Update: The IP and ERA on the Pitcher platoon splits page has been removed to move away from lumping together nonconsecutive events. Balls in play rates have been added as well.
As many of you know we recently experienced some server trouble and have been in the process of rebuilding the statistics reports that were lost in the process. Unfortunately, the situation resulted in the CID numbers that enable users to bookmark their custom reports being lost. We have been working diligently to get everything back in order and are very close to having all of the reports previously available back online. Additionally, we have added some new, interesting and useful reports under the headings of Manager and Splits. I’ll go over a bit of what each offers below but I also wanted to say that this is just the beginning of the improvements in our statistical content and presentation, with many other revisions and installations on the horizon.Upon venturing to the statistics page you will be greeted with the following image:
For Managers we have pre-populated reports focusing specifically on either hitting or pitching as well as an overall report encompassing both. Under Splits, we have currently built two types of split data for both hitters and pitchers: platoon splits and home/road splits, each of which is available for every season dating back to 1957. For an example of the report in action, once clicking on Batter Season vs. LHP the following data surfaces:
The data above consists of every major league hitter’s production against southpaw pitchers this past season, sorted by OPS. As per usual with our reports, the plate appearance minimum can be adjusted and you have the ability to filter by both team and league. An additional filter is for the handedness of the opposing pitcher. For those unfamiliar with how that works, the picture below illustrates how one of these reports can be altered to show both opposing hands on the mound instead of just one, with the same being true for the home/road splits:
Once the (All) is selected–and in the forthcoming example I set the Min. PA to 200–all data for hitters vs each type of pitcher will emerge. The case below is still sorted by OPS, but you have the ability to sort by Name, Hand, whatever tickles the statistical funnybone. In fact, sorting by Name and then Hand affords the opportunity to view the data for an individual against southpaws right on top of his numbers against righties.
Amongst hitters with at least 200 plate appearances against a specific handed pitcher, Joe Mauer posted the highest OPS with the mark accrued against righties. I know, a real shocker that Mauer led. Garrett Jones proved pretty darn potent vs northpaws as well. Now, I know there is a glaring omission here in that the actual handedness of the batter is missing. Believe me, this is merely temporary and we are well aware. Additionally, the ideal splits report would incorporate EqA instead of OPS, but in the meantime the triple slash rates and the raw tallies should be really fun to investigate, and by exporting to CSV you can create your own handy-dandy spreadsheet of platoon or home/road splits. Alas, that will also be corrected moving forward to include PA instead and the BA/OBP/SLG and perhaps EqA to boot. So these are not perfect yet but they will be improving moving forward and remain very useful in the time being.
Another sortables splits report that we will work to implement involves numbers with runners on base or the bases empty. The managerial data works a little differently than the individual splits in the sense that the reports are comprised of numbers commonly associated with tendencies and strategy, but numbers that do not fall solely on the shoulders of the skipper. For the report focusing on the hitting aspect of managerial data, you can find records on stolen base attempts for each specific base, the successful rate of sacrifice bunts, double steal attempts and successes, how often batters swung on a steal attempt, how often the ball was put in play on steal attempts as well as pinch-hitter data. For the pitching side, reports look like this:
The underlining of Cincinnati was unintentional, but looking at Dusty Baker we can see that the average pitch count for his starters was 98.8, second highest amongst this group to Terry Francona. On 89 different occasions Baker’s hurlers surpassed the 100 pitch threshold, two of which included starts in excess of 120 pitches. Charlie Manuel let his starters toe the rubber for greater than 120 pitches. The report also includes quality and blown quality starts, with the latter referring to how often a pitcher left the game with a QS recorded only to have the bullpen allow bequeathed runners to score. The IBB column should be self-explanatory and the column directly to its left counts the number of relief outings with nary a run being scored. Like I mentioned, not everything in the managerial reports is solely the responsibility or the result of contributions from the skipper but the stats should work in conjunction to one another to identify tendencies.
So, again, you can now find sortable Splits and Manager reports on our Statistics page, as well as just about all of the reports added over the summer–the batter standard and team/year reports are yet to be added back. The bottom line, however, is that we are working on new and cool features to enhance our statistical presentation and content and this serves merely as a starting point. Thank you all for your patience on this front, but changes for the better are certainly in the works.
Thank you so much for the splits tables. I can't help asking for one small addition, though...
For batter splits by pitcher handedness, could you show batter handedness as well? Diamond Mind and Strat-o-Matic players will want to know whether that great platoon split is normal or reverse.
(The holy grail would be PMLV or VORP splits, but I imagine that's vastly more complicated to calculate...)
Dave, mentioned this in the post that the one glaring omission right now for batters is their actual handedness. Same for the pitcher handedness splits. Quick fix and something that will CERTAINLY be implemented. Additionally, we are going to get EqA up there instead of OPS. Calculating EqA for Splits is tough but we're working on it.
I meant to say it isn't as tough as it is time-consuming, so it's definitely going to get in there and soon, along with all handedness information, and more splits to boot.
Can we also - pretty please - have the ability to select our team tracker teams as filter criterias as we do on the standard reports? that would save me a lot of excel work time. As a DMB player I've been longing for splits for my team and was both excited and saddened that you have it now, but I can't use the wonderfully easy - show me just my team feature ;-)
One thing I'd like to see is an "ALL" option for "YEAR." A few weeks ago, Christina linked to a report of All-Time best seasons among Astros pitchers and I have been unable to replicate it for any other team.
That is already there. Go to any report, say Pitcher-Standard. Click the dropdown for Year. 2009 will be the first year you see at the top, but you should notice that the scroll down is not entirely at the top. ABOVE 2009 is (All).
I believe that option is only available for BP Staff. For example, if I go to
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=78226
I can pick any single year, but there is no "All" option.
We've been lobbying for cross-year reports -- both totals and multi-year seasonal reports -- for a while, but to no avail.
It sounds as though the gentlemen who posted before me are alluding to this, but I would dearly appreicate a report akin to "Batter Career" and "Pitcher Career." Essentially it would produce a single line for each season in a player's career. Pretty much like the DT Cards, but with all the extra goodies we can get in the BP reports.
Seriously. If I want to use three years of data, I have to drop them all into spreadsheets separately and then cut and paste them together. It is not any more fun to do ten years! It can be done simply but it is a painstaking process and it would be great if I didn't have to go through it.
Yeah, I hear you on that. But rest assured this will be resolved. In the meantime, since I'm in the process of putting together an Excel manual for baseball, I'll throw out there that you can use web queries to make your life easier. Click in the cell, go to import external data, from web, and then navigate to the page, make sure all players are showing, import the table, and where that year of data ends, run a new web query for the year prior. When finished, you can sort it and such however you want, and if it is done in the midst of the season it will update current year data everyday.
Very cool. While I've got you, I have a question I've never been able to get answered here. If you take a data dump, why would the following not be a balanced equation:
To target a single player, Javier Vazquez faced 874 batters in 2009 but his sum of base level results is 878. The only thing I can think of is that a bunted 3rd strike is being counted as both a SO and a GB, though I'd think the SO would negate the GB. Thoughts?
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This looks great. I can't wait to find the time to pore over these reports. The offseason just got a bit brighter.