Sports Reference Blog

Thanks to the efforts of our friends at Retrosheet, we have added box scores for the 1913 MLB season to Baseball Reference. Additionally, we have added play-by-play for games as far back as 1930. Before this update, our oldest play-by-plays went back to 1938. In addition to the boxes and PBPs themselves, this update allows for a variety of new information searchable in the play index, as well as new rows of information in team/player/league statistics tables.

Here's a quick breakdown of the data coverage for the Play-By-Plays we've added from 1930 to 1937:

• 1930 - 77% of games
• 1931 - 82% of games
• 1932 - 75% of games
• 1933 - 81% of games
• 1934 - 72% of games
• 1935 - 71% of games
• 1936 - 65% of games
• 1937 - 82% of games

And here are some examples of some of the new information/searches available on the site:

• We now have PBP for much of Babe Ruth's final six seasons. This means we now have (incomplete) data on how Ruth fared against pitchers from 1930-35.
• Additionally, incomplete splits have been generated for player seasons from 1930 to 1937. This means you can see things like Ruth's "struggles" in high-leverage situations in 1930. Or his dominance in such situations in 1932.
• Stat tables showing details for things like base-running, situational hitting and win probability are now available back to 1930.
• For pitching, tables detailing win probability, batting against and base-running against are also now available back to 1930.
• League-wide batting and pitching splits back to 1930 now have some previously empty rows filled in via analysis of the play-by-plays.
• Batting Game Finder and Pitching Game Finder searches (for both players and teams) can now be completed for the 1913 season. Here, for instance, is most HR by a player in a game in 1913. Users should be aware (and we've noted this on the site) that 154 of the 1,234 games in 1913 have RBI missing from one or both teams in the box scores. We'll also note that RBI was an unofficial stat before 1920.
• Split Finder searches also now go back to 1913 for basic splits like home/away and more complex, PBP-derived splits can be run back to 1930 (though splits are only 100% complete back to 1974). So, for instance, you can see that Babe Ruth had the most PBP-captured "Late & Close" HR in 1930.
• Batting and Pitching Event Finder searches have also been opened up back to 1930. You can now find things like all PBP-recorded walk-off HRs in 1930.
• Searches in the various player and team Streak Finders now go back to 1913.
• Team Inning Summary pages have been fleshed out (as much as PBP allows) back to 1930. Same with the Batting Order Position statistics.

We're very excited about these new additions and hope you enjoy them, as well. Please let us know if you have any comments, questions or concerns.

And thanks again to Retrosheet!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 1st, 2016 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Data, History, Play Index, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.