Sports Reference Blog

Archive for the 'Play Index' Category

Embed Play Index Queries on Your Website

23rd September 2016

We're continuing to add features to our newly redesigned sites, and we have a very exciting one to share with you today, especially for those of you who have your own website.

Previously, we've had tools that give you the option to embed tables like standings and leaderboards on your website. That option is still around, but we've improved on it. If you hover over "Share & More", the second option you'll see is "Embed This Table." Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Embed Play Index Queries on Your Website

Career Game Number Search Added to Pro Football Reference Play Index

21st September 2016

We wanted to briefly share an enhancement made to the Pro Football Reference Play Index. We have added a "Career Game Number" field to the search form for the Player Game Finder. This new search field allows users to customize their searches for certain periods of a player's career. Please note that this tool can be used back to the 1970 NFL-AFL Merger, but can't be used for 1960-69, even though those seasons are covered by other Player Game Finder tools. Here are a few examples of how this new feature can be used:

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

Posted in Announcement, Data, Features, History, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on Career Game Number Search Added to Pro Football Reference Play Index

Player Comparison Finder Added to Hockey Reference

20th September 2016

If you're an avid user of Pro Football Reference or Basketball Reference, you might be familiar with the Player Comparison tool in the Play Index. We're happy to announce that this popular tool has now been added to the Hockey Reference Play Index, as well.

With the Player Comparison Finder, you can choose anywhere from 2-6 players and compare single seasons, a selection of seasons, or their entire careers.

For instance, you can easily compare the rookie seasons of Alex Ovechkin and Mario Lemieux. Or you can compare their age-20 seasons. You can also compare spans of seasons. For instance, here's Wayne Gretzky's 1st 5 NHL seasons vs Lemieux's 1st 5 seasons.

You can also choose to compare entire careers. And, remember, you can select up to 6 players at a time:

Regular Season Comparison Table
Scoring Goals Per Game Point Shares
Player GP G A PTS +/- PIM EV PP SH GW G A PTS OPS DPS PS
Mike Bossy* 752 573 553 1126 381 210 384 181 8 82 0.76 0.74 1.50 93.1 17.8 110.9
Wayne Gretzky* 1567 917 2042 2959 505 611 633 210 74 94 0.59 1.30 1.89 231.5 27.8 259.3
Gordie Howe* 1767 801 1049 1850 87 1685 172 78 11 27 0.45 0.59 1.05 186.6 30.5 217.1
Mario Lemieux* 915 690 1033 1723 115 834 405 236 49 74 0.75 1.13 1.88 152.4 15.5 167.9
Eric Lindros* 760 372 493 865 215 1398 254 111 7 46 0.49 0.65 1.14 81.7 20.0 101.6
Mark Messier* 1756 694 1193 1887 210 1910 452 179 63 92 0.40 0.68 1.07 135.6 24.8 160.5
Provided by Hockey-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/20/2016.

Posted in Announcement, Features, Hockey-Reference.com, Play Index | Comments Off on Player Comparison Finder Added to Hockey Reference

Get Ready for the 2016 NBA Draft

22nd June 2016

The 2016 NBA Draft will take place Thursday night, June 23. Here's some draft info you should check out before, during & after the draft:

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data, Draft, History, Play Index | Comments Off on Get Ready for the 2016 NBA Draft

Channing Frye Shooting for Record Books

1st June 2016

As you may have noticed, Cleveland's Channing Frye has been on fire in the 2016 NBA Playoffs. Go ahead and check out his postseason shot-chart and date here.

He's a ridiculous 26-45 on 3-pointers, thus far. His Effective FG% is a sizzling 81.8%. That puts him on pace to break Birdman's record for eFG% in a single postseason. (Apparently, it's nice to be a back-up big playing with LeBron James).

Obviously, Frye is taking far different types of shots than Chris Andersen was, though. With our play-by-play statistics, which are available back to 2000-01, we are able to see shooting performance on specific shot types, as well. And thus far, Frye is shooting jump shots more effectively than we've seen in any of the last 16 postseasons. Here's the best eFG%s on jumpers in single playoffs since 2001 (minimum 50 jump shots attempted).

Screen Shot 2016-05-31 at 3.12.26 PM

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Play Index, Playoffs | Comments Off on Channing Frye Shooting for Record Books

2016 NFL Draft Features

27th April 2016

With the NFL Draft rapidly approaching (thus bringing an close to the endless months of draft prognostications), now might be a good time to point out all the draft resources we have available at Pro Football Reference. You can check out:

Hopefully these are of some assistance to you as you're tuned into the draft wondering if your team is going to pick the next Peyton Manning or.. not.

Posted in Announcement, Data, Draft, History, Play Index, Pro-Football-Reference.com | Comments Off on 2016 NFL Draft Features

2015-16 Warriors Enter NBA Record Book

14th April 2016

The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors have earned a seat at the table in the discussion of the greatest teams in NBA history. They've set a new standard with 73 regular-season wins. Let's examine some of their other accomplishments this season:

  • 6th-best SRS in NBA history: SRS stands for Simple Rating System and is a rating method that takes into account margin of victory and strength of schedule.
  • 6th-best average margin of victory in NBA history: The Warriors outscored their opponents by 10.76 PPG, which was the best by any NBA team since the 1996-97 Bulls outscored their opposition by 10.80 PPG. However, the Warriors outscored their opponents by 10.0 PPG in the 1st three quarters of games alone, which is something none of the teams ahead of them on the list managed.
  • Most road wins in NBA history: The Dubs went 34-7 on the road, surpassing the 33 road wins by the 1995-96 Bulls.
  • 2nd-longest winning streak in NBA history: After winning their final four regular-season games in 2014-15, the Warriors ran off 24 straight wins to start 2015-16, coming up five games short of matching the 1971-72 Lakers' 33-game winning streak.
  • Longest home winning streak in NBA history: The Warriors' 54-game home winning streak was enough to surpass the old record (44) by the mid-90s Bulls.
  • 3rd-longest road winning streak in NBA history: Their 14-game road winning streak was good enough for a tie for the 3rd-longest in NBA history (just two games shy of the record).
  • Best Effective FG% in NBA history: When accounting for the added value of the three-point shot, the Warriors surpassed the 2013-14 Heat as the best field goal shooting team in NBA history.
  • Best True Shooting Percentage since at least 1983-84: The Warriors also bested the 2013-14 Heat for best True Shooting Percentage since 1983-84.
  • Most 3-pointers made per game in NBA history: Last season the Rockets set this record by making 11.4 3-pointers per game. The Warriors made over 13 per game.
  • 2nd-best 3-point FG% in NBA history: Incredibly, the same team that set the record for makes also managed to have the 2nd-best 3-point percentage in NBA history. It should be noted that the only team with a better 3-point field goal percentage, the 1996-97 Hornets, did so during a season in which the 3-point line was closer to the basket (22 feet all around).

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data, History, Play Index | Comments Off on 2015-16 Warriors Enter NBA Record Book

Try the Play Index for FREE Through April 15

28th March 2016

Baseball season is here and to celebrate, you can use the Play Index for free through April 15! Just go to this page, sign up, and use this coupon code: analytics

The Play Index is our name for the various tools we've built that allow you to search the hundreds of thousands of players, seasons, teams, box scores, and even plate appearances collected in our database. Of all the research methods that we offer, none is more powerful than the Play Index. Have you ever wanted to know the answer to questions like:

What hitter had the most 40 HR seasons?

Which Mets pitcher had the most strikeouts in a road game?

What team had the most 2-out RBIs in a season?

What was the best WAR in a season by a pitcher with 15 Ws or under

And that's just scratching the surface. You can search full seasons since 1871 and individual games and streaks since 1913. You can also search for splits, individual events like inside the park HRs, pitcher vs batter matchups, and much more. The Play Index is the secret weapon of journalists, bloggers, front offices, fantasy experts, historians, and more.

It's normally just $36/year, but to celebrate the start of the 2016 MLB season, we're letting you try it out for free! Go to the sign-up page and enter the coupon code "analytics" to use the Play Index for free through April 15.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Play Index | 3 Comments »

Search for Largest College Football Margins of Victory

4th March 2016

We recently added a point differential search option to the School Game Finder in the Play Index at College Football Reference. So you can now search for things like college football's biggest blowouts since 2000. You can also see that 2013 Florida State has the best cumulative season point differential since 2000. And that 2008 Florida has the most double-digit wins in a season since 2000. We hope you enjoy these new search capabilities.

Posted in Announcement, CFB at Sports Reference, Play Index | Comments Off on Search for Largest College Football Margins of Victory

New Box Scores and Play-By-Plays Added to Baseball Reference

1st March 2016

Thanks to the efforts of our friends at Retrosheet, we have added box scores for the 1913 MLB season to Baseball Reference. Additionally, we have added play-by-play for games as far back as 1930. Before this update, our oldest play-by-plays went back to 1938. In addition to the boxes and PBPs themselves, this update allows for a variety of new information searchable in the play index, as well as new rows of information in team/player/league statistics tables.

Here's a quick breakdown of the data coverage for the Play-By-Plays we've added from 1930 to 1937:

  • 1930 - 77% of games
  • 1931 - 82% of games
  • 1932 - 75% of games
  • 1933 - 81% of games
  • 1934 - 72% of games
  • 1935 - 71% of games
  • 1936 - 65% of games
  • 1937 - 82% of games

And here are some examples of some of the new information/searches available on the site:

We're very excited about these new additions and hope you enjoy them, as well. Please let us know if you have any comments, questions or concerns.

And thanks again to Retrosheet!

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data, History, Play Index, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »