Sports Reference Blog

This summer, Sports Reference is welcoming eight interns. This is by far our largest intern class and includes Engineering, Marketing, Data, and User Experience interns. Let’s get to know them…

Rylee Buchert, Engineering Intern, grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is studying Computer Science at the University of Tulsa. He plans on getting his Masters in Data Science next year to pursue a career in Sports Analytics. Rylee’s favorite teams are the New York Yankees and the OKC Thunder but he also loves watching Formula 1, NCAA Softball, and Indycar. In his free time, Rylee likes to golf, hang out with his pets, and attend local sporting events.

Kara Cannon, UX Intern, was born in Columbus, moved to Atlanta and then back to Ohio in Reynoldsburg. She is a rising sophomore at Ohio Wesleyan University studying computer science and graphic design. She runs Division 3 track and her favorite event is the 400 meter dash. Kara Cheers for The Cincinnati Bearcats Track and Field, where her brother competes.

Amelia Delphos, Marketing Intern-Social Media, is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia where she studied History and Tony Bennett’s Pack Line Defense. In her fourth year she worked in Creative Services in Virginia Athletics as a Social Video Intern where she fell in love with the social-side of sports (and UVA Men’s Lacrosse). You can check out her work on her Instagram @ameliadelphotos and/or read her ramblings on Twitter @ameliagrace0. Go Hoos!

Billy Fryer, Data Intern, is a rising senior at NC State from Columbiana, Alabama. At school, he enjoys working with the Women’s Basketball team and the Baseball team as well as being the President of the Sports Analytics Club at NC State. Outside of school, he likes to volunteer with the kids at his church and visit national parks. Since there are no major league sports teams in Alabama, Billy cheers for the Montgomery Biscuits (AA Tampa Bay Rays as of 2022) and the teams at NC State.

Eli Gnesin, Data Intern, recently graduated from William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, with a degree in Data Science and Applied Mathematics. This fall, he will be starting a Masters in Statistical Science at Duke University in August. Being from Northern New Jersey, Eli is a lifelong Mets, Jets, and Devils fan, but also loves to watch college sports and Formula 1. You can find him on twitter at @EGnesin.

Gregory Harvey, Data Intern, recently graduated from the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL with a degree in Business Analytics & Information Systems. Some of his previous work experiences include stints with BaseballCloud and as a Data Tracking Manager for the USF Baseball team. His fandom is a mix of New York and Tampa as he actively roots for the Rays, Mets, Lightning, and Giants. In his free time, Greg plays golf, participates in a local wind ensemble, and creates intriguing sports content. You can find his content on Twitter at @BetweenTheNums.

Mac Stone, Marketing Intern, was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois and plans to graduate from Northwestern University this spring with degrees in journalism and psychology as well as a certificate in Integrated Marketing Communications. He is a lifelong Chicago sports fan, with a special emphasis on the Cubs. He’s been a Northwestern sports fan for a while too. Outside of work and school, he loves to play Spikeball with his friends and plays a healthy dose of video games as well. You can find him on Twitter @MacStone00.

Joe Zobel, Engineering Intern, is from Frankfort, Illinois and hopes to graduate from Purdue University this fall with a degree in Computer Engineering and a minor in Business Economics. He is a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan and now cheers for the Boilermakers, too.

One thing we take pride in is having our interns work on highly visible and impactful projects. Even though the program only started three weeks ago…

• Billy, Eli, and Gregory (data) have been researching nicknames of historical players, past World Series rosters, and women's college basketball conferences while solidifying our NHL draft records and preparing for the upcoming NBA draft.
• Rylee and Joe (engineering) began by tackling several small projects but now have moved on to larger projects like Goal Logs and Draft pages for FBref.
• Amelia and Mac (marketing) have been researching various partners and podcasts to help promote our products as well as contributing to content creation and growth of our social media accounts.
• Kara (user experience) has been attending user interviews and already led her first focus group as part of her project researching different forms of fandom.

Welcome aboard to our Summer Intern Class of 2022!

The latest update to Stathead is live! After making major improvements to all the Player Game Finders, we've turned our attention to the Team Game Finders, starting with Stathead Hockey. Read the rest of this entry

As we've done with the Player Game Finders on Stathead Hockey, Football, and Basketball, we've just released an update to the tool on Stathead Baseball. This upgrade brings some exciting new features to the Player Game Finder. Read the rest of this entry

That's right, we've got another one! After updating the Player Game Finders on Stathead Hockey and Stathead Football, it's Basketball's turn to receive some improvements. Let's take a look at the cool new stuff we've just added to one of the most popular tools on Stathead.

There are two major additions to the Player Game Finder. First, it's received three new filters. These filters allow you to search for teams or seasons with the most player games matching your search criteria, or team games with the most players matching the criteria. What does that mean? Well, now you can do searches like:
-What team had the most double-doubles in a season?
-What season had the most double-doubles?
-What team had the most players with a double-double in a game?

The second change is that we've merged WNBA stats into the Game Finder. While previously, the WNBA Player Game Finder was a separate tool, merging the stats into a single Game Finder will make it easier to find, while also adding these new search options, and new filters like Hall of Fame status. So in addition to answering which NBA team had the most double-doubles in a season, you can now see which WNBA team had the most double-doubles in a season.

After last week's exciting news about the Player Game Finder on Stathead Hockey, we're pleased to announce that we're dropping the same sort of update to that tool on Stathead Football!

Read the rest of this entry

We're excited to announce some cool new features that we've added to the Player Game Finder on Hockey Stathead. These changes bring a number of new changes to the tool, including totally new search types that expand the range of questions that you can answer.

The biggest change from this update can be found in the search types section on the top part of the tool. Where there used to be four options, now there's eight!

These new search types include:

-"Find teams with most player games matching criteria": A way to find which teams had the most players achieve a statistical threshold in a game the most times in a season

-"Find seasons with most player games matching criteria": A way to find which seasons had the most players achieve a statistical threshold in a game the most times that year

-"Find number of players on a team matching criteria in a game": A way to find games where the most players on the same team hit a statistical mark

With these new search types, you can answer questions like:
-What team had the most hat tricks in a season?
-What season had the most four-point games?
-What was the most teammates with multiple goals in the same game?
-What was the season with the most players having a goal and assist in a game?
-What team had the most games where a player had multiple points in a loss?
-What was the most player to play goalie for a team in a single game?

In addition, we've taken one of the old search types, "Find players with cumulative games in a season matching criteria" and split it into two options that are easier to use. Now you can select "Find total of all games in a season by a player matching criteria" to get a player's combined single-season statline for all the games that match the search or "Find total of all games in combined seasons or career by a player matching criteria" to get a player's combined multi-season or career statline for the matching games.

In addition to these big changes, we've made a lot of updates under the hood for a smoother and easier experience when using the tool. So give it a try today! And if you've never tried Stathead before, now's the time! Your first month is on us.

For those of you who use Baseball, Basketball, and Football Stathead, stay tuned for similar updates in the days ahead.

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We're excited to announce another update to Stathead, this time on the Basketball side. As we've done with Baseball, Football, and Hockey, we've made a number of improvements to the Basketball Season Finder, bringing in new features and an overall smoother performance to one of the most popular Stathead tools.

Read the rest of this entry

As the 2022 season begins, we have made some updates to our Wins Above Replacement calculations. You may notice some small changes to figures as you browse the site. As always, you can find full details on how we calculate WAR here. Read the rest of this entry

Since the start of the year, Sports Reference has promoted three team members into director roles.

Jaclyn Mahoney, Director of Operations and Strategic Planning, leads our work on internal operations including our policies, procedures and our strategic planning. She started with SR as a data developer in early 2018.

Adam Darowski, Product Director, will lead Sports Reference's product development and product team. Adam was previously our Head of User Experience joining SR in late 2020.

Mike Lynch, Data Director, will lead Sports Reference's data work. He will lead both our internal data team and also independent contractors and our data vendors. Mike was previously our Stathead product manager. He joined SR in 2014.

Thanks to our partnership with the Seamheads Negro League database, we recently released the first update of Negro League data since the project first launched in June of 2021. This update includes many incremental improvements to player biographical information, including:

-Full names (For example, Mike Woolridge was corrected to Eddie Woolridge)

-Height/weight (For example, Perry Hall now has his height and weight listed)

-Handedness (For example, Curtis Hollingsworth was changed from a right-handed pitcher to left-handed)

-Birth information (For example. Ameal Brooks’ birth year was changed to 1907)

-Death/burial information (For example, added death date and burial information for Willie Nixon)

We’ll also be making additional biographical updates to player school (high school and college), photos, and nicknames).

Along with the biographical updates, many new box scores were uncovered and recorded with some players having significant additions to their player records. Some notable cases include:

-Kansas City Monarchs All-Star Herb Souell saw 186 plate appearances added to his record, the most of any player. Souell did quite well in the newly discovered games, raising his career slash line from .287/.334/.360 (102 OPS+) to .294/.341/.368 (106 OPS+).

-Hall of Famer Willard Brown had 119 plate appearances added, the second most after Souell. His career batting average rose from .347 to .350.

-New Hall of Famer Buck O’Neil was next with 114 new plate appearances. He added two points in batting average and three home runs to his career totals.

-Hilton Smith and Verdell Mathis tied for the most innings added to their records with 69⅓. Smith added four wins and four losses, but saw his ERA drop three points. Mathis, meanwhile, went 6-3 in the new games and shaved 0.13 off his ERA. The vast majority of Mathis’ new innings came from his 1944 All-Star campaign. Now instead of a 1-1 record and 3.78 ERA, he is listed as 7-2 with a 2.85 ERA.

-Jim LaMarque didn’t have as much success in his 65 newly discovered innings. He went 3-6 and saw his ERA climb from 3.17 to 3.37.

Perhaps no player better illustrates the evolution of Negro Leagues data quite like Neil Robinson. Robinson was a long-time outfielder for the Memphis Red Sox for the last dozen years of the Negro American League. Robinson was an All-Star in eight of those seasons. Memphis is one of the teams missing the most box scores, so Robinson’s career record has had relatively few games for someone with so many All-Star appearances.

Robinson was previously credited with 1,164 plate appearances. As part of this update, 243 of those were discovered to not actually be his. The first three years of his career (1930-32) have now been reassigned to Johnny Robinson. Several of Neil’s games were also found, however. 80 plate appearances were added to his record and his OPS+ shot up from 133 to 140 (as a result of both removing Johnny’s games and adding his own).

This update illustrates how we’re very much in the midst of the Golden Age of Negro Leagues research. If you’d like to learn more about the Negro Leagues, we recently published a Resource for Educators (but it’s really for anyone!) to share the incredible story of the Negro Leagues—from the pioneers of Black Baseball in the late 19th century through the formation of the Negro Major Leagues and into the impact of integration on the American and National Leagues.