Sports Reference Blog

At Sports Reference, we pride ourselves on having user-friendly search and navigation. We've heard a lot of frustration from Stats.NBA.com users unable to find what they're looking for in recent weeks. To that end, we've added links to Stats.NBA.com pages on our player pages. So you can now easily navigate to pages with features we're unable to provide, such as SportVU tracking stats for LeBron James, directly from Basketball Reference. These links now appear between our player Per Game stats tables and the player newsfeeds.

We hope this new addition makes for easier browsing of a wide range of basketball statistics.

We have added 2016-17 NBA player projections, using our Simple Projection System, adapted from Tom Tango's Marcel the Monkey Forecasting System.

Please bear in mind that these projections are being published because (1) they were easy and (2) they were fun. That said, we do believe these results will hold up quite well when compared at the end of the season to other (and much more sophisticated) projection systems.

Since we're not controlling substitution patterns, all projections are for per-36 minutes statistics. Please use these responsibly and enjoy!

Good news for fans of zambonis, fighting, and the greatest video game of the 1990s: the NHL has finally returned! After a wild season last year, there are all kinds of juicy storylines to follow this year. Can the Pittsburgh Penguins become the first back-to-back Stanley Cup winners since the Detroit Red Wings of the 1990s? How will the San Jose Sharks bounce back from coming so close and falling short. Will Alex Ovechkin reach 1,000 goals? Can Connor McDavid build upon a promising rookie year and live up to the hype? What round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs will the Washington Capitals be eliminated in this year (I kid, I kid)?

This blog post will seek to answer none of those. Instead, this week, I wanted to dig into one of the major trends that's been sweeping across the NHL the last few years, among fans and front offices alike. I'm talking, of course, about the rise of advanced statistics.

If you're a sports fan, you're probably at least vaguely familiar with Moneyball and the advanced stat wars in baseball. And you may have read articles about how thinkers in other sports, like basketball, have used similar principles to deepen their understanding of the game. This movement has reached hockey in recent years, as researchers have uncovered several new ways of understanding the game beyond the traditional stats like goals, assists, and plus/minus. These new analytics can help us understand why a team is over or under-performing, and whether that performance is sustainable. They can also help us appreciate unsung players who do more for their team than we may realize, because they don't put up flashy traditional numbers.

So, with that in mind, here's some of the basics to get you started in the world of advanced hockey stats. Read the rest of this entry

Jack Gibson

Jack Gibson

Rougned Odor

Eddie Johnson

Cam Newton

Adrian Peterson

As Deadspin reminded us this week, there's only one October. In that spirit, let's jump right into a breakdown of the most exciting month of the year: the MLB Postseason. Read the rest of this entry

We recently made a cool addition the Team Game Finder in the Pro Football Reference Play Index. You can now customize your game searches to isolate (or exclude) games played immediately after bye weeks.

Since the bye week was instituted in 1990, the Eagles and Broncos have the NFL's best records coming out of the bye (21-6 each). They've had 27 games in 26 seasons with a bye because in 1993, every team had two bye weeks. The link also shows that, since 1990, teams coming off their bye week have a 429-394-3 record, which is over .500, but perhaps not as strong as you might expect. Home records in general seem to be nearly identical to home records for teams coming off of byes, but the bye week really seems to help road teams. Through 2016 Week 4, road teams have a .421 win percentage since 1990. However, over that same span, road teams coming off of their bye week have a .461 win percentage.

You can add the "bye week" criteria to your searches by utilizing the "miscellaneous criteria" section of the search form.

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

We have made an addition to the Baseball Reference Draft Section. There is a new column of data in the table labeled "Signed." A "Y" indicates that the player was signed after that draft, while an "N" indicates that he did not.

This week is one of those good news/bad news situations. On the one had, we're just a few days away from the start of the MLB Postseason! But, on the other hand, the regular season finishes up this Sunday. With another year in the books, we wanted to break down the main contenders for MLB's most important awards. Unfortunately, Tim Tebow will have to wait till next year to get his shot at a trophy, but there are a lot of worthy players who've had excellent years. Let's take a look: Read the rest of this entry

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

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:

• Since the merger, Cam Newton is the only player to throw for 400+ yards in his NFL debut
• Eric Dickerson's 645 yards are the most rushing yards by any player in their first five career games since the merger.
• Randy Moss caught 17 TDs in his first 16 career games, which is the most by any player since 1970.
• Charles Woodson has the most career interceptions after already appearing in 200 career games.

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