Five useful tips & tricks for Baseball-Reference.com @baseball_ref

OK, folks, as spring training approaches, it’s time to familiarize yourself with some of the lesser-known things you can do with Baseball-Reference.com.

1. Batting, Pitching, and Fielding Encyclopedias

These pages are underutilized but contain a ton of useful and easily-accessible information.

Batting Encyclopedia, Pitching Encyclopedia, Fielding Encyclopedia

Above all else, these pages allow you to quickly assess different eras in baseball history. You can see, for example, that run scoring has really fallen off in the last few years and has dropped to late-1980s levels. Other things you can quickly determine, for example:

  • Walks have remained largely constant for 100 years
  • Strikeouts have increased steadily over time and show no signs of slowing down
  • Fielding errors have been decreasing for over 100 years and are now at a third of their level from the early 1900s
  • Stolen base attempts were the highest in the 1970s and 1980s and are still relatively high even today

There are many, many other useful things in these pages and looking at them can really help you understand how today’s game is similar to and different from previous periods.

2. The “the” search feature

Did you know that if you precede any search in the search box with “the”, the search returns the top result for that search? For example, “the Hank” returns Hank Aaron, as does “the Aaron”, “the hammer”, “the Henry”, “the h a” and numerous other searches.

This feature can be a fun diversion. Check out who comes up for “the Sun” and “the Moon“, or “the Earth“, “the Wind“, and “the Fire“.

It can also be a time-saver, though. Tired of trying to get to Ichiro’s page but being offered Pablo Sandoval (because of his nickname Fat Ichiro) and numerous other NPB players with the same first name? Type in “the Ichiro” and go straight to Ichiro Suzuki. Or get yourself to Albert Pujols‘ page with “the Alb”, “the pu”, “the ph” (for Phat Albert), or even “the p”, as Pujols’ page is the most popular of any player with the first or last initial P.

3. Find transactions on a particular date

OK, let’s face it. We all want to see what’s happened on the trade deadline day each year. Here are all the transactions on July 31 each year. Now look up today. Now look up your birthday.

4. The “random” feature

If you go to this page, it automatically gives you a random page within the database. It might be a player, a manager, a team, a year, a leader board, or something else. This is obviously just for fun, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself sucked in for a few (dozen) minutes. You might want to bookmark that one.

5. The milestones page

Baseball-Reference.com has conveniently put together a set of milestones pages. Here’s the page for career hits. Although we know that milestones can often be overrated, it’s pretty neat to keep tabs on where all the players are in their careers. You can get updates on batters, pitchers, and fielders in a number of different categories.

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Tmckelv
Tmckelv
12 years ago

I like the “Starters: Positional/Pitching” pages from the Franchise Encyclopedia sections. It provides a single-glance to the starters of a particular team over the course of a number of seasons.

It is good for looking up the prominent players for franchise “all-decade teams” or dynasties. Things like this have always been a particular interest of mine, and going year-by-year (either in a book or online) is a real drag.

Tmckelv
Tmckelv
12 years ago

Is there an issue with 2011 on the Batting Encyclopedia page? looks like all of the rates are doubled. the first thing I noticed was that strikeout rate went from 7 to 14. I was like, “Boy it really was the year of the K!”…but then I noticed runs/g was over 8.

Andy
Andy
12 years ago

Yes, Baseball-Reference has a bug right now with all 2011 stats being doubled site-wide. They are fixing it now and it should be resolved by noon eastern.

John Autin
Editor
12 years ago

Note that the “the…” trick returns some unintuitive results. For example, “the Mark Davis” returns a player who wasn’t even known as Mark Davis and who played just 1 full season — the catcher Ben Davis.

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
12 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

For a long time (until at least four or five months ago), it was really hard to find Babe Herman’s stats. Typing in “the Babe Herman” took you to Babe Ruth’s page (since “Babe” is in his name, and his middle name is “Herman”). Apparently, they fixed this, as I noticed last week, while looking up Babe Herman’s stats. Apparently, I’ve done that an inordinate number of times.

John Autin
Editor
12 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

You coulda used “Floyd Caves”….

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
12 years ago

Here’s a trick I use to get to the yearly player leaderboards quicker:

If you are looking for a particular year, DO NOT go to “Seasons”. Instead, for the year in question, type in a player’s name that you _know_ was amongst the league leaders that particular year.

For instance: AL Batting in 1938. Type in say “Jimmie Foxx”, then go down to his “Appearances on Leaderboards…”. Then click on any Batting category that lists 1938, that will get you to the 1938 AL Batting leaderboard. Anyone know a shorter way?

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
12 years ago
Reply to  Lawrence Azrin

For the years 2009, 2010 and 2011 simply place the cursor on “Seasons” and select the proper entry from the drop-down menu. For other seasons select All Seasons from the drop-down menu and then select the year.

Kahuna Tuna
Kahuna Tuna
12 years ago
Reply to  Lawrence Azrin

Or you can type in “1938 AL.” At the bottom of the screen that comes up are links to “Batting Leaders,” “Pitching Leaders,” and “Fielding Leaders” — full leaderboards.

John Autin
Editor
12 years ago
Reply to  Andy

Ditto “1938 Yankees”.

P.S. Too bad about “1938 ML” not working … but at least “1914 FL” doesn’t work, either.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
12 years ago

Andy:
Thanks for that tip #1. I had been wondering all along if those stats were available. You should have mentioned that to access those encyclopedias all you have to do is to place the cursor on seasons and select MLB season averages from that menu.

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10 years ago

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Fidel Kranich
9 years ago

Good article, thanks.

Garrett Manassa
9 years ago

Good article, thanks.