THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wow, this is amazing.  Jeff, did you know about this?

Thanks Tango, Corey, Josh, and then Tango again! I’m looking forward to playing with this!

I found out today.  The one I have been working on will have more details.  It will be nice to have as a reference.

Thanks guys for the kind words. Hope you find it useful.

Jeff/3

David at Fangraphs has been working on one as well, so it seems a lot of folks were working on the same thing at the same time, duplicating efforts.

Seems a perfect opportunity for collaboration, but every time I reached out to folks I was told they had a profit motive, sunk costs etc.

For me this is just a hobby, and I needed the data. Hopefully now the community will add the extra detail and help keep it updated, but I;d say the odds are against.

So if you are looking to keep yours proprietary, you’ll probably still have an audience.

Besides, there are no names in the csv and sql dumps. Someone needs to have a database to even use the info, and that rules a bunch of folks out.

Best,

Josh

Josh—I am actually working with David on it along with a couple of other regulars.  We are doing a few more options and plan on keeping it updated throughout the year.  I am glad it is available.

The biggest additions we can make to this database:

1) Day-to-day injuries.
2) Injuries in spring training.
3) September injuries.

In other words, injuries that don’t result in a DL trip. That’s what I like about Corey’s tool.

Joe

Totally agree. Corey’s is superior, and that’s why I reached out to him as well. But he’s in talks to license it to Bloomberg.

If anyone can generate a list of players that fit the categories you mention, I still have a few weeks and some resources I can devote to making it better. I just need a little help.

Josh, this is very cool! Thanks. Can I just say that I love you for including the retroID? Is there anyway you could include the eliasid in the future?

Thanks!

Josh

Is eliasid the same thing as MLBAM?

MLBAM is not eliasID.  I know that others have used them interchangeably.  They are nothing the same.

MLBAM is used in MLB.com and Gameday.

This is awesome.  What’s needed is a system that allows a collaborative effort to keep this up to date.  If a bunch of people take this and try to update by themselves, getting some injuries and missing others, it would be a fulltime job for someone to reconcile the various copies.

Sean/11

It’s a great point - i have 2 ideas.

1. for players with non-DL stints from 02-09, all I need is a list of names that are missing. I will do the rest to make sure that the data is sound. This could be generated using a wiki or simply by posting in the comments section of a blog post.

2. Moving forward, it wouldn’t be too hard to code up a front end to enter 2010 data into the thing if there is real interest. It could check the date and player name and only allow additions that were unique.

Problem with 2 is data vandalism. There will always need to be someone involved to vet the data. Which is why, in the end, it will probably just be easiest to send additions to me (or whomever becomes the designated steward) and have them reconcile things.

Since this will likely happen at year end, not a full time job I don’t think. Also it seems David has in-season stuff covered.

Meh, sorry. I meant Rally above.

Actually, updates shouldn’t be too hard.  At least for official DL visits.  MLB.com’s transactions page lists players placed on the DL and activated from it.  I would just copy into excel and search the text for “activated"/"placed", and get rid of all the signings/trades.

I’m sure somebody using more efficient code than me could find a better way to do it, but as a fallback, this would be no big deal at all getting a list of players and dates.  The injury coding might be a bit trickier.

That’s how I got my list. Works gud.

Any idea where to get a list of day-to-day & offseason injuries, other than scouring the news aggregators and hoping to strike gold?

Tango/10

In my Gameday database, players are referenced under their “eliasid”.  I’m using Mike Fast’s setup and all of his scripts. 

Okay, I now see that Elias has nothing to do with the actual ID’s, and it’s all just MLBAM.  How confusing!  And I found the Lahman to Gameday ID mapping that I was looking for. 

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/mapping_ids/#8

Thanks again Mike!

Josh #11 - The Gameday files list players who had to leave the game due to an injury.  That might be a start.  The Rotowire reports at Fangraphs usually give pretty detailed information on injuries.  If you subscribe I think that you get the information in a downloadable format, but I am not certain of that.  If you know that an injury has occurred (from Gameday) the MLB team pages usually have an article that gives a good description of the injury and the player’s status.

Once a player has been placed on the DL, that status is listed in the players file at Gameday - but sometimes the operators get lazy and don’t list players on the DL. Instead of counting DL days from the player roster, I’ve queried for the dates when the status changes.