NBA Draft Preview at Basketball-Reference

Baseball-Reference Adds Playoff Odds

14th May 2019

Starting today, while you browse Baseball-Reference, you can find probabilities of each team to reach the postseason, win the division, and advance to each playoff round including winning the World Series.

To compute these odds, we simulate the rest of the season and the postseason 1,000 times each day. The methodology relies on Baseball-Reference’s Simple Rating System (SRS), which provides a strength-of-schedule-adjusted rating of each team, expressed in runs per game better or worse than an average team.

Prior to going into the details, we should tell you what our goals were for the system. Systems can vary in what they focus on, so having a clear idea of the questions we are trying to answer can add some insight and guide you in how you might use the system. We wanted a relatively simple system that would most accurately estimate the team's end of the year win total. This system could answer questions such as: Should a team go for it at the trade deadline? or Is a team in second place at the All-Star Break likely to fall off or contend for the division? or Is it too early to be certain a hot start will continue? This system is not designed to predict World Series win odds as well as possible since it's tuned with regular season data only. We are assuming that teams are as likely to win in the postseason as they are in the regular season and this is probably a poor assumption given the increased importance to bullpens and superstar starting pitchers.

Additionally, since we wanted a simple system, we are not considering player movement at the trade deadline or individual pitcher matchups which could become relevant during the final games of the season. If you want a more complicated system that considers roster composition, we would point you to the fine system at Baseball Prospectus or FanGraphs.

Typically, SRS is calculated and displayed (for example, on the standings page) based on the season to-date.  For the purposes of the playoff odds simulation, though, we are calculating a value of SRS using each team’s previous 100 games, adding in 50 games of .500 ball for regression to the mean. After a lot of backtesting, these are the numbers that provided the most predictive value. Running the simulation as of July 15 and August 15 of each year from 2009 to 2018, the simulation produced a root-mean-square error of 4.63 wins when compared to teams’ actual end-of-season win totals. For example, last season, both the July and August simulations predicted the Atlanta Braves within 1 win of their eventual season total of 90. This error was the lowest of any of the 50 potential inputs we considered. It was lower than a system that used just the current season SRS, any system with no regression to the mean, and, as a sanity check, a system that just flipped a coin for each game.

Of course, using past performance to predict future performance has its quirks, especially early in the season. For instance, look at the Philadelphia Phillies, who experienced significant roster turnover this past winter. The Phillies added Jean Segura and J.T. Realmuto via trade, as well as David Robertson and Andrew McCutchen via free agency (I think that’s everybody). Looking back over their final 100 games of 2018, Philadelphia’s SRS comes in at -0.7. In other words, they were 0.7 runs per game worse than a league average team.

As we get further into the season, the numbers start to shift, as 2019 performance makes up a larger portion of that 100-game population. Through the games of May 12, Philadelphia’s SRS value over the past 100 games is -0.6, boosted by their 0.4 value in the current season.

While teams like Philadelphia have obvious additional context to keep in mind, using a system that takes into account last season’s performance as well as this season’s prevents the simulation from being fooled too early on by a team that’s simply off to a hot start. The result is a more skeptical simulation that needs to be convinced over time that a club’s new success is legitimate.

Check out this season’s current playoff odds for all teams here, and be sure to check out team pages to see how a team’s odds have changed over time.

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

 

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Features, SRS | Comments Off on Baseball-Reference Adds Playoff Odds